Why BlackBerry 10 OS failed so miserably even though it had high potential?
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There were just plenty of media reports saying that BlackBerry has closed its business or that its bankrupt and no rebuttal. There are also plenty of phone retailers that keep educating people that there are no apps and BlackBerry is very difficult to use with no rebuttal too.
With this kind of scenario why would anyone who is even remotely interested to give this product a try want to unless they are stupid or very confident in trying new technology.11-09-16 06:18 PMLike 0 - I was reading that in June 2013 (USA ?) that only 10 % of current BlackBerry owners purchased another BlackBerry and that 90% purchased an all touch Android or iOS device. Two points. BlackBerry owners who did not want a PKB had no loyalty to BlackBerry. Why go to BB10 when you could adopt a mature OS? The second point being that by June 2013, the market for PKB's had effectively dried up given that at least 50% of those returning 10% were buying a Z10.11-09-16 06:44 PMLike 0
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The big problem is the PRODUCT - all the marketing in the world isn't going to convince people to buy (or keep) a product that doesn't work well for them. And mainstream consumers don't want non-native apps, much less use "solutions" like Snap or Cobalt's Play Store and then have to hunt around for working versions of apps or patch and sideload them, etc. Most mainstream users could never figure out how - but wouldn't tolerate that even if they could. Plus, even with those solutions, there are popular apps that still don't work - and there's no way for them to know whether some new app that gets released next week or next year will work on BB10 or not. That's simply not acceptable for most people, especially when they can be virtually guaranteed that the new app or device or whatever will work with iOS and Android.
The people that can tolerate all of the work and work-arounds to make BB10 work are BB10 enthusiasts, not mainstream consumers - and even the enthusiasts have plenty of complaints. Mainstream users expect to search the stock app store, click "install", and know that their app will be fully functional and continue to work when updated. That's simply not the BB10 experience, and expecting marketing to fix that is naive.11-09-16 08:43 PMLike 6 - Yes, but the thing is nobody even want to look at BlackBerry 10 let alone try it so how do they know that there are no apps? If only BlackBerry had a PR company to keep telling people that it's possible to download Android apps and teach people how easy it is to do so at least there will be people who would be thinking of giving it a look.
There were just plenty of media reports saying that BlackBerry has closed its business or that its bankrupt and no rebuttal. There are also plenty of phone retailers that keep educating people that there are no apps and BlackBerry is very difficult to use with no rebuttal too.
With this kind of scenario why would anyone who is even remotely interested to give this product a try want to unless they are stupid or very confident in trying new technology.
Everyone had a perception that BlackBerry 10 is the most difficult OS in the market and it's only for business people. I even know one guy who purchased Q10 earlier and given back bcoz of �difficulty � in using it. And obviously only confident person bought BlackBerry 10 and normal shops selling BlackBerry devices were not support for promoting BlackBerry instead they discouraged buying BlackBerry.
Posted via CB1011-09-16 10:54 PMLike 0 - iPhone could not record videos until 3GS. So don't tell me it is the product. It is marketing and hype building.
Moreover it did not have an appstore to begin with. They took Cydia's idea (jailbreak).
https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-...y-native-apps/DonHB likes this.11-10-16 12:29 AMLike 1 - iPhone could not record videos until 3GS. So don't tell me it is the product. It is marketing and hype building.
Moreover it did not have an appstore to begin with. They took Cydia's idea (jailbreak).
https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-...y-native-apps/
People keep comparing BB10 to what the competition was doing years before it existed.
Maybe 1st year BB10 was better than 1st year iOS, but who cares? 1st year BB10 was pretty damn poor compared to 4th year iOS which is what it was actually competing with.11-10-16 06:09 AMLike 10 -
- Too bad BB10 wasn't around to compete with the 3GS (2009) or the App store (2008).
People keep comparing BB10 to what the competition was doing years before it existed.
Maybe 1st year BB10 was better than 1st year iOS, but who cares? 1st year BB10 was pretty damn poor compared to 4th year iOS which is what it was actually competing with.
