[robss]

Yes, I downloaded the beta version and it seems to be the same like the normal version. Both giving the same message that WhatsApp doesn't cover my phone and I need to search for a new phone... really confusing...

[ColinsCity]

Yes, I downloaded the beta version and it seems to be the same like the normal version. Both giving the same message that WhatsApp doesn't cover my phone and I need to search for a new phone... really confusing...

The same thing has happened to me, they have extended their support until Dec 31st 2017 and in the new updated version thats available on their site which is 2.17 version it's supposed to support the devices yet i'm getting the exact same message in the new updated app that is supposed to support the phones until Dec 31st.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[anon(9721108)]

It seems that Whatsapp is an important enough app, important enough to determine what kind of device people buy, other than ios or android that is.....

So this determination and driving force for people to still demand/purchase a 9900/9930 is proof that they NEVER should have messed with pulling Whatsapp from certain Blackberry devices! It proves there is potential for sales, buisness or profit in this niche and it should have been still provided without interruption!

[robss]

Yes, I don't even understand WHY they cut of WhatsApp and then say we can use it. Hope someones knows how to fix this problem or maybe WhatsApp comes by itself with a solution!!!!

[EFats]

I'm not sure about that. A physical qwerty keyboard doesn't seem like it would be a very useful thing for any of the three systems of Japanese writing (kanji, katakana or hiragana). There aren't enough keys even for the syllabic 'alphabets'. I think I recall reading that touchscreens offer much better options, and that even the predictive text function on Japanese flip phones was more convenient than a fixed qwerty keyboard.

I don't know about that. Even in Japan & China, desktops use a standard QWERTY type keyboard (with extra labels on the keys of course). Touch screen isn't any better, with standard QWERTY it already takes up a chunk of screen space. If you were to display all available syllabics, you'd have nothing left to see.
Users are already familiar with QWERTY in conjunction with predictive text I think.

Don't forget the syllabics don't have upper/lower case so with QWERTY you have 52 easy combinations, enough for Hiragana or Zhuyin.


Posted via CB10

[EFats]

Yes, I don't even understand WHY they cut of WhatsApp and then say we can use it. Hope someones knows how to fix this problem or maybe WhatsApp comes by itself with a solution!!!!

They're not a charity. You are not paying with money. The reason they cut it off is they could not generate enough data from BlackBerry users. Obviously they have figured something out. They have either figured out how to extract more data from us or they have discovered each BlackBerry user is worth more than other platform users to justify the smaller user base.

Maybe the easiest explanation is any current BlackBerry users are likely die hards. If Whatsapp is not available, then they move to another messenger like Wechat or Telegram or whatever rather than getting a new phone. These users might be enough to sway others to head to alternatives.



Posted via CB10

[robss]

Yes. But if WhatsApp says by themselfs that it will work on OS 7+ it must be working. Really strange. They only talk but don't do anything.

[sergio674]

Just wait for a new release of whatsapp 2.17.1.2. On BBW it's an old version 2.16.89 which isn't working as we all know.

[robss]

Yes, but when will they launch the new version.... Will they actually launch the new version? :/

[ColinsCity]

Just wait for a new release of whatsapp 2.17.1.2. On BBW it's an old version 2.16.89 which isn't working as we all know.

I downloaded 2.17.1 from Whatsapp's site and it still says "device is not supported, switch to a supported device" and i can't bypass it, why are they doing this?

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[robss]

Because they don't even know self what their doing. Hope they fix it by themself....

[littlebuff]

The seller had a grey carbon fiber skin on the tray and on the bezel and back of the phone, i removed it from the front of the phone and it's new like he said it would be. i have always loved the arabic keyboard since i saw the Red ferrari edition of the Bold 9700 in 2010, i'm glad i have it now, its funny because i am irish but i love middle eastern things , by the way the phone took 4 days to arrive from Dubai and i didnt have to pay any customs on the phone, and the seller sent it without the battery so it didn't have such scrutiny in the mail sorting office in my country, so i've been very happy about everything related to the phone, i paid nearly the same price for the black one last year and it was in grade c condition, this one is in Grade A- condition and the shipping cost the same amount as the phone and was still around the same price as the white ones that are sold on eBay. EDGE is also working much faster and at a more reliable rate than on the black one which was originally locked to an irish network, i'm guessing the arab models have better EDGE band frequencies ?

