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You're defining productivity as pure typing speed. This is exactly why the iPhone killed Blackberry. All the Blackberry had was a hardware keyboard. Everything

You're defining productivity as pure typing speed. This is exactly why the iPhone killed Blackberry. 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.

jonknee 10y ago
> 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.
- bdavisx 10y ago
  I remember when the "new" Dodge trucks came out in the 1994. They were "ugly" according to most people, but Dodge/Chrysler found that 10% of the people loved them. That was enough to make a bunch of money. I think that a quality keyboard on a phone would be similar. 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-trucks-of-all-time.html http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/the-21-greatest-...
  - pwthornton 10y ago
    You guys are forgetting another reason that Blackberry cratered: People didn't want to carry two devices. Even if a Blackberry meets your email needs, if its bad for everything else you want to do professionally and personally (apps, websites, music, audio books, etc.), it's not going to be enough. Business execs wanted to carry one device all day long, and Blackberry didn't offer enough to be an all day device. 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.
    - bdavisx 10y ago
      Sorry, I should have been more specific, I meant a BB quality keyboard on an Android device. Completely agree with you on two devices.
      - pwthornton 10y ago
        I agree that BB should have come out with a high quality stock Android phone years ago. They went down that whole QNX route, and by then it was already too late. They've always made very competitive hardware.
        disordinary 10y ago
        I don't know, we had a dead blackberry drawer at work - they kept dying on us. The phones were expensive, underpowered, and pretty plasticky. 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.
ksk 10y ago
Actually, hes defining his productivity, and you're defining yours. Both of you can be right :) To your point, Apple did put a computer in my pocket, but it took away my control over it and it became _their_ computer. No root access, no control over updates, no way to copy files in and out of it, no way to control any aspect but what they let me. That is not my definition of a real computer, but an appliance. Sure, they're very successful and maybe lots of people do want an appliance, but its certainly not a real computer, the way a laptop with OSX, Linux, Windows is.
- nixos 10y ago
  Um, there was no root on Blackberry
  - ksk 10y ago
    Well, sure.. it didn't run UNIX. But for for all intents and purposes you had 'root access'. You could install any BBOS you wanted, look at the entire filesystem and install any third party app (w/o signing, or appworld), and the OS exposed APIs which iOS doesn't. All of these things were out of the box and didn't rely on jailbreaking or exploiting vulnerabilities in the OS.

jonknee 10y ago

> 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.

bdavisx 10y ago
I remember when the "new" Dodge trucks came out in the 1994. They were "ugly" according to most people, but Dodge/Chrysler found that 10% of the people loved them. That was enough to make a bunch of money. I think that a quality keyboard on a phone would be similar. 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-trucks-of-all-time.html http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/the-21-greatest-...
- pwthornton 10y ago
  You guys are forgetting another reason that Blackberry cratered: People didn't want to carry two devices. Even if a Blackberry meets your email needs, if its bad for everything else you want to do professionally and personally (apps, websites, music, audio books, etc.), it's not going to be enough. Business execs wanted to carry one device all day long, and Blackberry didn't offer enough to be an all day device. 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.
  - bdavisx 10y ago
    Sorry, I should have been more specific, I meant a BB quality keyboard on an Android device. Completely agree with you on two devices.
    - pwthornton 10y ago
      I agree that BB should have come out with a high quality stock Android phone years ago. They went down that whole QNX route, and by then it was already too late. They've always made very competitive hardware.
      - disordinary 10y ago
        I don't know, we had a dead blackberry drawer at work - they kept dying on us. The phones were expensive, underpowered, and pretty plasticky. 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.

ksk 10y ago

Actually, hes defining his productivity, and you're defining yours. Both of you can be right :) To your point, Apple did put a computer in my pocket, but it took away my control over it and it became _their_ computer. No root access, no control over updates, no way to copy files in and out of it, no way to control any aspect but what they let me. That is not my definition of a real computer, but an appliance. Sure, they're very successful and maybe lots of people do want an appliance, but its certainly not a real computer, the way a laptop with OSX, Linux, Windows is.

nixos 10y ago
Um, there was no root on Blackberry
- ksk 10y ago
  Well, sure.. it didn't run UNIX. But for for all intents and purposes you had 'root access'. You could install any BBOS you wanted, look at the entire filesystem and install any third party app (w/o signing, or appworld), and the OS exposed APIs which iOS doesn't. All of these things were out of the box and didn't rely on jailbreaking or exploiting vulnerabilities in the OS.