Posted via CB10StephanieMaks and TGR1 like this.11-10-16 07:35 AMLike 2 -
Posted via CB1011-10-16 08:35 AMLike 0 - Too bad BB10 wasn't around to compete with the 3GS (2009) or the App store (2008).
People keep comparing BB10 to what the competition was doing years before it existed.
Maybe 1st year BB10 was better than 1st year iOS, but who cares? 1st year BB10 was pretty damn poor compared to 4th year iOS which is what it was actually competing with.
Plus 1st year iOS was worse then all others but look how that turned out. So the product is not the only thing that attracts people.DonHB likes this.11-10-16 08:45 AMLike 1 - Doesn't matter. What matters was the state of the competition when BlackBerry rolled out the new OS and it was half baked and way behind the others in spring of 2013.
What matters to techies doesn't matter as much to the consumers so they won't care that bb10 was way ahead of the first iphone.
Posted via CB10StephanieMaks and jegs2 like this.11-10-16 09:56 AMLike 2 - Well symbian and BlackBerry had app stores and could record video. My reply was to one post talking about only the product mattered and nothing else.
Plus 1st year iOS was worse then all others but look how that turned out. So the product is not the only thing that attracts people.11-10-16 10:28 AMLike 0 - I still believe it's not companies one or two product or timing of OS release was the main issues for this situation of BlackBerry, but its companies board issues and other conflicts which made BlackBerry like this.
Somewhere BlackBerry lost its true spirit bcoz of this conflicts and decisions was not taken in its apt time. By the time other companies gained the market.
BlackBerry gives Pure example how badly a company can loose it's glory by internal conflicts.
Posted via CB10ardakca likes this.11-10-16 11:20 AMLike 1 - Branding is the one of the most power full tools in marketing, which has never been Blackberry strength. The day Z10 was released, few years back, I"ve checked out 3 major department stores (BestBuy)in NYC, being curious about how's the new BB10 looks like etc.., only 1 store had a display with Z10,( 3 phonesy 2 powered off, unhooked, one phone on, with no info how to use new OS (gesture, swiping). I've seen few people checking out that 1 working phone. They've struggled, no one knows how to even exit an opened app. After few minutes all of them left. Not even 1 person from the store came and helped. So my conclusion is, there was absolutely no real support, promotion or even advertising on day one. and If You add bad press and bullying the brand on web portals like cnet, gsmarena, motley etc..You know what can happen next. Blackberry has got a bad mark few years back on social media, and nothing, even the best specs won't matter. Androids phones are often inferior in build, not to mention OS, but still they're not marked with the logo Company "on the death spiral" like those portals were posting. If You don't believe, check out all the reviews and stories on web. I know a lot of People who have never owned any BlackBerry phone, but still they would never buy one. The funny thing is that Samsung is the only one, which still makes some money in Android segment ,the rest :HTC,LG, Sony Motorola etc.struggle badly, even when they're releasing phone with great specs. Those manufactures will never be Apple or Samsung bc there is no hype for them. Blackberry shouldn't be blamed for lack of Apps, developers won't bother making apps for OS for which is no demand
Posted via CB1011-10-16 10:07 PMLike 0 - Branding is the one of the most power full tools in marketing, which has never been Blackberry strength. The day Z10 was released, few years back, I"ve checked out 3 major department stores (BestBuy)in NYC, being curious about how's the new BB10 looks like etc.., only 1 store had a display with Z10,( 3 phonesy 2 powered off, unhooked, one phone on, with no info how to use new OS (gesture, swiping). I've seen few people checking out that 1 working phone. They've struggled, no one knows how to even exit an opened app. After few minutes all of them left. Not even 1 person from the store came and helped.
BB10 is not intuitive (which means its functions aren't obvious to people who've never used it before), and while a certain amount of training can reward the user with an OS navigation scheme that clearly many here prefer, the fact is that training was necessary and BB didn't account for that. I've long been of the opinion that they should have put a Home and Back (virtual) button on the screen that could later be turned off in favor of the gestures by those who chose to do so. That simple choice would have eliminated the learning curve in the store that turned off a lot of prospective buyers.
