[jcbrunson]

I use the word partnership loosely. It is more of a right to use. And stab in the back is more referencing Amazon's own services that are not available to BB users. THAT is something they can control. What is moronic is that these apps work well on BB all touch phones so there is no reason for them to be excluded. And what is ironic is that if BB didn't bother officially offering Amazon as a pre-load all of these apps would probably still work. Oh well, they may as well officially close the doors on HW. It's over for good...

Yes, the lack of Amazon Music and Video apps is what makes all this so suspicious. And to be fair, Amazon Music has never really worked all that well except for the latest release. And maybe they are in fact making them "incompatible" because of past issues. That's the trouble, we don't know why they are being slowly rendered "incompatible" for us.

[steakman911]

Interesting discussion ... for those that simply cannot live without certain apps only available from droid.

I have 5 Android apps - 4 all News suppliers and a Back up app for Android I could just as easily googled them and added to my main screen for all the difference they make. Games and other such stuff simply does not interest me and has for the most part no place on my device.

I do have Snap if something truly interesting comes my way, as well as the Amazon App store.

It would be nice to be able to actually purchase music found by Soundhog...but that inablilty leads me to use U-tube and a converter...for free. So no loss there.
Overall, Apps or "Lack thereof" is not a concern for me...I would be curious to know how many others with BB10 Devices feel this way...??

rgds,

stk

[jcbrunson]

... snip snip... Finally, I think a lot of people grossly misunderstand the agreement BB and Amazon made. People are calling it a "partnership", but I think it's far less than that, and more along the lines of BB asking "Can we pre-load the Amazon Marketplace on our devices? Most apps seem to work" and Amazon replying "Sure, as long as you ditch your media services and give them access to ours." None of us really know for sure, but I doubt it went much deeper than that, because BB simply didn't have the leverage to demand anything more.

Just in case anyone wanted to review what the actual agreement was, here is the CB link: BlackBerry teams up with Amazon to deliver Android apps on BlackBerry 10 | CrackBerry.com

"With more than 240,000 Android applications in the Amazon Appstore worldwide, BlackBerry 10 device customers will gain access to popular apps such as Groupon, Netflix, Pinterest, Candy Crush Saga and Minecraft." 4 out of these specific 5 still work... as of today...

[heading4tomorrow]

Just in case anyone wanted to review what the actual agreement was, here is the CB link: BlackBerry teams up with Amazon to deliver Android apps on BlackBerry 10 | CrackBerry.com

"With more than 240,000 Android applications in the Amazon Appstore worldwide, BlackBerry 10 device customers will gain access to popular apps such as Groupon, Netflix, Pinterest, Candy Crush Saga and Minecraft." 4 out of these specific 5 still work... as of today...

The correct announcement should be..
"Blackberry users gain access to Amazon App Store, but not the apps".

To be honest, I find it much easier to locate and install apps from Snap instead of Amazon.
Legally, BB cannot support Snap.. I wish it did, because it's not like every app on Amazon App Store works problem free. Amazon never checks apps if they are compatible with BB.
I would be glad to pitch the idea to BB and Amazon and agree to work for Amazon trying every single app if they agree to put BB stamp on those apps that are tested and confirmed working on BB 10 devices.

[LuvULongTime]

Interesting discussion ... for those that simply cannot live without certain apps only available from droid.

I have 5 Android apps - 4 all News suppliers and a Back up app for Android I could just as easily googled them and added to my main screen for all the difference they make. Games and other such stuff simply does not interest me and has for the most part no place on my device.

I do have Snap if something truly interesting comes my way, as well as the Amazon App store.

It would be nice to be able to actually purchase music found by Soundhog...but that inablilty leads me to use U-tube and a converter...for free. So no loss there.
Overall, Apps or "Lack thereof" is not a concern for me...I would be curious to know how many others with BB10 Devices feel this way...??

rgds,

stk

Understand where you are coming from, but we have to remember that the point of Amazon being pre-loaded was to offer consumers a safe and reliable way to gain access to numerous apps not available in BBW and thus allow BB to advertise broader app selection and availability. I would argue that you are in the minority in terms of usage. Imagine someone buying a BB thinking they could get Instagram and Netflix, etc, from Amazon only to find out their Z30 was blacklisted despite the app working flawlessly.

