17 ms·

How I built the best-selling BlackBerry app

234 points by nsainsbury 7y ago

saagarjha 7y ago
> Critically, from that handler, it was then possible to get a reference to the current UI stack via the call to UiApplication.getUiApplication() - Once you had that reference, you could do whatever you want with any screens in the current display stack. You could pop screens from the stack, push new screens on the stack, and grab any screen in the stack and dig in and modify any of the UI components on any screen (deleting them, replacing them, etc.). Give people extensibility and they can do things you'd never imagine: just take a look at the early jailbreaking community, who had neither APIs nor support from Apple but were able to do quite a bit just by being able to inject code into system applications to augment them. (I like to think that a faint echo lives on today in Mail plugins for macOS.) Sadly, we seem to be moving away from this for reasons that are touted to be for security…
- signal11 7y ago
  Security issues arise when extensibility is paired with the absence of a good sandbox and permissions model. DOS is the other example -- it was amazingly extensible to the point multitasking operating environments like DESQview[1] was available for it, but was also very susceptible to malware. In the case of email on any given platform, it should be possible for an application to add functionality to email, but also to ensure (to use the author's example) that it cannot peek into your bank app. I suspect given email's not as popular as it once was, and so email plugins are too much trouble for first-party mail clients, given their attack surface. Platforms like Slack and Teams do offer extensibility though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Sadly as Windows, Office and Android have proven multiple times, extensibility without security knobs comes with an heavy price. Hence Win32 and UWP containers, Android black listing of NDK and SDK APIs, with hardware sandboxes, plugins removal on browsers, moving stuff back into multi-processes with IPC,...
- pjc50 7y ago
  The security issue is very real. Ultimately the distinction between a useful capability-adding hack and an exploit is whether the end user wanted it to do what it does. And there's a big supply of what are euphemistically called "potentially unwanted programs" (PUPs) which trick the user into installing keyloggers, etc.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Yeah, I know. Today's platforms unfortunately make it difficult to do this at all because of things like codesigning.
    - simonh 7y ago
      It's unfortunate that it's difficult to trick users into installing keyloggers? Sorry if I come across as confrontational, I'm just after clarity, but that's what a plain reading of your reply actually says.
      - girvo 7y ago
        It’s unfortunate that having true control over the software on your device no longer exists in that form: but it’s good that users aren’t infected with malware. These are not mutually exclusive opinions I don’t think?
  - dahfizz 7y ago
    I think the Android model is perfectly good here. You get the option to load unsigned apps or unlock the bootloader, etc, but those options are all off by default and full of warnings to the user.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      And “warnings” like UAC worked really well to keep Windows secure and to keep ransomware and malware from infecting Windows computers. It’s also not working too well to keep Android devices secure.
- thedance 7y ago
  Original BlackBerry os was just bare metal programming on an embedded x86. Before they went with Java there was not even the pretense of protection, you just read other apps’ data if you wanted to.
- wingerlang 7y ago
  The development scene for is still alive and kicking, but it definitely have reduced in the amount of "WOW" software being released throughout the years.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    The jailbreaking scene? As far as I could tell, it had been reduced to a shadow of its former self, with an ever-larger share of toxic people stirring up drama as the "old guard" left the community.
    - wingerlang 7y ago
      The glory days are definitely over both in terms of creativity, talent and motivation. But there's been a bump in the past 1/1.5 year so with the more frequent jailbreaks coming out, which is quite nice. Drama, yes there is a lot I guess. But I've been an active developer since 2012 and I think it is easy to not involve yourself in it.
