I don't think Chen understands device strategy, or cares much for it. Because every BB user has been asking for the exact same thing you just mentioned -- for years -- and they still haven't done it.
It'll never beat Apple or Samsung in popularity. But if they just released a single solid high-end Android phone with a real BlackBerry keyboard every two years, that product line would quietly print free money forever. It's a niche product, but a fairly large niche.
[3] http://www.slashgear.com/blackberry-mercury-rome-renderings-...
Yes, that's true and so sad.
I would immediately pay $1,000 for a BB Classic running Android unseen.
Android doesn't sit well with me, and I've given it several good runs. I'm also at this point firmly entrenched in the Apple ecosystem (AppleTV, Macs in the house, etc.)
And I'd still pay full retail price for such a phone. Seems to me that's BB's once last true shot at remaining a going entity. But, as already pointed out, Chen just seems incapable of getting it.
Nougat's multi-window mode should make developers care even more about it.
How large?
All the Blackberry had was a hardware keyboard. Everything else about the platform and OS was vastly weaker. Apple and Google have real, full-fledged OSes (Blackberry eventually got this, but it was really a feature phone with QWERTY keyboard). I do all kinds of productivity and work tasks on my iPhone and the keyboard text input is a small part of that.
Having a real Web browser is mission critical for the work that I do. When the iPhone first came out, that was the No. 1 reason I went with the iPhone over a Blackberry.
The iPhone also has a very robust application ecosystem that is powered by the fact that all iPhones have come with large (by Blackberry standards) responsive touchscreens. I use project management software on my phone. I have note taking programs that sync with desktop. I can even SSH into a server and update html files.
Apple put real computers in users' pockets. Blackberry just made texting and writing emails (not even full-fledged emails either!) easier to write. That's it.
For some people email is all they're looking to do and that's why it feels so much more productive. Unfortunately for BlackBerry it's a pretty small niche.
The problem is that for some reason most companies think they have to be growing tremendously or it's not worth being in business. You can make really good money on a niche - but I guess it's not enough for the current BB executives.
http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/the-21-greatest-...
You also have to keep in mind that companies switched from providing devices for employees to providing subsidizes for cell service. That's what my company does. They pay for my cell plan, but I bring my own device. When companies went away from providing people with Blackberries, that also helped doom the company.
Their core issue was that they didn't believe the iPhone was real when it was demoed in January 2007. They thought it was fake. It took them far too long to realize that Apple's vision was the right one. Had they got that immediately like Google, they might still be here today.
Blackberry did make great keyboards and their hardware was nice. BBM was an original messaging leader, but they rested on their laurels.
They've always made very competitive hardware.
But the hardware keyboards were great, as was the consistency of the interface that it allowed, something which Android and iOS need to learn about.
I also think that QNX/BB10 was a great platform. Probably the best mobile OS at the time of its release.
Windows 8 was a really good mobile OS, but it had the same issue.
Even without apps, it would run out of RAM, CPU, etc.
For a company which makes both the device and OS, there's no excuse for that kind of behavior.
About the exiting hardware business, I don't think it will be too long before BB finally crashes down and gets sold. The differentiator for them has been hardware since they ditched BBOS for Android (not saying it was a bad decission, that thing was horrible), now what's left is some java apps and some branding to put on some random ODM... Until a Microsoft, Lenovo etc gets in and buys them for their IP
My understanding is that there are several patents in this space that need to be licensed, coupled with everyone wants to copycat the best selling phones, and don't want to design a "niche" product that looks old fashioned.
Google's Andy Rubin has a patent on one design!
https://www.google.com/patents/US8488778
It's also difficult to design a slider with a large screen and not have the phone be unwieldy.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/15/5104704/i-come-not-to-pra...
"And that's where you run into trouble with physical keyboards, according to Motorola's Rick Osterloh. Keyboards "make it so you have to cut the screen size down, or have a slider form factor which adds a considerable amount of cost, thickness, and weight to the product."
That thought ought to scare current OEMs: I'm sure BB will "pivot" into IP Licensing thereafter. Then again they don't need to be sold before they start doing that
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/135924-blackberry-vienna-mer...
I think Blackberry is a bit like Yahoo! where they focused too much on sales and marketing and did not invest well in engineering and product design. When even Gingerbread Android could detect dates in emails and let me create Calendar events based on that Blackberry could not do such a simple thing.
