[lorax1284]

Made you look! Provocative thread titles are EXCELLENT!

So, when Thorsten was answering the question about BB7 features not yet available on BB10, I was really taken aback by his answer:

“We will not go back to the trackpad, I still get e-mails about the trackpad,” said Heins.

"Even though we are getting emails from customers asking for a BB10 device with a Trackpad, we're not going to do it, because we think that is looking 'backward'."

YIKES.

That sounds like good (BAD, no, it's BAD!) old "we know better than our customers" attitude that got RIM in deep doo-doo.

If there is a sufficient number of people who want a device with a trackpad running BB10, WHY NOT GIVE IT TO THEM? (by "Them" I mean "ME"!) How about looking into what value the trackpad offers. Here are a few off the top of my head:

1) precision text selection
2) when I hold that beautiful better-than-Retina^TM screen up to my face to read the 6 point text that is literally a sub-millimetre high, I could use the trackpad to click links rather than zooming in and clicking or clicking the WRONG adjacent link that takes me frustratingly somewhere I don't want to be.

3) The "remote" capabilities of a device with a trackpad are superior to using a touchscreen (you need to operate the device with 2 hands to effectively use a touchscreen phone as a remote-control / mouse because thumb navigation is too imprecise and coarse)

There are more reasons... but again, it's not that he doesn't get it... it's that despite his acknowledgement that customers WANT it, he, basically, laughed it off.

Thor.... THORSTEN... do NOT go that way! You mustn't get so focused on your "plan" that you fail to acknowledge what you already acknowledged in your keynote: that the mobile industry is very fluid and you can't just make a decision 2 years ago and stick to it in the face of consumer demand! Now, be a GOOD CEO and LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!

Love, lorax1284.

[Kris Simundson]

To be honest, I didn't realize how much I missed that trackpad till I played with a 9900 again, but on the flip side, I do believe the Q series is the best of both worlds. Definitely a call/end key would've been nice, but still not that bad.

[DocDRM]

Otherwise known as - The TrackPad is dead. Long live the TrackPad!

Give me back my TrackPad - to the tune of :

[belfastdispatcher]

They also did a few surveys on their facebook pages and overwhelmingly people were saying trackpad.

[Bbnivende]

I think it is an image thing - to appear modern. The main time that I find that I use the trackpad is when I click the submit button on Crackberry. Still the Q10 is hardly a modern format and I would have lengthened the phone and have added the buttons. The bigger issue for me is the small screen size on the Q10 - not exactly moving forward. Keep the trackpad or give me a larger screen.

[trsbbs]

Has always been a problem with BlackBerry. Business men run it. They need someone who doesn't live in the bubble and actually live in the same world their customers do.



Using a BlackBerry Z10

[Andrew-NYC]

Don't you just hate that "we know what's best for you" attitude? I want everything I have on my 9700 - shortcuts from the home screen, one-touch dialing from the home screen, the ability to selectively delete e-mails from my device AND the server, the ability to have a photo on my home screen without it being full of icons, great browser, great battery life, and lots of apps. Is that too much to ask?

[belfastdispatcher]

Don't you just hate that "we know what's best for you" attitude? I want everything I have on my 9700 - shortcuts from the home screen, one-touch dialing from the home screen, the ability to selectively delete e-mails from my device AND the server, the ability to have a photo on my home screen without it being full of icons, great browser, great battery life, and lots of apps. Is that too much to ask?

Also the ability to have none, one, two or three icon rows with a simple drag and drop gesture, simple and elegant and worst of all, gone.

[Andrew-NYC]

Absolutely! I cannot believe that you can't have an amazing, modern OS while keeping some of the great conveniences & business-friendly shortcuts we've had all along. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.....

[Andrew-NYC]

And, of course - real PUSH e-mail, without having to poll the server at pre-determined intervals.

[rayzian]

and making an os7 device isn't going backwards?

