[ColinsCity]

Ah ya ok. I just know that anywhere I have seen white 99's for sale, they are always more $ usually. They are more rare and therfore more of a "Status Symbol" perhaps. I do think the white is classy and I despised how they were introduced more for "females" when they finally came out. I dig the white Keyboard on mine.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

That used to really annoy me, now with the iPhone the white and gold colors aren't seen as feminine colors anymore. i used to change the housing on my 9700 to full white or full red metallic both were great, i liked the metallic red much better it used to always stand out haha.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[idssteve]

Just bumped in to an old read from 2012...

Why Losing The Trackpad is Bad for BlackBerry | TechShift

[anon(6038817)]

Just bumped in to an old read from 2012...

Why Losing The Trackpad is Bad for BlackBerry | TechShift

Great read and excellent points.

And now I want to try a Classic now more than ever.

And if I don't like it, I may just throw up my hands, jump back over to Verizon, and use my 9930 until Verizon kills 3G or BIS.

Posted from my Q10 via CB10

[sweeperdk]

Ah cool! yeah you'll like it, as long as the BIS isn't too big a deal....

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idsSteve

I understand the reasoning behind EOL'ing OS7... however, I still find it hard to understand why they didn't "cut the cord"... set an option to not use BIS/BES, so that people who want to use legacy devices to their fullest, could still do so, regardless of BIS.

Well, I understand it.... $$$$

[anon(9721108)]

That used to really annoy me, now with the iPhone the white and gold colors aren't seen as feminine colors anymore. i used to change the housing on my 9700 to full white or full red metallic both were great, i liked the metallic red much better it used to always stand out haha.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

Good Points! I am not really a fan of black, because most everyone had a black cell phone BUT the 9900 I have in black really grew on me. At first when I got mine I wasn't thrilled I couldn't find a white one but that is like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The Black 9900 does look very "professional" and it has a seriousness about it that perhaps white doesn't. I consider the white more desireable because they are so rare and most others have a black device of some kind but the 9900 IS one of those devices that doesn't look like a toy iphone (I cannot believe I am saying that because mine is Lime Green) and it just oozes "professionalism" for a device.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

[anon(9721108)]

Just bumped in to an old read from 2012...

Why Losing The Trackpad is Bad for BlackBerry | TechShift

Good article. I wonder if he foresaw people complaining about the screen size these things today, or that devices would have a 5+ inch screen that is bigger than the entire 9900's chassis. I personally do not care how much "screen real estate" the TP row occupies. It is a brilliant and conveinient way to navigate and therefore we do not need more screen real estate because our thumbs are not touching the screen and blocking what is on it.

I wonder if there has been any device to put some sort of TP or touch navigation on the back of a device so that the screen is not obstructed. I seem to recall some Android phone with a button right on the back, for whatever reason.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

[anon(9721108)]

I understand the reasoning behind EOL'ing OS7... however, I still find it hard to understand why they didn't "cut the cord"... set an option to not use BIS/BES, so that people who want to use legacy devices to their fullest, could still do so, regardless of BIS.

Well, I understand it.... $$$$

OS7 was pretty much perfected because by the time it came around it was based on earlier versions like OS 4,5 and 6 and no one seemed to be complaining about that perfection.

It sure is funny how nowadays, say with ios, if they don't have some new and dazzling amazing features it gets criticized like the devices for being just "more of the same." Case in point the iphone 7 being criticized for this very thing.

If an OS works good, I don't mind sticking with it, I don't get bored as long as it does what it has to quickly and effectively without hassle. The 9900 is still an excellent "tool" because it does all of that.

I suppose they had to innovate though. I remember hearing about the Trackpad taking a dirt nap after I got my 9780 in 2011 and I really didn't care too much because I planned to keep mine for as long as possible. No one was going to take that track pad device away from me and no amount of shiny new glass slabs could entice me. In fact, the only reason I got an iphone in 2014 was because I could not find ANY 9900's used for sale and I never even thought to look on Kijiji at that time!! I'm not even sure I knew about kijiji in 2013/14. I gave the 9790 a shot but it had a lot of issues with freezing, not a common problem perhaps, but still a nicely sized compact device with tons of power and speed.