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

UAE would get the EMA version which can be different from the UK version which was probably sold in your place. You can check and compare the bands of these two version.
You can also do a Alt+Shift+H combination to get the vendor ID and from there check for the carrier. Then you can confirm the region and version of the phone.
Nice white Bold you have there. Dubai still has some brand new legacy BlackBerry. One of the sellers here is shipping them back here and sell for quite some good price. I don't know why but some people really like Arabic version with the typical characters on keyboard.

Posted via CB10

[ColinsCity]

UAE would get the EMA version which can be different from the UK version which was probably sold in your place. You can check and compare the bands of these two version.
You can also do a Alt+Shift+H combination to get the vendor ID and from there check for the carrier. Then you can confirm the region and version of the phone.
Nice white Bold you have there. Dubai still has some brand new legacy BlackBerry. One of the sellers here is shipping them back here and sell for quite some good price. I don't know why but some people really like Arabic version with the typical characters on keyboard.

Posted via CB10

I'm guessing that the network i'm using in Ireland is using a frequency that is very compatible with the arab Bold because on my regular UK-Ireland model the 2G was working in a weird way right up until i put the sim into the new Bold, also EDGE seems faster on the arab bold too. I love the arabic letters on the keyboard, i was gonna just get the spare part keyboard and replace it on my black bold but then i saw the white bold with arabic keyboard on eBay and knew i had to have it haha.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[anon(9721108)]

If Whatsapp is not available, then they move to another messenger like Wechat or Telegram or whatever rather than getting a new phone. These users might be enough to sway others to head to alternatives.



Posted via CB10

Except in the case of most former BlackBerry users, most of them did move to iOS or android they did not stick with blackberry and try to just use wechat, line or other messengers. So this actually hurt BlackBerries name in the end when apps are killed off. The app infrastructure was there, it was already built, to keep it running and NOT pull the plug is peanuts compared to creating a new app and get it off and running. Zuckerberg can afford an extra half percentage of billions in profit to keep it running if he wanted to. And considering that when most people had BlackBerries and used Facebook to make it popular, it is like Blackberry being stabbed in the back. Sure Blackberry can help to make FB massively popular and cool in the past but when the chips are down the BIG companies dump the little guy and kick them when they are down.

This reminds me of when GM stupidly killed off Oldsmobile. GM thought people would migrate to Buick or Chevrolet, but they did not, they migrated to Nissan Honda and Toyota aand it ended up hurting GM more and costing them billions because no one is going to buy a car or a product from a company when they think it's going bankrupt. Oldsmobile and Pontiac had their loyal buyers that kept buying their cars for generations, and this was similar to BlackBerry. Now hopefully blackberry can turn things around but it doesn't help that certain apps are killed for it because just like the US economy recovered so too could blackberry or Oldsmobile or Pontiac, the existing company of those 3 ARE recovering.

Once it's gone it's gone. I remember people screaming for the death of Pontiac because "oh no one's buying them they should just be killed off they're deadbeats!" But now that the economy has recovered and people have money again, there can never be another Pontiac Trans Am or an Oldsmobile cutlass. It's the companies loss in the end.

And there are still probably more people on Legacy devices needing whatsapp than all the new BB Buyers combined. What were the latest figures we heard on this? Out of the 20 million or so global BlackBerry users a couple of months ago, supposedly over 10 million we're on Legacy. I would've paid a dollar or $.99cents to have kept whatsapp running on my 99.

There's always a way to make money and it's never good to burn the bridges because things can turn.

Typical "short-sightedness" where companies NEVER see the long term potential, they only see how much $$$$$$ it can make that minute.