I hate to say this as I was an advocate of an Amazon partnership, but it is time for them to pull the plug on the android RT. Whatever positive impact it was supposed to have has not materialized. Blackberry needs to go all in with whatever native devs it has and let the chips fall where they may. Because right now Android is not doing a lick of good for the general consumer.

[ljfong]

Out of all depressing threads here on CB. This one has to be the most depressing one as it is essentially my #1 hurdle of sticking with BlackBerry 10.

[heading4tomorrow]

Out of all depressing threads here on CB. This one has to be the most depressing one as it is essentially my #1 hurdle of sticking with BlackBerry 10.

Join the club..

[ubizmo]

Games and other such stuff simply does not interest me and has for the most part no place on my device.

The clear implication of your choice of words here is that apps are mostly frivolous: "games and other such stuff." That view has not worked out for BlackBerry and cannot be expected to, ever. Apps go way beyond games and entertainment, into banking, investments, engineering, medicine, law, education, science, architecture, classics...

To be sure, there are those of us who don't need or want any of that, but we are facing extinction. The handheld device is increasingly, not decreasingly, an app engine. BB10 has the potential to handle that future, but it's far from clear that it will have the opportunity to do so. Hence the frustration conveyed by just about everyone here. It's no consolation at all to be told that some of us don't care that much about apps.

[Paisley Pirate]

I may have been part of the problem in why Teamviewer is "not supported" and locked out. Teamviewer 9 works great on the Z10 - Teamviewer 10 (at least the last beta at rollout) did not. I sent a report (as asked by Teamviewer) and had a nice exchange back and forth with their customer support. They said they would be looking in to it... a week later, it was locked out. The download off of BBW doesn't work and the version on Amazon is locked out and says to d/l at BBW...

No, it's the support that's the issue. I am sure they used a piece in the APK that goes a little too deep somewhere, causing an issue (hell, TV10 doesn't even work right on XP or 7 machines... sorry Teamviewer, I feel ripped that I ever paid the $750 license for you - fix the damn thing already) but to pudge BB10 as well? Insult to injury.

[DamianWarS]

It is for this reason we should have a native BB10 amazon app store client in BBW that accommodates issues like these. More and more this "partnership" seems to be more a PR stunt and outside of a handshake and an preinstalled icon no real work has actually happened.

With a native client (similar to snap just for amazon) it would allow custom "compatibility" comments to get posted from the bb10 community without it affecting the amazon world and the app itself would allow you content that the apk would not otherwise allow.

The issue is not the phones, or amazon not wanting us, it is the app not designed for 3ird party use. A BB10 native client is needed.

Posted via CB10

[Killjoyhere]

I don't understand why BlackBerry didn't just get android app developers to put their apk on BlackBerry World. if we can run apk why not upload your android app on BlackBerry World? It can definitely help you'd sales by reaching a different market.

Posted via CB10

[jcbrunson]

Adding Flow to the list, another very popular app (albeit 3 yrs ago) that was available before but is now "incompatible" despite that it runs like a champ on the Z10 & Z30.

[jcbrunson]

Out of all depressing threads here on CB. This one has to be the most depressing one as it is essentially my #1 hurdle of sticking with BlackBerry 10.

Sorry for the letdown, but since I first noticed that Netflix was no longer in my "installed" list in the Amazon app store, I also have been very saddened by this. As I said earlier, the catalyst for me was the beloved YouVersion app becoming outlawed.

[jcbrunson]

I don't understand why BlackBerry didn't just get android app developers to put their apk on BlackBerry World. if we can run apk why not upload your android app on BlackBerry World? It can definitely help you'd sales by reaching a different market.

I don't work for BB and I don't speak for them. But the devs simply would not port their apps to BBW. Whether it was because BB was on life support at the time, or user base was declining, maybe even personal (there seems to be a lot of bad blood between Netflix and BB), they simply would not submit their apps. We still don't have Instagram even on Amazon and never did. OS10 definitely helped by getting rid of BIS, but it must have been too late.

