[anon(9721108)]

I just would just point out that keyboard short cuts , a big feature for BBOS power users, holds very little appeal to today's consumers. I am not sure how to market a PKB today or in 2017. Maybe as a retro device like the mini car .

Well shortcuts with a PKB (if you know how to use them) are fine but on a touchscreen they probably don't hold any use.

[Bbnivende]

If the Mercury were to come out, I would expect the same hardcoded shortcuts as the PRIV. I wonder if users who do not come with BlackBerry experience use them.

[idssteve]

If the Mercury were to come out, I would expect the same hardcoded shortcuts as the PRIV. I wonder if users who do not come with BlackBerry experience use them.

Users wont even know shortcuts exist if depending on Blackberry "marketing" to tell them. Lol.

[Bbnivende]

My point is that the Android PKB phone will likely replicate the PRIV shortcut menu. Perhaps PRIV owners could chime in about their use for shortcuts.

IMO the main selling points would be the tactile feel and back lighting of the KB.

Posted via CB10

[idssteve]

Priv's KB hides in shame behind the screen most of its life. Shortcuts and speed dials are nearly worthless in that configuration. Its PKB is mostly for typing. Top heaviness while extended makes it not so great for that, either. Per my limited trials, fwiw.

Sliding screen to stow partially behind the KB would permit ready access to shortcuts & speed dials while lowering center of gravity while typing. That's my dream config, anyway.

[Nguyen1]

Why not do a landscape pkb like phones use to be 8 years ago? We could still retain screen real estate for the gamers plus the phone would not be top heavy.

Sent from my BlackBerry Passport SE

[Bbnivende]

Pretty sure that the slider format is dead but I think that large phones are here to stay.

The Passport was too wide. I hope the Mercury is not too tall.



Posted via CB10

[stlabrat]

In a nutshell... RIM/BBRY stole the design from Motorola. Motorola didn't put out BB inspired keyboards. BB put out Motorola inspired.

And now with Lenovo owning Motorola, Lenovo now gets that same gratis being the owner of Motorola.

interesting. please help me to understand: BB patented and beat the motorola in market, is there ANY improvement? if it is the prior patent (if motorola patent it) might be referenced but not necessary licensed depend upon how strong it is and its claim coverage--- of course, this is all in-material now, since MOT didn't patent it. If BB patent did have improvement, MOT can only stuck in their original design (without BB improvement), or risk for patent infringement, unless they come out some improvement in addition to the BB patent (of course required to reference BB patent as grand father design). Am I wrong? Do you know what is exactly BB patented improvement on the MOT KB?

[stlabrat]

The cheapest feature phones have PKB's.

The real issue is not that PKB'S may cost more to manufacture. The issue is that the market is too small. If Samsung thought that they could sell a good PKB they would . A sale is better than none at all.

Unfortunately the typewriter analogy is probably appropriate.

i am not totally agree with the demand statement: the main problem is the BB7 and 10 SDK, don't have easy way for developer to switch from one platform to another (screen size and pixel count... not sure what is the screen icon program now, the pixel count was difficult to adjust when you have all different kind of dpi and ratio)... a bit too late to argue... part of iphone standardize and swift auto adjust for screen orientation and size are un-noticed advantage to other platform... IMHO (I am not apple funboy, but credit due should be objective as an engineer). correct me if i am wrong please.

[onlybuggin]

Funny thing about " value" it's determined not by the company but by the end user/buyer. It's a qualitative assessment of how much they paid, what they got, and what they went through to get it. With that they answer the question "is/was it worth it?".

Now, companies guess at that value rating to determine if they can sell an item, how much they can charge for it, and how/if they can capitalize on it. Companies also, in this, have to consider how many people want what they are selling. And this is where BlackBerry is losing ground. PKB's bring folks not used to you virtual UI find the PKB and easy extension of technology they are already using making adoption easy. The problem for BlackBerry is that that group I'd quickly diminishing. And so the PKB value for BlackBerry is diminishing along with it.


Posted via CB10

[DrBoomBotz]

Thread title should be "Is BB keyboard IP valuable?"

[DenverRalphy]

interesting. please help me to understand: BB patented and beat the motorola in market, is there ANY improvement? if it is the prior patent (if motorola patent it) might be referenced but not necessary licensed depend upon how strong it is and its claim coverage--- of course, this is all in-material now, since MOT didn't patent it. If BB patent did have improvement, MOT can only stuck in their original design (without BB improvement), or risk for patent infringement, unless they come out some improvement in addition to the BB patent (of course required to reference BB patent as grand father design). Am I wrong? Do you know what is exactly BB patented improvement on the MOT KB?

In a nuthshell... Moto had prior art. RIM (before BBRY) was first to file, even though Motorola had been doing it for years.Not much to state beyond that. Which is why after a long court battle Moto won, and it was deemed that RIM owned the patent, but Moto was (and still is) exempt from the patent.

[anon(8063781)]

The problem with Palm devices, was that they had a good OS (and despite what people still like to recall, would probably stink by today's standards... the HTML based OS was great but now well outgrown) but the hardware on their last few devices were horrible. The keyboards being the worst of them. Tiny buttons in a cramped layout, which wore out rapidly. Palm died rapidly with the Pixel/Pre lines. Horrible pieces of hardware. Decent OS (for the time), but the hardware was suckity suck. Palm did do well with the bezel gestures, but they sacrificed too much to accommodate it.

Generalize much? :P

I'm typing this on my poor hardware, which has seen about 3 years of use. My Pre3 is fine, and my colleague just retired her Pre2 this Spring. No failure and no 'Oreo effect.'