imafish 7y ago
But how much did it make? :D
- Insanity 7y ago
  I guess it would be hard to really measure the impact with 100% certainty. There's the sales part, but there's also the "got a job at blackberry" part which might or might not have happened without the app. And by the sounds of it, a good job as well!
swypych 7y ago
I love these stories, Neil was basically able to create a business on what essentially amounts to hack.
- gfiorav 7y ago
  There are so many reasons why I wouldn't have done this nowadays: - Don't implement a feature - Don't rely on a hack that could change ... in the end, it worked for him. Great write up indeed.
  - exikyut 7y ago
    > Don't implement a feature This obviously requires contextualization and I naturally assume it was stated with that context implicit, but I'm not entirely sure what the connotation is. Don't implement OS-level features, so when the OS (re)does them (potentially better, notwithstanding incompetence) you die?
bb101 7y ago
Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but I miss my BlackBerry Bold. A buzz in the pocket, email symbol on the screen, main button to open the email, right-click button to forward, physical scroll to a recent colleague and select, lock & back in pocket. All that before 3G. Easy, quick and no fuss, muscle memory took care of most of it.
- kilroy123 7y ago
  I was watching the movie "Up in the Air" last night. There is a scene where George Clooney's character is chatting on his blackberry, and the buzzing sound made me feel super nostalgic. RIP BBM. I often still wish phones had physical keyboards.
  - fuball63 7y ago
    The Blackberry Key2 has pretty good reviews so far. Ive been on a Blackberry Classic for 5 years now, when it goes that is probably what Ill get.
    - thedance 7y ago
      That keyboard looks really hard to use compared to the ones people associate with classic models like the 850. Isn’t space between keys important for usability?
      - brazzy 7y ago
        I'm using a Key 2 LE. The keyboard is perfectly usable. The main usability downside is that all punctuation and digits requires pressing a modifier key.
  - smush 7y ago
    Some do. Portrait style ones are the BB Key2 or Unihertz Titan Landscape keyboard is the Fxtec Pro1
  - martin_a 7y ago
    I would love if someone would revive the HTC G1/HTC Dream. That was my first smartphone and I loved the dual use with the sliding keyboard in landscape mode. Should be possible to make something like this with all the improvements we had along the way... Anyone listening here? Please make it happen! :-)
Havoc 7y ago
That's a cool write-up. Interesting how one small piece of technical knowledge changed someone's life
animalnewbie 7y ago
BB10 and Windows Phone 8 were the victims of the apple Google duopoly but both were individually far ahead of them. I still have hope Microsoft would make a comeback. I could hope that BB open sources BB10 but that is not going to happen.
- thedance 7y ago
  I mean, no. BlackBerry was a victim of having a terrible product going head to head with the iPhone. As a development platform it was garbage. I vividly remember the inaugural BlackBerry developer conference where one of the sessions devolved into a revolt. People had written apps for the iPhone and they were not pleased with the APIs on the BB. Every attendee at that conference was supposed to receive a 9000 but they shipped a year late. RIM needed no duopoly to kill them. They died of natural causes.
  - mardifoufs 7y ago
    Yep, I think people tend to forget how bad the blackberry line up was compared to the iPhones and even androids they were competing against. Their flagship in ~2011 was the Bold, which could barely browse the internet, had a horrible camera and an extremely dated UI. Going up against the iPhone 4s which is still functional to this day. Sometimes some companies just deserve to fail. The current duopoly formed because the competition just couldn't keep up, and that's on them
    - thedance 7y ago
      The API for BB app development allowed you to have UI elements like text labels or buttons, stacked vertically on the screen. That was the whole thing. If you wanted a table you were on your own. The web browser was very similar to MSIE 3, or NetPositive: it laid everything out vertically, didn’t support tables or CSS. When the iPhone came out with a real web browser it was like it came from another galaxy.