Of course, the interface was one problem among many, so perhaps it wouldn't have made much difference anyway.11-11-16 12:45 AMLike 4 - I never experienced this problem because every phone I tried was in a demo mode and none of the sales persons knew how to turn off the demo mode.
I agree though. Most people would have preferred an Apple clone or an Android clone. Even a Playbook clone.
Posted via CB1011-11-16 02:00 AMLike 0 - Afaik, BB10 was reportedly developed by a team intentionally sequestered from BB's previous experience. I've alway doubted that team's mobile comunication's experience, in general. QNX themselves had no smartphone experience that I'm aware of. It showed, imo.
A "virtual toolbelt" option would've improved migration learning curve, at least. Imo.
I noted outright animosity toward BB among Verizon sales floor staff at multiple stores, multiple states, back in 2010. Even several years later. "Blackberry is going out of business... Droid is the future..." Was the robotically verbatim mantra. Inquiring of these sales staff disposition soon revealed resentment of the Storm1 fiasco. Mistreating your biggest customer, like RIM did Verizon, is certainly no path to business success. Sales floor staff took a beating, it seems.
In retrospect, as great as BB10 was, BB might have been better off accepting their niche status by continuing "Professional Class" BBOS until a separate "Consumer Class" droid option evolved adequately to kill off BBOS thru natural migration. That Consumer Class division might've been called "BlueBerry"...?? Lol...Last edited by idssteve; 11-11-16 at 08:27 AM.
11-11-16 08:15 AMLike 2 - Well symbian and BlackBerry had app stores and could record video. My reply was to one post talking about only the product mattered and nothing else.
Plus 1st year iOS was worse then all others but look how that turned out. So the product is not the only thing that attracts people.
So in other words they did have to get their product well rounded before they started to take off. The original iPhone had a lot of hype, but not that many sales actually.pantlesspenguin and DonHB like this.11-11-16 08:33 AMLike 2 - I had that exact experience: seeing people try BB10 in the store when it launched, and as soon as they tried to exit an app, they realized they couldn't [because nothing and no one explained the gesture navigation] and they just put it down and moved on. IMO, that was a huge failure on BB's part.
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Ultimately swipe gestures and being able to watch youtube videos without actually watching them (?!) weren't enough to hook people immediately.
(Yes, I understand the use case of pirating music on YouTube without watching the ads, but that's not something BB could ever have advertised. They also could never have advertised or even encouraged hacks such as what Cobalt does)11-11-16 08:42 AMLike 3 -
As you said, "arbitrary uniqueness"...11-11-16 10:19 AMLike 6 - BB7 had a better app store than BB10 when the Z10 was released. The scary part is that it still was better over a year later.DrBoomBotz likes this.11-11-16 10:27 AMLike 1
- "Why BlackBerry 10 OS failed so miserably even though it had high potential?"
I'll answer this quickly:
1. John Chen is ridiculously stiff and stubborn
2. Lack of a high-end successor to the BlackBerry Q10 and Z30
3. No marketing
4. Not enough pride
5. Presence of an Android runtime which discouraged many developers
6. Non-removable batteries
Posted via CB1011-11-16 10:29 AMLike 0 - I had that exact experience: seeing people try BB10 in the store when it launched, and as soon as they tried to exit an app, they realized they couldn't [because nothing and no one explained the gesture navigation] and they just put it down and moved on. IMO, that was a huge failure on BB's part.
BB10 is not intuitive (which means its functions aren't obvious to people who've never used it before),
Of course, the interface was one problem among many, so perhaps it wouldn't have made much difference anyway.
The real problem is that BlackBerry had an "if you build it they will come and come quickly" approach to the market. I don't think they had a plan B for building market share over time. They gave up on BB10 in less than a year.
What I would like to know is if BlackBerry is not making devices does this change their licensing of Google Play and if the license limits what they can do with Android on non-Android compliant devices? Ultimately, though, the lack of success of BB10 means that they can rethink their proprietary OS and leverage the partnerships they are building now through Android in selling a future OS based on the Neutrino OS' architecture underlying BB10.11-11-16 10:48 AMLike 0
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Why BlackBerry 10 OS failed so miserably even though it had high potential?
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