I would buy this so fast. There's slim pickins for android phones w/ keyboards.
I can get a device like a OnePlus 3 for about 60% of the price and it has better hardware to boot. In terms of storage, RAM and CPU it's more comparable to a OnePlus 2 which is about 40% of its price.
Keyboard is nice, but not double the price and lose features I rely upon like AdAway and XPrivacy kind of nice.
Yeah, but does that really matter any more? I've found that my iPhone's speech-to-text is pretty darned good, as long as I speak with a slightly staccato cadence to make it clear where the word divisions are. I can do that much more quickly than I can type. Generally I only have problems when the connection to the server doing the conversion is poor.
I've never used Android's speech-to-text, but I have to assume it is equivalent. Can an experienced BB typist really outperform speech-to-text conversion?
Even if just talk about text creation which involves editing. Speech-to-text is impressive but once you start to edit your text you need a keyboard and perfect cursor control.
Worse, when it gets something wrong, it can be completely wrong. It doesn't help that editing is kind of a pain on iOS either, with annoying long touches and the still awkward text selection system.
Just saying, as an ex-n900 user, that niche market is much smaller than we think. I wouldn't go back to a n900 equivalent today. Typing accents in French or non-latin characters was pretty annoying.
Accents: Supposedly it works well for US english. I don't speak US english. Trying to force it usually works worse than when I had to force myself to speak Finland-Swedish for my old Nokia phones.
Punctuation: It's really annoying to have to say "dot" or "comma" all the time, and it often seems to get it wrong anyway.
Vocabulary: When messaging I rarely only use "common" words. Gaming stuff gets garbled (I just tried, and it interpreted "raid at 8" as "Friday 8"), and band names or tech-related stuff doesn't fare much better. Bonus points if it's a weird spelling or international name. Good luck getting it to recognize Movits!, Dimaa, or Nekrogoblikon, you'll need it.
Correction: I often say the bad thing, especially when under pressure from the STT timeout. AFAIK there is no way to have it delete the last N words.
Multiple languages: I switch between Swedish and English often enough that I usually forget to switch keyboard. For a keyboard this means getting wrong autocorrections, for voice input this means getting garbage. I know Android STT supports selecting multiple languages, but then it gets confused and switches back and forth all the time.
At this point, I basically only use the voice input for setting bed/egg timers with Google Now. I would use it for navigation home/to work, but I don't have a car and Maps' bike instructions are awful.
Tbh, I find it kind of creepy to have Apple, Google, Microsoft or Amazon listen to everything I say. I prefer keyboards
You can do most things with keyboard shortcuts in Kate and Eclipse.
Rant over, sorry for derailing the thread. This is a touchy subject.
On my Android phone, I've even begun "touch swiping," using swipe gestures without looking while leaning heavily on the autocompleter.
I see many older folks still use it like those 2-ways of yesteryear. Unsurprisingly they aren't too comfortable responding via text.
Yes, BB may have had better keyboards, but I don't think it's really that huge of a market.
- You can rest your fingers on the keyboard like on a real keyboard without pressing the keys (you can't do that on a touch screen)
- After a short time you start to touch type; although it's possible with an iPhone too, it's not that convenient and most keep looking on their keyboards
- Cursor control with the BB mini trackpad above the keyboard (Classic and other models), is just terrific and often needed
- Best is that all good apps including the launcher support keyboard short-cuts and you will heavily use them since the keyboard is always present (Classic and other models)
- To give you a comparison: using a BB with a keyboard feels like using Vim vs a GUI-based editor; you use Vim only with Vim's key binding fast and reliable, no need to open sliding menus, touch buttons, etc.; it's very satisfying and I really miss those times
The path BB went the recent months—putting Android on BB devices + some extra security stuff (the so called DTEK)—was a good decision. But they brought the super expensive Priv device with a slider keyboard which is for a BB rather mediocre and not like the ones from the Classic, Bold, etc. Few weeks ago, they brought us a non keyboard Alcatel-OEM phone which does not differ from any other Android except this DTEK software which you can just download on any phone (why???).
What they just need to do is to put Android on the Blackberry Classic or some phone with a similar form factor. That's it. Before they don't do this final step, they can't claim that hardware is not profitable. I don't get why the CEO didn't do this as the first thing when he started his Android strategy.