That said, I guess there are some options for you to use yours without BIS, including email, etc.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

[sweeperdk]

OS7 was pretty much perfected because by the time it came around it was based on earlier versions like OS 4,5 and 6 and no one seemed to be complaining about that perfection.

It sure is funny how nowadays, say with ios, if they don't have some new and dazzling amazing features it gets criticized like the devices for being just "more of the same." Case in point the iphone 7 being criticized for this very thing.

If an OS works good, I don't mind sticking with it, I don't get bored as long as it does what it has to quickly and effectively without hassle. The 9900 is still an excellent "tool" because it does all of that.

I suppose they had to innovate though. I remember hearing about the Trackpad taking a dirt nap after I got my 9780 in 2011 and I really didn't care too much because I planned to keep mine for as long as possible. No one was going to take that track pad device away from me and no amount of shiny new glass slabs could entice me. In fact, the only reason I got an iphone in 2014 was because I could not find ANY 9900's used for sale and I never even thought to look on Kijiji at that time!! I'm not even sure I knew about kijiji in 2013/14. I gave the 9790 a shot but it had a lot of issues with freezing, not a common problem perhaps, but still a nicely sized compact device with tons of power and speed.

That said, I guess there are some options for you to use yours without BIS, including email, etc.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

Yeah I think I can get by without BIS, it looks like there are plenty of options

[idssteve]

I understand the reasoning behind EOL'ing OS7... however, I still find it hard to understand why they didn't "cut the cord"... set an option to not use BIS/BES, so that people who want to use legacy devices to their fullest, could still do so, regardless of BIS.

Well, I understand it.... $$$$

Yep, $$$$ is right. High margin revenue from monthly BIS subscription fees was (is??) a significant part of BB's income. Pretty sure I was once paying VZW an additional $20 or so per month per BB device. Some portion of that was shared with carriers but multiplied by 50-80 million devices, at their peak, and you see they enjoyed quite an apparent monthly windfall in BIS. Also part of how they could financially rationalize selling expensive to produce hardware, like our 9900s, at relatively budget prices.

"Cutting the cord" to that revenue stream had to be managed for its "life support" value to BB itself, while non-BIS BB10 crawled out of its diapers. That's their catch 22. Migration from BBOS to BB10 meant lost BIS revenue. Lack of migration meant lost BB10 sales... Fast forward and here we are. I wouldn't trade jobs with Chen for ANYthing. Lol.

Some of us have long advocated for OS7.2 or OS8 along with updated 9900s to ease the transition while BB10 got on its feet. BB chose to EOL OS7.1 in possible attempt to coerce migration to BB10 while simultaneously (some might say schizophrenically. Lol) omitting selected hardware features on new devices in effort to modulate migration and its associated BIS run down.

That's a possible explanation for why we got a "sort of" Bold in the Q10 and then a "kind of" Bold in the Classic. Providng what MANY of us have pleaded for... A BB10 9900... Might have resulted in TOO rapid of migration. Resulting in loosing that BIS revenue source just to sell BB10 devices at a loss anyway.

Of course a problem with migration coercion is that there were other platforms to migrate to.

That's the consensus theory around my crew's breakroom, anyway. Fwiw.

[ColinsCity]

Yep, $$$$ is right. High margin revenue from monthly BIS subscription fees was (is??) a significant part of BB's income. Pretty sure I was once paying VZW an additional $20 or so per month per BB device. Some portion of that was shared with carriers but multiplied by 50-80 million devices, at their peak, and you see they enjoyed quite an apparent monthly windfall in BIS. Also part of how they could financially rationalize selling expensive to produce hardware, like our 9900s, at relatively budget prices.

"Cutting the cord" to that revenue stream had to be managed for its "life support" value to BB itself, while non-BIS BB10 crawled out of its diapers. That's their catch 22. Migration from BBOS to BB10 meant lost BIS revenue. Lack of migration meant lost BB10 sales... Fast forward and here we are. I wouldn't trade jobs with Chen for ANYthing. Lol.