      - exikyut 7y ago
rcarmo 7y ago
It's ironic to think that one of the main selling points of Blackberry was end-to-end security (the devices talked to an on-premises server via a dedicated mobile APN which had to comply with a number of requirements), and yet its on-device security model allowed an app to take over such critical functionality _by design_. I have a number of fun stories about RIM (I was one of the BB product managers at a telco), and this post reminded me that it might be a good time to record them for posterity... :)
- jtl999 7y ago
  I'd be interested in hearing about it. From the (limited) amount I do know, it seemed like BB was a mix of "security by obscurity" with some memory safety (Java) and so called "internal code audits" by RIM.
  - thedance 7y ago
    The security of the BlackBerry came from the fact that an organization could deploy their own data message servers, the “BES” that’s connected directly to your intranet. It was a bit vpn-like, but at the application layer. IT guys liked it because it made them feel like they were in charge, which is the main feature enterprise IT guys shop for.
    - rcarmo 7y ago
      This is an extremely accurate statement that can be complemented by the telco side - telcos that sold BlackBerry devices saw it as a great way to "lock in" customers in the business/corporate sector, add an extra data service to the customers' bill, and reduce the number of bandwidth-guzzling PDAs (and PCs) on the fledgeling GPRS networks (which were a far cry from the [3-5]G networks we have today). It was initially played as an exclusive (not many telcos wanted to devote APNs to manufacturers or set up the tunnelling to the BES), which helped cement that worldview. From an IT perspective again, you also had pretty decent device management (activation/restriction/lockout/wipe) features. Customers, on the other hand, loved having usable e-mail and calendaring on their pockets (and later IM, but that's part to RIM's failed attempt at going mainstream, and I do thing I will write that post soon...). Oh, and they also loved week long battery life. Sad that is now a thing of the distant past.
schlu 7y ago
This was such a fun walk down nostalgia lane. The mountain of hacks both available and required on BlackBerry was incredible. I worked at a startup that built a BlackBerry app in 2007. I wrote up my experience here: https://schlu.org/2014/05/29/Things-Are-Better.html https://schlu.org/2014/05/29/Things-Are-Better.html
honest_tovarich 7y ago
What is BlackBerry?
dmix 7y ago
I see it also had basic emojis or "smiley" support, heh. I like the simplicity of it all, ignoring all of the obvious security issues. https://i.imgur.com/ho3XV6q.png https://i.imgur.com/ho3XV6q.png
dangerscouse 7y ago
Ha, snap! We did the same with the PhoneListener(?) class and our PBX client. Allowed us to cancel and make calls, send DTMF for call-back and call-through. I also had my own app which sent calls straight to speakerphone. I look back on BB with alot of nostalgia, you really had to work to make things look good. If you didn't want your Views (widgets) black, white and blue then you were making them from scratch.
ir77 7y ago
blackberry was the case of 'not knowing any better'. i never had to use one for work but blackberry was my first smart phone, it came with a truly unlimited plan from verizon. here are some fond memories of it: - i got notification that new OS was available, i did an over the air update and it wiped 90% of my contacts. i came from dumbphones and remember i had to re-enter 100 or so contacts by hand, i don't think i ever upgraded the SW on it again. - went out to HH with some friends and getting ready to go home i thought of using the internet on my fancy BB to look up the bus schedule, i pulled up the cttransit website and it would not open the .pdf with the bus time natively, it pointed me to buying some pdf viewer for something like $25. at the same time, my co-workers iphone 3G or whatever it was, opened the pdf without any additional apps. so much for a "computer" in your pocket and being all about "business and not play", the stereotypical mantra of old crackberry.com. i think the next year on valentines verizon got the iphone 4 and that was the end of blackberry for me. i can't believe people have nostalgia for this garbage phone.

