[idssteve]

As long as they keep their wagon hitched to Android's star, I doubt they will ever be able to fully recreate the 99XX "sweet spot". They could fork Android like Amazon has done for their Kindle tablets, but then they would cut themselves off from the Google Play Store and all of Google's other seductive products and services.

The purpose - the WHY - of any creative endeavor influences every stage of its development. Privacy, security, reliability, and productivity are in the very DNA of BBOS devices from the first sketch and the first line of code. This is also true of BB10 devices, although perhaps to a lesser degree, since the BB10 designers and developers were intentionally (and IMO foolishly) sequestered from the BBOS masterminds and had to reinvent the wheel the best they could.

As I mentioned earlier, Android was designed first and foremost to be a data-collection platform to feed Google's greedy targeted advertising apparatus. Have you ever seen Miyazaki's brilliant animated film Spirited Away? I see Google (and Facebook and Amazon and to a lesser extent Apple and Microsoft) as the "No-Face" character. The more you feed it, the more it wants. And the more of an out-of-control monster it becomes. To recreate the 99XX magic, most (if not all) of the data-collection, ad-serving junk that is baked into Android would have to be purged, just like No-Face had to do to return to his mellow, non-bloated self.

But it goes far beyond the OS - the apps, too, must be designed to take total advantage of the hardware of a 99XX. It makes no sense to have a toolbelt and keyboard if apps are not designed to use them! This was a common frustration I had with using Android apps and even some non-optimized BB10 native apps on a Classic.

On the 99XX (and all other BBOS devices), the UX of apps and OS were tightly integrated. The best apps were not designed to be their own self-contained experience - they were designed to be a natural extension and augmentation of the core UX. BB10 tried to recapture that magic and did a fairly decent job - it certainly captures it better than Android or even iOS - but it still cannot compare to BBOS. (On a side note, I think Windows Mobile also did an excellent job at seamlessly integrating OS and app UX, especially in the Windows Phone 7 and 8 days.)

Even if the KEYtwo had a toolbelt and a more Bold-like form factor, it would likely prove to be frustrating to those of us who have embraced the UX of a BBOS device.

Unfortunately, Google shows every indication of being the last droid standing... lol. Knowledge is just one of those perishable treasures that evaporates so easily... The experience that led to our 9900 is probably lost to eternity, at this point. Such a shame. History scholars wont even know enough about that concept to even record the monumental fubar Mike perpetrated against RIM's hard won experience through that silly sequestration... ug. The world will never know what was really lost.

Sort of like, who wouldn't love the opportunity to ask Antonio Stradivari WHAT his "secret" was?? I'd heard, and heard about, Stradivarius instruments all of my life. BUT was blessed by rarest opportune fate to play one, some months back. MY GAWD!!! That thing made my pathetic skills sound impressive!! Having heard it before, its tone and projection were no real surprise. BUT its response placed options under my fingers i'd never dreamed existed! It could pull tears of joy and tears of sorrow from the heart with the slightest shift of fingering and bow attack. HOW does history record such human achievement? How did Stradivari DO IT?!!!???

How did RIM create a masterpiece of enchantment that never fails to charm a few more words than you thought possible? Sad to say, i doubt that achievement will ever be fully replicated. There are fine enough "Stradivarius Copies". I own a few. Maybe there'll be some fine 9900 attempts, over the next few centuries. lol.

[rayporsche]

In retrospect it results kind of sad to have a 'stay of execution' if you will, but then again it's been a cool long ride and it doesn't matter what anyone says those were 'the true glory days of a few' as opposed as today which are more like 'the common days of a lot', the zombie era totally and completely assimilated by the Borg Collective. It results perplexing as to how the technology advances have changed the way how we see the world, sometimes even our interaction with it and most of us forget that the cellphone is another tool, a business tool, entertainment tool, necessary tool and the list goes on and on, call it what you will. Back in the day I used to have a telephone in the every car, yes the rotary ones later push buttons for communication what else, then they came out with the wireless ones like the Motorola 8000 ! OMG the famous brick, a solid communication device then they killed the bands, it's called progress, evolution and we all must move on to the new thing as needs change or simply be left behind.