Having said that, some of the earlier devices were very prone to hardware failures, so I take your point with respect to them.

As for the OS, it would have been improved over time, but even without improvements, most apps still work, owing to the ease of patching the html-based app code. That's not to say that there were ever a lot of apps (about 6000, AFAIK), but the system's held up remarkably well. I think I have more of the native apps that I need on a daily basis with this phone than I had on my Q10.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre3 using Forums

[twelvezero8]

Never underestimate the power of marketing. I believe blackberry has failed in that department for years. Good compelling marketing could sell a good amount of people on switching to a PKB phone. There is a reason you see all these celebrities that have an I phone and a blackberry in tow. Nothing just nothing beats a physical keyboard when you have to type out long messages and emails. Blackberry is and has always been the professional phone. The problem is they lost so many people when apps came around and they were slow to get in the game. For most people there was no looking back they moved on. Even though every single person I have talked to have fond memories of their blackberry experience. I just think they are don't in the hardware arena. Everything people could care about they don't have or don't know how to market to attract new buyers. I will say this though as long as they have a PKB on the market I will always give them my business. Nothing beats a PKB for me.

"PKB"

[idssteve]

Like many of us, my daughter, in her youth, grew thru a brief stage where "EVERYbody has... ", "EVERYone does..." Etc, etc... Lol. I somehow doubt that "EVERYone" of 7 billion souls on this planet have purchased smartphones... Yet. Even half?

With less than half of the potential consumer base "vote" cast, can ANYone honestly predict what handset form will be the ONLY one desired over the next decade? Are we, living here in the "developed world", so arrogant as to assume that "EVERY one" of billions of future consumers will automatically share our preferences??

Expecting the next decade to even resemble the last decade is precisely the same "fool's premonition" that arguably led to BB's misfortune, imo. What mere mortal knows beyond doubt what the next multiple billions of consumers will want?? Significant fractions of those billions MIGHT, possibly, value single handed proficiency over two handed movie watching?? Lol???

To that end, any IP behind BB's unchallenged mastery of single handed proficiency, including their exquisite KBs, might just be worth owning, at the right price, until the rest of the billions of consumer "votes" are cast, at least. Jic. Imo. Fwiw.

[anon(9721108)]

Like many of us, my daughter, in her youth, grew thru a brief stage where "EVERYbody has... ", "EVERYone does..." Etc, etc... Lol. I somehow doubt that "EVERYone" of 7 billion souls on this planet have purchased smartphones... Yet. Even half?

With less than half of the potential consumer base "vote" cast, can ANYone honestly predict what handset form will be the ONLY one desired over the next decade? Are we, living here in the "developed world", so arrogant as to assume that "EVERY one" of billions of future consumers will automatically share our preferences??

Expecting the next decade to even resemble the last decade is precisely the same "fool's premonition" that arguably led to BB's misfortune, imo. What mere mortal knows beyond doubt what the next multiple billions of consumers will want?? Significant fractions of those billions MIGHT, possibly, value single handed proficiency over two handed movie watching?? Lol???

To that end, any IP behind BB's unchallenged mastery of single handed proficiency, including their exquisite KBs, might just be worth owning, at the right price, until the rest of the billions of consumer "votes" are cast, at least. Jic. Imo. Fwiw.

It's even impossible to predict in four years what countries will be friends and which countries will be enemies because it changes so much. No one knows.

[cgk]

It is possible buggy whips will come back in

[thurask]

It is possible buggy whips will come back in

So much more professional than those stupid pleb "auto-mobiles".

[idssteve]

If 10+ million buggy whips were still in use and horse transportation were still expanding, IP for buggy whips would have value. Price to be determined, naturally.

[cgk]

If 10+ million buggy whips were still in use and horse transportation were still expanding, IP for buggy whips would have value. Price to be determined, naturally.

You don't think that buggy whips didn't exist in a transitional period?

[idssteve]

Given pricing of quality equestrian gear, these days, some high end buggy whips can cost more than some smartphones. Certainly a high margin niche with IP value.

Carriage Driving Whips - Driving Essentials, Inc.

[idssteve]

You don't think that buggy whips didn't exist in a transitional period?

That "transition" took decades while automotive configurations standardized.

Tiller throttle was accepted practice, a century ago. Drive a 1916 T and you'll quickly find you're perpetually occupying both hands and both feet just to operate the thing. Consumers accepted that because Ford was THE consumer oriented device, in 1916. As with smartphones today, automobiles were less than 20 year old rapidly evolving concepts. Quite reminiscent of current smartphone evolution. Foot throttle had been implemented well before the T but it took consumers a while to decide they'd prefer to not tie up so many limbs for simple transportation. Some day smartphone users just might start concluding they'd rather not tie up two hands for simple communications. IP value for the most single handed friendly communications device to ever fit a single hand might then be worth SOME value.

[anon(9353145)]

It is possible buggy whips will come back in

Well, there's still a market for whips I hear, just not for horses.

[cgk]

Well, there's still a market for whips I hear, just not for horses.

That's actually a quite useful way to think about it "I don't need apps, nobody needs apps!" (Whip), "keyboards will come back around!" (whip!).


(Maybe the safe word is 'hypervisor').

[Bbnivende]

The analogy I would use is the manual transmission. They are getting increasingly hard to find. Mainly on Jeeps and high end sports cars.

When I go back to my 9900, I can barely type. It is a painful experience. If had the same experience when I first used my Z10. People adapt.

Those who do not currently use a VKB or never have used a PKB are unlikely to do so now.

Posted via CB10