All this is history. BB chose to go this route, and it wasn't a bad plan as long as the apps were available to us through Amazon. Use at your own risk and we all accepted it. But this is different, and I doubt BB anticipated their devices being locked out of the popular apps on the Amazon app store. I only know that the Z10 & Z30 are locked out - I have no idea whether the PP or Classic are locked out too.

[jcbrunson]

The clear implication of your choice of words here is that apps are mostly frivolous: "games and other such stuff." That view has not worked out for BlackBerry and cannot be expected to, ever. Apps go way beyond games and entertainment, into banking, investments, engineering, medicine, law, education, science, architecture, classics...

To be sure, there are those of us who don't need or want any of that, but we are facing extinction. The handheld device is increasingly, not decreasingly, an app engine. BB10 has the potential to handle that future, but it's far from clear that it will have the opportunity to do so. Hence the frustration conveyed by just about everyone here. It's no consolation at all to be told that some of us don't care that much about apps.

Well said. And we have always known what the #1 complaint about BB devices has been and always will be: lack of apps and/or lack of ecosystem. And that is among the loyalists, not the potential new users. New users don't even get past the BB display case if it won't run Instagram or Netflix.

Myself, I don't use Instagram at all and I barely use Netflix. I use O365 + MS Hosted Exchange + OneDrive + 10.3.1 on the Z10 and it is grand. My most used app beyond the core functions is BBM. The 2nd most used apps are banking and YouVersion. I don't FB or tweet. But my wife and kids? It's all about the APPS. If the brand new Five Nights at Freddy's 3 was outlawed, they would ditch BB in a second where their Playbooks are. And I won't even go into the BB10 Playbook broken promise...

[LuvULongTime]

I don't understand why BlackBerry didn't just get android app developers to put their apk on BlackBerry World. if we can run apk why not upload your android app on BlackBerry World? It can definitely help you'd sales by reaching a different market.

Posted via CB10

They tried very hard to get devs to port their APK's to BB world, but many of them were not interested. So Amazon was supposed to be another avenue for BB to get access to these apps. If the devs won't come to BB, then BB would go to them was the thinking. It appears that is not viable either.

[ubizmo]

And we have always known what the #1 complaint about BB devices has been and always will be: lack of apps and/or lack of ecosystem. And that is among the loyalists, not the potential new users. New users don't even get past the BB display case if it won't run Instagram or Netflix.

We say that BlackBerry needs to market its devices, but they have to be very careful about how they do so. In particular, they have to be very careful what they claim about running Android apps. They certainly can't claim that users can run any Android app. They can claim "many", but that's very vague and hard to market effectively. They can't even claim that all of the non-blocked apps in the Amazon Store will run properly. So they're painted into a corner in which the "solution" to the app gap is something they can barely mention in their advertising, should there be any advertising. That's not a good place to be.

Moreover, as soon as you say, "It can run Android apps," most people will understand that to mean that they can use Google Maps, Hangouts, etc. When they find out they can't (or they have to resort to arcane procedures to do so), they'll simply return the phones. The distinction between Android apps that do and don't require Google Play Services is lost on most consumers.

So BlackBerry has to be very quiet about the whole Android app situation, the very thing that was intended to save the day.

[Tre Lawrence]

We say that BlackBerry needs to market its devices, but they have to be very careful about how they do so. In particular, they have to be very careful what they claim about running Android apps. They certainly can't claim that users can run any Android app. They can claim "many", but that's very vague and hard to market effectively. They can't even claim that all of the non-blocked apps in the Amazon Store will run properly. So they're painted into a corner in which the "solution" to the app gap is something they can barely mention in their advertising, should there be any advertising. That's not a good place to be.

Moreover, as soon as you say, "It can run Android apps," most people will understand that to mean that they can use Google Maps, Hangouts, etc. When they find out they can't (or they have to resort to arcane procedures to do so), they'll simply return the phones. The distinction between Android apps that do and don't require Google Play Services is lost on most consumers.

So BlackBerry has to be very quiet about the whole Android app situation, the very thing that was intended to save the day.

Completely agree with the "painted into corner" synopsis.

This is why I maintain BBRY isn't that insane for holding on the marketing. It's a delicate situation.

