Since the days that carriers in the US went from minutes to GB with their basic plans Blackberry became obsolete for them. There is no advertising and no featuring by any carrier. These days the money is made by used gigabites. There is no place for BB devices. One of the reasons the IPhones are going so well is the advertising barrage by carriers. The IPhone is also the biggest bandwith abuser. When I switched from BB10 to Android (Priv) I expected an increase in GB usage. It was minimal increase despite the fact that I used 3 times as many apps than I did with BB10.
A good friend of mine who is an avid Android device user (he always has two different Android devices at any given time) played with my Priv when I got it. His exact words were: Wow, Blackberry made Android a better OS.
He loved the Hub so much that his next device became a Priv. And guess what? With the exact same usage his GB usage was cut into a quarter of what he used to use. Couple months later we were talking about that and he was actually worried that something did not work properly (syncing, connectivity etc). I assured him that everything is working properly and said "welcome to the world of Blackberry."
When I pull my phone out I get a lot of compliments (nice phone, sleek cell, etc) and when asked what brand I get the "Oh wow", "didn't know they make them anymore", "I thought they have only physical keyboards" etc.
But if a carrier doesn't advertise the devices people won't find out about them. And if they don't even carry them in the store to at least look and play with them people will never know that they exist.
Now we are at the point that they probably won't even carry them until they become obsolete. If AT&T puts them in the store in 3 or 4 month the DTEK60 will compete with the 2017 models of all the other phone makers. It will be listed as the newest BB phone and will fall behind in comparisons.
The only way to change that is if BB becomes a bandwith hog like every other phone out there.
PS: BB fans have only one way to operate. Buy the new phones outright from BlackBerry. Go to your carrier and get a new SIM card or just swap the existing one if it fits. I did that with the Passport. Bought it at BlackBerry and went to the store for a SIM card. The guy had no clue what kind of phone that was because AT&T did not carry it until a month later. SIM in and I was good to go.
10-28-16 09:43 AM