I personally think too many American companies are too quick to kill it off when it's not making a profit, but Canadian companies seem to like to tough it out for the long-haul and see what happens and if there's any future potential out there. Sure a lot of Canadian companies go bankrupt but they put up one heck of a fight first.

Zuckerberg is so huge with his companies he doesn't care about the little guy like BlackBerry, but what about now if BlackBerry recovers. No one thinks of that.

[anon(9721108)]

Sidenote: everyone was saying Snapchat would be dead in a couple of years, and they actually had no way to make any money it seemed, they were bleeding money in the last couple years. But I tried the new Snapchat maps and it's pretty amazing and now everyone in Twitter is saying they're going to migrate back to Snapchat because of how cool it is. So all they needed was some new innovation or an amazing new feature on their apps that's shiny and flashy to get everyone talking and that's all it probably will take for the app to recover.

I hate to say it but people just don't care as much about security as they do about having fun. Many people are calling it the stalker app now, (because Snapmaps shows a Bitmoji of yourself and where you are in the world, even if you are driving a car the app knows and puts you in a little car) which is funny because it's actually supposed to only be for your friends and if someone is that uptight they may as well just get off the Internet anyway.

Innovation and fun equal sales, $ generators. Any app can recover, so too can companies.

[ColinsCity]

Except in the case of most former BlackBerry users, most of them did move to iOS or android they did not stick with blackberry and try to just use wechat, line or other messengers. So this actually hurt BlackBerries name in the end when apps are killed off. The app infrastructure was there, it was already built, to keep it running and NOT pull the plug is peanuts compared to creating a new app and get it off and running. Zuckerberg can afford an extra half percentage of billions in profit to keep it running if he wanted to. And considering that when most people had BlackBerries and used Facebook to make it popular, it is like Blackberry being stabbed in the back. Sure Blackberry can help to make FB massively popular and cool in the past but when the chips are down the BIG companies dump the little guy and kick them when they are down.

This reminds me of when GM stupidly killed off Oldsmobile. GM thought people would migrate to Buick or Chevrolet, but they did not, they migrated to Nissan Honda and Toyota aand it ended up hurting GM more and costing them billions because no one is going to buy a car or a product from a company when they think it's going bankrupt. Oldsmobile and Pontiac had their loyal buyers that kept buying their cars for generations, and this was similar to BlackBerry. Now hopefully blackberry can turn things around but it doesn't help that certain apps are killed for it because just like the US economy recovered so too could blackberry or Oldsmobile or Pontiac, the existing company of those 3 ARE recovering.

Once it's gone it's gone. I remember people screaming for the death of Pontiac because "oh no one's buying them they should just be killed off they're deadbeats!" But now that the economy has recovered and people have money again, there can never be another Pontiac Trans Am or an Oldsmobile cutlass. It's the companies loss in the end.

And there are still probably more people on Legacy devices needing whatsapp than all the new BB Buyers combined. What were the latest figures we heard on this? Out of the 20 million or so global BlackBerry users a couple of months ago, supposedly over 10 million we're on Legacy. I would've paid a dollar or $.99cents to have kept whatsapp running on my 99.

There's always a way to make money and it's never good to burn the bridges because things can turn.

Typical "short-sightedness" where companies NEVER see the long term potential, they only see how much $$$$$$ it can make that minute.

I personally think too many American companies are too quick to kill it off when it's not making a profit, but Canadian companies seem to like to tough it out for the long-haul and see what happens and if there's any future potential out there. Sure a lot of Canadian companies go bankrupt but they put up one heck of a fight first.

Zuckerberg is so huge with his companies he doesn't care about the little guy like BlackBerry, but what about now if BlackBerry recovers. No one thinks of that.