[RubberChicken76]

I finally bit the bullet and sat down and installed Snap. It was problematic at first, but I wiped the device and got it working.

Between the wipe and Snap, the Z10 feels newer again. Many of those apps that vanished are now back, with newer versions and running snappier than before.

[ljfong]

I may have been part of the problem in why Teamviewer is "not supported" and locked out. Teamviewer 9 works great on the Z10 - Teamviewer 10 (at least the last beta at rollout) did not. I sent a report (as asked by Teamviewer) and had a nice exchange back and forth with their customer support. They said they would be looking in to it... a week later, it was locked out. The download off of BBW doesn't work and the version on Amazon is locked out and says to d/l at BBW...

No, it's the support that's the issue. I am sure they used a piece in the APK that goes a little too deep somewhere, causing an issue (hell, TV10 doesn't even work right on XP or 7 machines... sorry Teamviewer, I feel ripped that I ever paid the $750 license for you - fix the damn thing already) but to pudge BB10 as well? Insult to injury.

Sounds like your report somehow went to the management of Teamviewer maker and the management immediately clamped down on the issue because they did not want the support burden.

[ljfong]

We say that BlackBerry needs to market its devices, but they have to be very careful about how they do so. In particular, they have to be very careful what they claim about running Android apps. They certainly can't claim that users can run any Android app. They can claim "many", but that's very vague and hard to market effectively. They can't even claim that all of the non-blocked apps in the Amazon Store will run properly. So they're painted into a corner in which the "solution" to the app gap is something they can barely mention in their advertising, should there be any advertising. That's not a good place to be.

Moreover, as soon as you say, "It can run Android apps," most people will understand that to mean that they can use Google Maps, Hangouts, etc. When they find out they can't (or they have to resort to arcane procedures to do so), they'll simply return the phones. The distinction between Android apps that do and don't require Google Play Services is lost on most consumers.

So BlackBerry has to be very quiet about the whole Android app situation, the very thing that was intended to save the day.

If I remember correctly, Chen at one point did say that BlackBerry 10 ran 90% or more of available Android apps. The claim rings less and less true as time passes.

[Tre Lawrence]

Sounds like your report somehow went to the management of Teamviewer maker and the management immediately clamped down on the issue because they did not want the support burden.

Agreed. It's the natural reflex.

One thing I've gleaned is that some Appstore developers are not entirely aware of BB10 usage of their apps. So, when such support requests comes in, they do what you describe.

Tre

[LuvULongTime]

We say that BlackBerry needs to market its devices, but they have to be very careful about how they do so. In particular, they have to be very careful what they claim about running Android apps. They certainly can't claim that users can run any Android app. They can claim "many", but that's very vague and hard to market effectively. They can't even claim that all of the non-blocked apps in the Amazon Store will run properly. So they're painted into a corner in which the "solution" to the app gap is something they can barely mention in their advertising, should there be any advertising. That's not a good place to be.

Moreover, as soon as you say, "It can run Android apps," most people will understand that to mean that they can use Google Maps, Hangouts, etc. When they find out they can't (or they have to resort to arcane procedures to do so), they'll simply return the phones. The distinction between Android apps that do and don't require Google Play Services is lost on most consumers.

So BlackBerry has to be very quiet about the whole Android app situation, the very thing that was intended to save the day.

Well said. I so badly wanted Android to be a viable stop gap for BB, but sadly it appears it wasn't meant to be. Time for them to rip out the runtime, and go all in with whatever native apps/devs they have. This would at least give them infinitely more HW vendors to do business with. Right now they are confined to non-OHA partners. And it also gives them the flexibility to build an Android phone for consumers if they so choose.

[mikedolo]

Why to serious mr i'm i need a girl to get me off my crackberry for awhile

[Paisley Pirate]

The thing is, they claimed that they WANTED to support BB10... and they did have the earlier TV in the BBW app store... but they pulled it now...

Jokes on them. I have the TV9x apk saved and reloaded to it... and have my clients all on it still instead of upgrading to 10 (especially since it causes a LOT of problems on some windows machines too... TV has bigger problems than BB to worry about right now)