Some of us have long advocated for OS7.2 or OS8 along with updated 9900s to ease the transition while BB10 got on its feet. BB chose to EOL OS7.1 in possible attempt to coerce migration to BB10 while simultaneously (some might say schizophrenically. Lol) omitting selected hardware features on new devices in effort to modulate migration and its associated BIS run down.

That's a possible explanation for why we got a "sort of" Bold in the Q10 and then a "kind of" Bold in the Classic. Providng what MANY of us have pleaded for... A BB10 9900... Might have resulted in TOO rapid of migration. Resulting in loosing that BIS revenue source just to sell BB10 devices at a loss anyway.

Of course a problem with migration coercion is that there were other platforms to migrate to.

That's the consensus theory around my crew's breakroom, anyway. Fwiw.

I never actually thought about BIS like that, it must have earned blackberry a lot of money in monthly subscriptions, In some networks its actually free now, like on my plan it's included for free for anyone who might have a blackberry and nothing had to be activated. I dont think i could use my 9900 without BIS. I can't believe you were being charged around $20 just for a BIS subscription, i was only ever charged around $6 for it. I would love an OS 7.2 or 8 update, something that could let you see emoji's and things like that, this phone works really fast considering how old it is so i think it could definitely handle some minor updates, or maybe they could re-release one with OS8 that lets the users sideload android apps but without the clunkyness of BB10, i don't think the classic is as utilized with BB10 as it could be, there should be no buttons on the bottom of the screen in the BlackBerry Hub, only when the Menu button is pressed, and also when typing messages in emails the bottom row for adding files and other things shouldn't be there because you can press the Menu key to get those options. And the other thing about BB10 is the font needs to be bigger to read the words properly and it's nothing to do with eyesight because the font settings are lower on my 9900, i tested the font setting from the BB10 when i got my 9900 again and it was so large on the screen. I actually think OS7 is better than BB10 in many ways, emoji support and android runtime would make the 9900 a good contender in these app happy days haha.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[anon(6038817)]

Good article. I wonder if he foresaw people complaining about the screen size these things today, or that devices would have a 5+ inch screen that is bigger than the entire 9900's chassis. I personally do not care how much "screen real estate" the TP row occupies. It is a brilliant and conveinient way to navigate and therefore we do not need more screen real estate because our thumbs are not touching the screen and blocking what is on it.

I wonder if there has been any device to put some sort of TP or touch navigation on the back of a device so that the screen is not obstructed. I seem to recall some Android phone with a button right on the back, for whatever reason.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

LG makes phones with buttons on the back. Google's last Nexus phones and it's new Pixel phones have a fingerprint sensor on the back. They have non-user-replaceable batteries, of course.

Posted from my Q10 via CB10

[anon(6038817)]

I never actually thought about BIS like that, it must have earned blackberry a lot of money in monthly subscriptions, In some networks its actually free now, like on my plan it's included for free for anyone who might have a blackberry and nothing had to be activated. I dont think i could use my 9900 without BIS. I can't believe you were being charged around $20 just for a BIS subscription, i was only ever charged around $6 for it. I would love an OS 7.2 or 8 update, something that could let you see emoji's and things like that, this phone works really fast considering how old it is so i think it could definitely handle some minor updates, or maybe they could re-release one with OS8 that lets the users sideload android apps but without the clunkyness of BB10, i don't think the classic is as utilized with BB10 as it could be, there should be no buttons on the bottom of the screen in the BlackBerry Hub, only when the Menu button is pressed, and also when typing messages in emails the bottom row for adding files and other things shouldn't be there because you can press the Menu key to get those options. And the other thing about BB10 is the font needs to be bigger to read the words properly and it's nothing to do with eyesight because the font settings are lower on my 9900, i tested the font setting from the BB10 when i got my 9900 again and it was so large on the screen. I actually think OS7 is better than BB10 in many ways, emoji support and android runtime would make the 9900 a good contender in these app happy days haha.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

I need to stop reading posts in this thread. Pointing out all these subtle advantages the 99XX still has over other devices, you guys are gonna drive me back to my 9930 when I know full well it doesn't support some features I need.