As of today I've decided that I will sell my iPhone, hide away the Samsung which were already unused, most of the BBOS10 devices will go on vacation giving way to the Bold which will be the daily communications device until the inevitable as it seems happens. BIS is still going amid the rumors and there are multiples ways to operate without it, undoubtedly the big question is what will happen with the BBid and will it be needed to operate the devices ? if I'm not mistaken nobody seems to know the answer to that at this point. We will circumvent and always find the way right ? one of the sad parts will be to let go of Crackberry too, the friends and the great collective minds here which have kept the addiction going for so many years donating their knowledge, patience and time, sadly the metamorphosis is already passed Stage 4 and even some of those hardcore BB Fans moved on to the green dude territory and NO I am not criticizing in any way, shape or form, that is OK it is their choice and what works for them, it is progress. I have a rooted & molested in every way Galaxy myself so I can relate, it's just a very different goodness and/or frustration.

People are not affected by the things that happen as much as by what they think of it and in the process they try to change the future or second guess themselves about their past decisions. In all that process they fail to realize that the most important moment in life is the present, right now !

So if you enjoy your 9900 or whatever it is that you are using, do so without regrets or worries as what will be, it's going to be ok !

[RaybanRJ]

[Nguyen1]

I believe the 9900 can function without bbid, BUT you may need to login one last time without a sim before 2020 and then NEVER EVER put another sim in it. Putting in a sim will trigger a request to login to BBID, and that will be the end of your 9900. Just my feeling...

[anon(8063781)]

Just got a Palm LifeDrive. Pretty cool. Replaced the 4GB microdrive (a spinning hard drive) with a 4GB compact flash card. I remember the hard drive in my Zune dying back in the day so good-bye to the spinning platters.

Also found an app to add in support for SDHC cards.

Time to find ereader and podcast apps. Old stuff is so much fun. Tons of free PalmOS stuff out there: https://mega.nz/#F!0R83jACK!Ba1v2vsS4x81emugSgohxA

Sorry for the off-topic post. But who else will get this kind of thing, if not the people here?

[RaybanRJ]

Just got a Palm LifeDrive. Pretty cool. Replaced the 4GB microdrive (a spinning hard drive) with a 4GB compact flash card. I remember the hard drive in my Zune dying back in the day so good-bye to the spinning platters.

Also found an app to add in support for SDHC cards.

Time to find ereader and podcast apps. Old stuff is so much fun. Tons of free PalmOS stuff out there: https://mega.nz/#F!0R83jACK!Ba1v2vsS4x81emugSgohxA

Sorry for the off-topic post. But who else will get this kind of thing, if not the people here?

Interesting device, not exactly as thin as a 99 but interesting

What year were they made?

I can’t find a single picture on Google images of what the keyboard actually looks like, I presume it’s a virtual keyboard? Also it looks like there’s quite a few repair videos on YouTube for that thing.

[anon(8063781)]

They were sold from 2005-2007. It has handwriting recognition (and a very tiny keyboard that you can peck away at with the stylus if you like).

It looks really thick in pictures, but isn't bad at all in person, and the curved back feels good in hand. The sound through headphones is good and the screen is excellent.

I had to load a new OS on the compact flash card, which is too bad, because the former owner had purchased some good apps.

[anon(8063781)]

Here's an example of the handwriting recognition (called Palm graffiti):

[RaybanRJ]

Here's an example of the handwriting recognition (called Palm graffiti):

Interesting so looks like a special kind of stylus you have to get?

Also you mentioned the previous owner had some apps put on it, did they even have an App Store then? If They did I would say that’s pretty advanced, I’m thinking back to 2009 with my Motorola Razr 2 (I should put that vid I made for it in off YouTube) and how it worked is I paid $10 extra a month for Internet and there were things like Google, weather etc that was sort of pre-loaded but there were no apps that I recall.

Hold on I’ll dig up that video if I can find it. I think I’ve made 700 videos since then.

[Nguyen1]

K and Y are hard in palm grafitti. I'm bad at it, but maybe it's because I use a pen cap, not a real stylus. Are PalmOS apps compatible with WebOs (probable not, but gotta ask...)