234 points by nsainsbury 7y ago

> Critically, from that handler, it was then possible to get a reference to the current UI stack via the call to UiApplication.getUiApplication() - Once you had that reference, you could do whatever you want with any screens in the current display stack. You could pop screens from the stack, push new screens on the stack, and grab any screen in the stack and dig in and modify any of the UI components on any screen (deleting them, replacing them, etc.). Give people extensibility and they can do things you'd never imagine: just take a look at the early jailbreaking community, who had neither APIs nor support from Apple but were able to do quite a bit just by being able to inject code into system applications to augment them. (I like to think that a faint echo lives on today in Mail plugins for macOS.) Sadly, we seem to be moving away from this for reasons that are touted to be for security…

signal11 7y ago
Security issues arise when extensibility is paired with the absence of a good sandbox and permissions model. DOS is the other example -- it was amazingly extensible to the point multitasking operating environments like DESQview[1] was available for it, but was also very susceptible to malware. In the case of email on any given platform, it should be possible for an application to add functionality to email, but also to ensure (to use the author's example) that it cannot peek into your bank app. I suspect given email's not as popular as it once was, and so email plugins are too much trouble for first-party mail clients, given their attack surface. Platforms like Slack and Teams do offer extensibility though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview
pjmlp 7y ago
Sadly as Windows, Office and Android have proven multiple times, extensibility without security knobs comes with an heavy price. Hence Win32 and UWP containers, Android black listing of NDK and SDK APIs, with hardware sandboxes, plugins removal on browsers, moving stuff back into multi-processes with IPC,...
pjc50 7y ago
The security issue is very real. Ultimately the distinction between a useful capability-adding hack and an exploit is whether the end user wanted it to do what it does. And there's a big supply of what are euphemistically called "potentially unwanted programs" (PUPs) which trick the user into installing keyloggers, etc.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Yeah, I know. Today's platforms unfortunately make it difficult to do this at all because of things like codesigning.
  - simonh 7y ago
    It's unfortunate that it's difficult to trick users into installing keyloggers? Sorry if I come across as confrontational, I'm just after clarity, but that's what a plain reading of your reply actually says.
    - girvo 7y ago
      It’s unfortunate that having true control over the software on your device no longer exists in that form: but it’s good that users aren’t infected with malware. These are not mutually exclusive opinions I don’t think?
- dahfizz 7y ago
  I think the Android model is perfectly good here. You get the option to load unsigned apps or unlock the bootloader, etc, but those options are all off by default and full of warnings to the user.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    And “warnings” like UAC worked really well to keep Windows secure and to keep ransomware and malware from infecting Windows computers. It’s also not working too well to keep Android devices secure.
thedance 7y ago
Original BlackBerry os was just bare metal programming on an embedded x86. Before they went with Java there was not even the pretense of protection, you just read other apps’ data if you wanted to.
wingerlang 7y ago
The development scene for is still alive and kicking, but it definitely have reduced in the amount of "WOW" software being released throughout the years.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  The jailbreaking scene? As far as I could tell, it had been reduced to a shadow of its former self, with an ever-larger share of toxic people stirring up drama as the "old guard" left the community.
  - wingerlang 7y ago
    The glory days are definitely over both in terms of creativity, talent and motivation. But there's been a bump in the past 1/1.5 year so with the more frequent jailbreaks coming out, which is quite nice. Drama, yes there is a lot I guess. But I've been an active developer since 2012 and I think it is easy to not involve yourself in it.

imafish 7y ago

But how much did it make? :D

Insanity 7y ago
I guess it would be hard to really measure the impact with 100% certainty. There's the sales part, but there's also the "got a job at blackberry" part which might or might not have happened without the app. And by the sounds of it, a good job as well!

swypych 7y ago

I love these stories, Neil was basically able to create a business on what essentially amounts to hack.

gfiorav 7y ago
There are so many reasons why I wouldn't have done this nowadays: - Don't implement a feature - Don't rely on a hack that could change ... in the end, it worked for him. Great write up indeed.
- exikyut 7y ago
  > Don't implement a feature This obviously requires contextualization and I naturally assume it was stated with that context implicit, but I'm not entirely sure what the connotation is. Don't implement OS-level features, so when the OS (re)does them (potentially better, notwithstanding incompetence) you die?

bb101 7y ago

Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but I miss my BlackBerry Bold. A buzz in the pocket, email symbol on the screen, main button to open the email, right-click button to forward, physical scroll to a recent colleague and select, lock & back in pocket. All that before 3G. Easy, quick and no fuss, muscle memory took care of most of it.

kilroy123 7y ago
I was watching the movie "Up in the Air" last night. There is a scene where George Clooney's character is chatting on his blackberry, and the buzzing sound made me feel super nostalgic. RIP BBM. I often still wish phones had physical keyboards.
- fuball63 7y ago
  The Blackberry Key2 has pretty good reviews so far. Ive been on a Blackberry Classic for 5 years now, when it goes that is probably what Ill get.
  - thedance 7y ago
    That keyboard looks really hard to use compared to the ones people associate with classic models like the 850. Isn’t space between keys important for usability?
    - brazzy 7y ago
      I'm using a Key 2 LE. The keyboard is perfectly usable. The main usability downside is that all punctuation and digits requires pressing a modifier key.
- smush 7y ago
  Some do. Portrait style ones are the BB Key2 or Unihertz Titan Landscape keyboard is the Fxtec Pro1
- martin_a 7y ago
  I would love if someone would revive the HTC G1/HTC Dream. That was my first smartphone and I loved the dual use with the sliding keyboard in landscape mode. Should be possible to make something like this with all the improvements we had along the way... Anyone listening here? Please make it happen! :-)

Havoc 7y ago

That's a cool write-up. Interesting how one small piece of technical knowledge changed someone's life

animalnewbie 7y ago

BB10 and Windows Phone 8 were the victims of the apple Google duopoly but both were individually far ahead of them. I still have hope Microsoft would make a comeback. I could hope that BB open sources BB10 but that is not going to happen.