This could have all been avoided if Whatsapp decided to bring back the $0.99 payment to use the app for the BlackBerry users, i'm sure it wouldn't have bothered many and it probably would have paid for updates and maintenance instead of that generic and tired lie "we can't develop fully on blackberry OS" which is absolutely untrue, yes OS7.1 and under can't do the video calls, however all BB10 phones can do this and are no less capable than android phones, BB10 was not supported by many of the apps that were still supported on the legacy OS, i remember Viber wouldn't develop an app for BB10 and then they eventually did only for the Touchscreen BB10 phones.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[anon(9721108)]

And everything worked so beautifully on WhatsApp on the 9900, even BBM, I don't think I can recall a single hiccup or glitch, jam, anything. It was so perfected and polished.

I agree, I would have no problem paying a small fee for WhatsApp. I have bought iOS apps for $6 so 99 cents isn't going to break anyone's bank book.

That said, do you remember when there's always that rumour in Facebook that they're going to start charging to be able to use Facebook and everyone threatened to leave and quit and everything else. But those of us that knew better knew that it was always one guy starting this stupid rumour and I had friends close their Facebook over it before I could even explain that it's just a prank.

For an important communication vehicle that is necessary like BBM or WhatsApp, and if people truly love their devices like we do, I don't think they would have a problem paying a small fee to keep it running especially when you can't find any other app to do the same thing.

[Mr Byte]

Regarding whatsapp on 99. Recently I was reading WA comments on BlackBerry world and one comment was stating that in order to get WA working, you need to set the date to 2016. So I have tried this, and it worked, I was able to set it up.

Edit: after that, you can set your date back and enjoy your 99! It worked for me, it should work also for others.

[robss]

Didn't worked for me. Which date did you use?

[Mr Byte]

Didn't worked for me. Which date did you use?

23.06.2016. Try reinstalling changing date and launching. Sometimes app says, your date is incorrect, then i have reverted it back, and then again to 2016 and it worked. Play a bit around.

Btw I have version 2.16.89

Edit: i have succesfully updated to version 2.17.1 from https://beta.whatsapp.com/ota/ and the about page says : after Dec 31, 2017 you won't be able to use WhatsApp on this device.

[robss]

Trying to update now via the link you've send... Will keep you guys posted. Hope it will work

[robss]

I still get the same message like before, 'my phone is too old bla bla bla.....' really irritating

[anon(8063781)]

I don't know about that. Even in Japan & China, desktops use a standard QWERTY type keyboard (with extra labels on the keys of course). Touch screen isn't any better, with standard QWERTY it already takes up a chunk of screen space. If you were to display all available syllabics, you'd have nothing left to see.
Users are already familiar with QWERTY in conjunction with predictive text I think.

Don't forget the syllabics don't have upper/lower case so with QWERTY you have 52 easy combinations, enough for Hiragana or Zhuyin.


Posted via CB10

I find the absence of extra labels on the keys confusing. In any case, I found a video:

I really can't tell how the system works. It looks like it begins with a character from the Latin alphabet and then a conversion occurs (after subsequent keystrokes?) and predictive suggestions also begin to appear. He does a Google search relatively early in the video, but the bulk of the 'text entry' takes place after about 4:15.

[EFats]

....
For an important communication vehicle that is necessary like BBM or WhatsApp, and if people truly love their devices like we do, I don't think they would have a problem paying a small fee to keep it running especially when you can't find any other app to do the same thing.

Well I agree. I have no issue paying for product or service. However, if I'm "paying" with my data then I'm not willing to pay with money.
WhatsApp makes its profit from your data, which pays far more than whatever reasonable fee most people would be willing to pay.

People are very willing to give up anything in exchange for "no money" having to change hands.

I don't get BBM. They make it very difficult to purchase the extra features enabled by Enterprise version. Come on, if user is willing to pay, make it easy!


Posted via CB10

[anon(9721108)]

Well I agree. I have no issue paying for product or service. However, if I'm "paying" with my data then I'm not willing to pay with money.
WhatsApp makes its profit from your data, which pays far more than whatever reasonable fee most people would be willing to pay.

People are very willing to give up anything in exchange for "no money" having to change hands.

I don't get BBM. They make it very difficult to purchase the extra features enabled by Enterprise version. Come on, if user is willing to pay, make it easy!


Posted via CB10

Yup