[RaybanRJ]

Something interesting I just read, if you’re wondering how many people are using BBM and considering there are only perhaps 10 or 15 million Blackberry devices in use globally right now? But the interesting thing is there are 60 million BBM users in Indonesia alone. So obviously those are a lot of people with android or iOS devices installing the BBM app. I just thought those numbers were crazy!

Uber lands on BlackBerry Messenger, confusing everyone
http://a.mynews.ly/!MD.Hmf0m

[rayporsche]

Something interesting I just read, if you’re wondering how many people are using BBM and considering there are only perhaps 10 or 15 million Blackberry devices in use globally right now? But the interesting thing is there are 60 million BBM users in Indonesia alone. So obviously those are a lot of people with android or iOS devices installing the BBM app. I just thought those numbers were crazy!

Uber lands on BlackBerry Messenger, confusing everyone
Uber lands on BlackBerry Messenger, confusing everyone

Interesting indeed which also begs the question, besides those what about all of the other iOS & Android BBM app users that are required to use a BBid to sign in, now what would be the deal after 2 years ? even knowing that BlackBerry sold BBM and now it is a separate entity, did that sale included the sole use rights of BBid, will the app stop working because of the possible obvious scenarios of requiring a BBid if BlackBerry plans to shut down, meaning no new sign ins, will they stop that requirement or will the BBid still be used ? sooooooooooo would it be needed to sign and/or run devices with BB10OS or BBOS even though it is a separate scenario or application ? and by now we all know that there are a lot of apps that we don't really need and can certainly live without and we actually do even having them available today so no need to go there. Interesting dilemma you may say huh, if we knew the answer to those.....

Just brainstorming as to what could it be be even when I openly preach that is not really important hahahaha..............

[anon(8063781)]

Interesting so looks like a special kind of stylus you have to get?

Also you mentioned the previous owner had some apps put on it, did they even have an App Store then? If They did I would say that’s pretty advanced, I’m thinking back to 2009 with my Motorola Razr 2 (I should put that vid I made for it in off YouTube) and how it worked is I paid $10 extra a month for Internet and there were things like Google, weather etc that was sort of pre-loaded but there were no apps that I recall.

The stylus was supplied with the unit, and slides into a slot in the device when you're not using it.

There was a kind of app store called AddIt. It's so long ago that I barely remember how it worked, but I think with my Z22, I chose apps on my computer at a Palm site (possibly through Palm Desktop on the PC), and then the next time I USB synced the device, they would be added to it. With the LifeDrive, since it has WiFi, there may have been an on-device method. Most of the apps at AddIt were paid. But you could also install apps (they're .prc files) from anywhere, and there were some good open source ones. I really liked Pluckr, which was really two apps, one for your computer and one for your device. With it, you could download websites (via a completely automated process, once you set it up), compress them, and sync them to your device. It was good for newspapers, the CBC, etc.

Going to watch your video! I loved the Razr v3 and Razr 2. Those were nice phones.

[anon(8063781)]

K and Y are hard in palm grafitti. I'm bad at it, but maybe it's because I use a pen cap, not a real stylus. Are PalmOS apps compatible with WebOs (probable not, but gotta ask...)

Unfortunately, PalmOS apps are not compatible with webOS. But if you have an early version of the OS, there was an emulator called "Classic," which ran PalmOS apps in a card. You should be able to add it to later versions of the OS that didn't come with it. It's on the FTP server: https://pivotce.com/2016/07/14/publi...-torrent-soon/

There's a really good FTP app for webOS (I think it's called FTPit). If you install it and set it up to browse the webOS apps FTP server, it's like having another app store on your device. In addition to searching the main feed, if you can't find an app, go into the folder called "catalog pull" and search it too.

[anon(8063781)]

Hold on I’ll dig up that video if I can find it. I think I’ve made 700 videos since then.