[3800]

I don't miss the trackpad or see a need for it whatsoever.

Posted via CB10

[belfastdispatcher]

and making an os7 device isn't going backwards?

Not for people still using it

[imz]

Dare I say I'd even take a dusty trackball over the z10s text selection.

It can't decide whether it wants to select all or position cursor.

To those saying tap once twice or six times, easier said than done if you have pencil fingers.

I've had the 9000 and 9900, was a master with the trackball and trackpad, z10 selection? Not so much.

My productivity has fallen whereby once upon a time I'd write long emails, now I'm reduced to doing short ones and longer detailed write ups via my desktop. I still prefer my z10 but can't help feel BlackBerry are not listening to us when we request legacy features, instead we get treated like whiners who refuse to adopt, even though we've parted with hard earned cash to buy the new devices.

New adopters of BlackBerry 10 don't even know what they are missing out on until legacy features are added, only then will they realise what makes BlackBerry so good, cause it ain't Nokias time shift or the gimmicky peek and flow although neat to have.

Posted via CB10

[ajst222]

Bringing back a trackpad is a bad idea. People mocked the trackpad once newer phones started to come out. Putting a trackpad in BB10 devices just won't work with the experience. But I did see a thread on here about having a virtual trackpad which was interesting.

[johnnyuk]

Bringing back a trackpad is a bad idea. People mocked the trackpad once newer phones started to come out. Putting a trackpad in BB10 devices just won't work with the experience. But I did see a thread on here about having a virtual trackpad which was interesting.

Virtual trackpad is the way to go.

BB10 phones shouldn't have a physical trackpad that's sat there all the time making the phone bigger/screen smaller when it's only useful in a minority of situations. If it did then the user would expect it to do something in all situations, which means the BB10 user interface would have to somehow be fully controllable using it in a similar way to how BBOS was. That also means introducing one of the downsides of BBOS on a touch screen phone, redundant ways of doing things that confuse people.

With all the gestures and swipe-out-menus in BB10 the best the experience of operating it with a trackpad could ever be would only be as good as trying to Remote Control a PlayBook using a touch screen BlackBerry over Bridge. For those of you who have done that you'll know you'd rather not spend a long time doing it.

It gives you a mouse pointer that can be used to click on on screen buttons and text boxes and to replicate some of the gestures by positioning the pointer in certain places and tapping/clicking. Some gestures just wouldn't be possible, Peek and the two finger swipe to display/hide the keyboard on a Z10 for example.

BB10 could instead have a virtual trackpad on screen for those situations where it really helps...which to be honest for me after using a Z10 everyday for a few months is only during text selection and cursor positioning. I don't miss it any other time and I used to use it in preference to the touch screen in BBOS7.

Posted via CB10

[markus_13]

Personally I don't need it and really don't miss it. When I moved from the Torch to a iPhone I missed it but not now. I have the Z and I don't see how it could possibly add to my experience.

Posted via CB10

[ajst222]

Virtual trackpad is the way to go.

BB10 phones shouldn't have a physical trackpad that's sat there all the time making the phone bigger/screen smaller when it's only useful in a minority of situations. If it did then the user would expect it to do something in all situations, which means the BB10 user interface would have to somehow be fully controllable using it in a similar way to how BBOS was. That also means introducing one of the downsides of BBOS on a touch screen phone, redundant ways of doing things that confuse people.

With all the gestures and swipe-out-menus in BB10 the best the experience of operating it with a trackpad could ever be would only be as good as trying to Remote Control a PlayBook using a touch screen BlackBerry over Bridge. For those of you who have done that you'll know you'd rather not spend a long time doing it.

It gives you a mouse pointer that can be used to click on on screen buttons and text boxes and to replicate some of the gestures by positioning the pointer in certain places and tapping/clicking. Some gestures just wouldn't be possible, Peek and the two finger swipe to display/hide the keyboard on a Z10 for example.

