Looking to simplify

Good morning! I have come to the conclusion that this connected world is not the place for me. It's time to focus on other things in this world and my life--things like hikes, photography, reading and fishing. I decided it was time to untangle myself to a great extent from the WWW, social media, etc. and one step along this path is replacing my android "smart" phone. I considered a truly dumb-phone, but there are things I have come to depend on that will take some time to wean from (GPS Navigation, email and basic web browsing). In researching a viable option I fondly recalled my BB (can't recall the model) from some 10 years ago and thought I should see what was available. What I decided on was a very clean used Classic that arrives today. I know that BB10 support ENDS at the end of this year and considering the small price I paid for the Classic was not too big a risk even if my phone bricks in 8-9 months. I do have some very broad, general questions that I hope to find answers to on this forum, such as: Once I have the few appps loaded and running well on my Classic, is there some way I can save an "image" from which I can restore my phone from after support sunsets next year? Where can I find and how do you install apps outside the blackberry store? What is the best (stable, useable) web browser/email client/navigation (turn by turn voice guidance that also works offline)? Also, if anyone else is on the road to simplifying and taking back their lives as I am, I would love to hear from you!

If BBID access goes away, or LINK doesn't work for you now or in the future.... then you are out of luck on full backups. You have to backup up your data that you can manually and reload the apps.

YALP will give you access to apps for the Android World - limited to those that support Android 4.3 anymore, and that will work on the runtime.

Web Browser - depends on if you are looking for something outside BBW (at this point you should)... BEOL browser

Email Client - don't foresee HUB being an issue.

Navigation - try Sygic, not sure if it still works, but it was great the last time I tried it.

Other tips... you don't have to use a degrading platform to go "simple". It can be done with iOS and Android - and there are lot's more tips and tricks out there on how to do it.

Originally Posted by Dirk Pruitt

Good morning! I have come to the conclusion that this connected world is not the place for me. It's time to focus on other things in this world and my life--things like hikes, photography, reading and fishing. I decided it was time to untangle myself to a great extent from the WWW, social media, etc. and one step along this path is replacing my android "smart" phone. I considered a truly dumb-phone, but there are things I have come to depend on that will take some time to wean from (GPS Navigation, email and basic web browsing). In researching a viable option I fondly recalled my BB (can't recall the model) from some 10 years ago and thought I should see what was available. What I decided on was a very clean used Classic that arrives today. I know that BB10 support ENDS at the end of this year and considering the small price I paid for the Classic was not too big a risk even if my phone bricks in 8-9 months. I do have some very broad, general questions that I hope to find answers to on this forum, such as: Once I have the few appps loaded and running well on my Classic, is there some way I can save an "image" from which I can restore my phone from after support sunsets next year? Where can I find and how do you install apps outside the blackberry store? What is the best (stable, useable) web browser/email client/navigation (turn by turn voice guidance that also works offline)? Also, if anyone else is on the road to simplifying and taking back their lives as I am, I would love to hear from you!

Hey Dirk,

Glad to have you here!

It's important to clarify a point: while Blackberry World is indeed being shut down at the end of 2019, that is the ONLY service that is known to be ending. Blackberry Limited is indeed declaring BB10 to be EOL, so they will not be providing support, but all indications are that everything currently working should continue to work with the exception of Blackberry World.

With respect to backups: while it is true that at present a Blackberry ID is required to do a full "image" level backup in terms of settings and the like, you can back up all data except apps and settings using an app called Ultimate Backup. All indications are that Blackberry ID services and thus backups will continue to work but it's a good idea to purchase Ultimate Backup via Runisoft's website in order to have that available. It will back up to your SD card or, if you map your Classic as a network drive on your home PC, you can use that method to back up to cloud storage.

In addition to the Yalp store, I recommend APKPure as a source for Android apps, primarily because you can download older versions that will sometimes work where more current versions will not.

I would agree that the BEOL Browser works well if you find the native browser does not suffice for basic web browsing.

Likewise the Blackberry Hub will take care of all your e-mail communication needs.

Blackberry Maps will do turn-by-turn voice guidance, but for offline purposes that may be a tall order.

Feel free to ask or PM (click my name, then the letters PM in blue next to Posts at the bottom) if there's anything else I can do to help!

Originally Posted by Dirk Pruitt

navigation (turn by turn voice guidance that also works offline)?

I use Maps.Me or sometimes OsmAnd for offline navigation.

Thanks for the great insight, advice and resources! I will be checking them all out!

Thanks for sharing your insight and welcome to Crackberry, enjoy the forums.

Guess it's going on two months with the BB Classic and so far so good. It's a LOT more capable even today than I was expecting--there really is very little it cannot do that my old Moto-G could. I have so far locked my Google account down privacy wise as far as humanly possible and I have a new fastmail email addy that I am transitioning to. It's a long and sometimes arduous process when you have been with Google for 10+ years and you mindlessly subscribed and accepted every "service" they offered. I plan to use the BB for the next year or two as this transition to a dumb-phone continues. I guess the transition is to a less tech-centric lifestyle as I continue this quest to unplug from tech and plug BACK into nature and other things more important.