That was actually a good set of links built in to the browser. I was kinda hoping to see your myspace page though

[RaybanRJ]

That was actually a good set of links built in to the browser. I was kinda hoping to see your myspace page though

Believe it or not I still have a MySpace somewhere but they completely changed their format and nothing looks the same, so everyone basically gave up on it and fled to Facebook. I still can’t believe that Justin Timberlake bought MySpace for something like $500 million back in the day when everyone new Facebook was coming.

[RaybanRJ]

Interesting indeed which also begs the question, besides those what about all of the other iOS & Android BBM app users that are required to use a BBid to sign in, now what would be the deal after 2 years ? even knowing that BlackBerry sold BBM and now it is a separate entity, did that sale included the sole use rights of BBid, will the app stop working because of the possible obvious scenarios of requiring a BBid if BlackBerry plans to shut down, meaning no new sign ins, will they stop that requirement or will the BBid still be used ? sooooooooooo would it be needed to sign and/or run devices with BB10OS or BBOS even though it is a separate scenario or application ? and by now we all know that there are a lot of apps that we don't really need and can certainly live without and we actually do even having them available today so no need to go there. Interesting dilemma you may say huh, if we knew the answer to those.....

Just brainstorming as to what could it be be even when I openly preach that is not really important hahahaha..............

Actually that’s pretty much it and I can think of 20 more questions and some of them involving security after BlackBerry sells BBM what would happen to the the app, etc.

BBM works quite nicely on the iPhone but they give you a randomly generated new pin number because no two devices can have the same pin, if I recall.

BBM is probably still the best messenger out there but try and convince someone to use it nowadays it’s like putting someone behind the seat of a model T and saying OK drive me downtown, you know how it works.

[RaybanRJ]

The stylus was supplied with the unit, and slides into a slot in the device when you're not using it.

There was a kind of app store called AddIt. It's so long ago that I barely remember how it worked, but I think with my Z22, I chose apps on my computer at a Palm site (possibly through Palm Desktop on the PC), and then the next time I USB synced the device, they would be added to it. With the LifeDrive, since it has WiFi, there may have been an on-device method. Most of the apps at AddIt were paid. But you could also install apps (they're .prc files) from anywhere, and there were some good open source ones. I really liked Pluckr, which was really two apps, one for your computer and one for your device. With it, you could download websites (via a completely automated process, once you set it up), compress them, and sync them to your device. It was good for newspapers, the CBC, etc.

Going to watch your video! I loved the Razr v3 and Razr 2. Those were nice phones.

And can you still get a battery for it?

[Nguyen1]

I've heard the Sharp Zaurus was a pretty awesome PDA and perhaps better than the Livedrive. But they are still pricey now, even after a decade or two.

[anon(8063781)]

And can you still get a battery for it?

Yes. There are batteries on eBay, but I think I'll probably order from palmdr.com, because the guy who runs it seems worth supporting.

[anon(8063781)]

I've heard the Sharp Zaurus was a pretty awesome PDA and perhaps better than the Livedrive. But they are still pricey now, even after a decade or two.

Sacrilege!!!

Actually, I remember people developing various Linux ROMs for the Zaurus, so you could probably keep fairly busy with experiments if you could find one at a reasonable price.

[RaybanRJ]

K1 at Telus in my hometown, $700 off contract seems kinda steep doesn’t it?

[anon(8063781)]

K1 at Telus in my hometown, $700 off contract seems kinda steep doesn’t it?

I think that's fairly normal, but I just looked and it's $593 on sale at Amazon.

You really have to buy BlackBerry's Android handsets right away or not bother at all. If you're getting two years of security updates, and you can't unlock the bootloader to update the ROM after that, the devices have a fairly early expiry date (unless you're crazy like us Boldies, and go for years without updates!). iPhones often get four or five years of updates, and my wife's iPhone SE was about the same price as the KEYone.

[idssteve]

K1 at Telus in my hometown, $700 off contract seems kinda steep doesn’t it?https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...0f9d844594.jpg

Depends on RAM. 4/64 brings more than 3/32. I'm ok with 3/32 so far but K1 & i are still just dating.

[RaybanRJ]

Depends on RAM. 4/64 brings more than 3/32. I'm ok with 3/32 so far but K1 & i are still just dating.

$700 Cdn, it’s enough to buy a used car here