BB10 could instead have a virtual trackpad on screen for those situations where it really helps...which to be honest for me after using a Z10 everyday for a few months is only during text selection and cursor positioning. I don't miss it any other time and I used to use it in preference to the touch screen in BBOS7.

Posted via CB10

I never have felt the need for a trackpad on my Z10 and with 10.1, the cursor (bubble thing) is so much better, it's scary. But I think a virtual trackpad would be a good compromise for those who have been begging for one. It won't interfere with the gestures UI that people like myself thing a physical trackpad would ruin (not to mention it would look ugly) and it would make text selection easier for those who want it.

[smis]

they can use the blackberry logo as a "softpad" that can solve a lot of problems.

what bb needs is a app like they have in windows where we can send feedback to the BB engineers about ideas.

[jegs2]

Bringing back a trackpad is a bad idea. People mocked the trackpad once newer phones started to come out.

I could give two craps about what other people mock regarding what I want on a smart phone. They're invited to go pound sand.

[DisturbedRocks31]

If BlackBerry brings back the trackpad, they'll have to bring back the call and end call buttons with the BB button and the back key... it just looks weird then AND it is a step back. We don't want the Call and the End Call buttons, don't want the BB Key and the Back key..! JUST THE TRACK PAD!

SO, what if they put sensors in between the keys?! As shown in the picture below, the 5 sensors should be able to sense movement up-down and left-right!

You may ask, what about clicking? Well, if the user is covering 4/5 of them, then the G+H keys become the equivalent of the trackpad push button! The frets can be darkened or you can use other technology (that's your job) to blend the sensors in the frets and between the keys..!




You can test the same idea, but around the T+Y keys instead of the G+H keys...! Whichever works better, use that!

Do you see anything wrong with this?

[aha]

Made you look! Provocative thread titles are EXCELLENT!

So, when Thorsten was answering the question about BB7 features not yet available on BB10, I was really taken aback by his answer:



"Even though we are getting emails from customers asking for a BB10 device with a Trackpad, we're not going to do it, because we think that is looking 'backward'."

YIKES.

That sounds like good (BAD, no, it's BAD!) old "we know better than our customers" attitude that got RIM in deep doo-doo.

If there is a sufficient number of people who want a device with a trackpad running BB10, WHY NOT GIVE IT TO THEM? (by "Them" I mean "ME"!) How about looking into what value the trackpad offers. Here are a few off the top of my head:

1) precision text selection
2) when I hold that beautiful better-than-Retina^TM screen up to my face to read the 6 point text that is literally a sub-millimetre high, I could use the trackpad to click links rather than zooming in and clicking or clicking the WRONG adjacent link that takes me frustratingly somewhere I don't want to be.

3) The "remote" capabilities of a device with a trackpad are superior to using a touchscreen (you need to operate the device with 2 hands to effectively use a touchscreen phone as a remote-control / mouse because thumb navigation is too imprecise and coarse)

There are more reasons... but again, it's not that he doesn't get it... it's that despite his acknowledgement that customers WANT it, he, basically, laughed it off.

Thor.... THORSTEN... do NOT go that way! You mustn't get so focused on your "plan" that you fail to acknowledge what you already acknowledged in your keynote: that the mobile industry is very fluid and you can't just make a decision 2 years ago and stick to it in the face of consumer demand! Now, be a GOOD CEO and LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!

Love, lorax1284.

I am going to respectfully disagree with you, lorax1284. I think BBRY is listening to the 95% market who don't think track pad is essential.

[ajst222]

I could give two craps about what other people mock regarding what I want on a smart phone. They're invited to go pound sand.

I understand what you are saying, but would you rather have a BlackBerry without a trackpad, or no BlackBerry at all?

[El Platanero]

Not for people still using it

You missed the point. To state that the track pad is backwards and turn and make a os7 phone with one doesn't make sense.

Posted via CB10

[arts02]

How is a trackpad going backwards ??? It works for text selection then what's the problem ???