(I'll never stop reading this thread. I blame Ralph.)



Posted from my Q10 via CB10

[anon(8063781)]

I wonder if there has been any device to put some sort of TP or touch navigation on the back of a device so that the screen is not obstructed. I seem to recall some Android phone with a button right on the back, for whatever reason.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

Yep. My niece had one. The Motorola Backflip.

[anon(8063781)]

I understand the reasoning behind EOL'ing OS7... however, I still find it hard to understand why they didn't "cut the cord"... set an option to not use BIS/BES, so that people who want to use legacy devices to their fullest, could still do so, regardless of BIS.

Well, I understand it.... $$$$

Just to add to the conversation, it could have been done.

There are two third-party solutions, AstraSync and NotifySync, which add ActiveSync functionality to the BlackBerry (email, contacts, calendars, tasks). Unfortunately, both are quite expensive.

BBM is on Android and iOS, so it can also be provided without a BIS subscription.

[iRetired]

On the latest episode of the FOX television series "Lucifer" (Season 2, Episode 2), the 9900 is clearly featured as the corporate phone and features prominantly in the opening scenes.

Lucifer - TV Series News, Show Information - FOX

[anon(9721108)]

I remember when Blackberry said they were going to charge for BIS, maybe it was just in the US? There were a lot of upset people. We pay so much for our plans in Canada that it should be included, and always was AFAIK.

I thought there was a device that had the navagation on the back though, not a simple button but something to actually move the cursor on a screen or whatever, I could be wrong.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

[anon(9721108)]

(I'll never stop reading this thread. I blame Ralph.)

No No blame the contributors to this thread, they keep it going

Hey have you ever tried the email clients that Shawsup mentioned? I wonder how much "expensive" costs.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

[anon(9721108)]

On the latest episode of the FOX television series "Lucifer" (Season 2, Episode 2), the 9900 is clearly featured as the corporate phone and features prominantly in the opening scenes.

Lucifer - TV Series News, Show Information - FOX

Cools, I'll check this later

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

[anon(6038817)]

No No blame the contrivuters to this thread, they keep it going

Hey have you ever tried the email clients that Shawsup mentioned?

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

I looked up those apps on appworld.blackberry.com but didn't see anything that looked like it would support ActiveSync. I'll try looking in BlackBerry World on my 9930 when I get home.

Posted from my Q10 via CB10

[anon(9721108)]

I looked up those apps on appworld.blackberry.com but didn't see anything that looked like it would support ActiveSync. I'll try looking in BlackBerry World on my 9930 when I get home.

Posted from my Q10 via CB10

Maybe there are websites we have to go to....

Still curious about how much something like that could cost.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

[anon(6038817)]

Maybe there are websites we have to go to....

Still curious about how much something like that could cost.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

Yes, I am curious, too.

Posted from my Q10 via CB10

[anon(6038817)]

Maybe there are websites we have to go to....

Still curious about how much something like that could cost.

"The 99's charms will tug at your heart. Nothing else ever approached such exquisite perfection"-idssteve

AstraSync is $49/yr per email address: https://www.astrasync.com/Resources/

NotifySync is �99 per license with an annual renewal of �25 software assurance fee: NotifySync - BlackBerry Activesync - BlackBerry Sync for MS Exchange Kerio Zimbra

[Ursus Rufus]

Yeah I think I can get by without BIS, it looks like there are plenty of options

Just curious as to why you don't have the option to have BIS? If you don't mind my asking?

Sorry if this is a repeat question. Was checking the thread but can't find where you explained it, if at all..

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[Nguyen1]

Does att in usa have bis? I have my 9930 which is airplane mode but I'm thinking of slipping my Sim card in to see what happens.

Sent from my BlackBerry Passport SE

[sweeperdk]

Just curious as to why you don't have the option to have BIS? If you don't mind my asking?

Sorry if this is a repeat question. Was checking the thread but can't find where you explained it, if at all..

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

No worries. I live in Denmark, we're not exactly known for having a huge blackberry following. I believe it's been four years since the last BIS was shut down here. Unfortunately.