thedance 7y ago
I mean, no. BlackBerry was a victim of having a terrible product going head to head with the iPhone. As a development platform it was garbage. I vividly remember the inaugural BlackBerry developer conference where one of the sessions devolved into a revolt. People had written apps for the iPhone and they were not pleased with the APIs on the BB. Every attendee at that conference was supposed to receive a 9000 but they shipped a year late. RIM needed no duopoly to kill them. They died of natural causes.
- mardifoufs 7y ago
  Yep, I think people tend to forget how bad the blackberry line up was compared to the iPhones and even androids they were competing against. Their flagship in ~2011 was the Bold, which could barely browse the internet, had a horrible camera and an extremely dated UI. Going up against the iPhone 4s which is still functional to this day. Sometimes some companies just deserve to fail. The current duopoly formed because the competition just couldn't keep up, and that's on them
  - thedance 7y ago
    The API for BB app development allowed you to have UI elements like text labels or buttons, stacked vertically on the screen. That was the whole thing. If you wanted a table you were on your own. The web browser was very similar to MSIE 3, or NetPositive: it laid everything out vertically, didn’t support tables or CSS. When the iPhone came out with a real web browser it was like it came from another galaxy.
    - exikyut 7y ago

rcarmo 7y ago

It's ironic to think that one of the main selling points of Blackberry was end-to-end security (the devices talked to an on-premises server via a dedicated mobile APN which had to comply with a number of requirements), and yet its on-device security model allowed an app to take over such critical functionality _by design_. I have a number of fun stories about RIM (I was one of the BB product managers at a telco), and this post reminded me that it might be a good time to record them for posterity... :)

jtl999 7y ago
I'd be interested in hearing about it. From the (limited) amount I do know, it seemed like BB was a mix of "security by obscurity" with some memory safety (Java) and so called "internal code audits" by RIM.
- thedance 7y ago
  The security of the BlackBerry came from the fact that an organization could deploy their own data message servers, the “BES” that’s connected directly to your intranet. It was a bit vpn-like, but at the application layer. IT guys liked it because it made them feel like they were in charge, which is the main feature enterprise IT guys shop for.
  - rcarmo 7y ago
    This is an extremely accurate statement that can be complemented by the telco side - telcos that sold BlackBerry devices saw it as a great way to "lock in" customers in the business/corporate sector, add an extra data service to the customers' bill, and reduce the number of bandwidth-guzzling PDAs (and PCs) on the fledgeling GPRS networks (which were a far cry from the [3-5]G networks we have today). It was initially played as an exclusive (not many telcos wanted to devote APNs to manufacturers or set up the tunnelling to the BES), which helped cement that worldview. From an IT perspective again, you also had pretty decent device management (activation/restriction/lockout/wipe) features. Customers, on the other hand, loved having usable e-mail and calendaring on their pockets (and later IM, but that's part to RIM's failed attempt at going mainstream, and I do thing I will write that post soon...). Oh, and they also loved week long battery life. Sad that is now a thing of the distant past.

schlu 7y ago

This was such a fun walk down nostalgia lane. The mountain of hacks both available and required on BlackBerry was incredible. I worked at a startup that built a BlackBerry app in 2007. I wrote up my experience here: https://schlu.org/2014/05/29/Things-Are-Better.html https://schlu.org/2014/05/29/Things-Are-Better.html

honest_tovarich 7y ago

What is BlackBerry?

dmix 7y ago

I see it also had basic emojis or "smiley" support, heh. I like the simplicity of it all, ignoring all of the obvious security issues. https://i.imgur.com/ho3XV6q.png https://i.imgur.com/ho3XV6q.png

dangerscouse 7y ago

Ha, snap! We did the same with the PhoneListener(?) class and our PBX client. Allowed us to cancel and make calls, send DTMF for call-back and call-through. I also had my own app which sent calls straight to speakerphone. I look back on BB with alot of nostalgia, you really had to work to make things look good. If you didn't want your Views (widgets) black, white and blue then you were making them from scratch.

ir77 7y ago

blackberry was the case of 'not knowing any better'. i never had to use one for work but blackberry was my first smart phone, it came with a truly unlimited plan from verizon. here are some fond memories of it: - i got notification that new OS was available, i did an over the air update and it wiped 90% of my contacts. i came from dumbphones and remember i had to re-enter 100 or so contacts by hand, i don't think i ever upgraded the SW on it again. - went out to HH with some friends and getting ready to go home i thought of using the internet on my fancy BB to look up the bus schedule, i pulled up the cttransit website and it would not open the .pdf with the bus time natively, it pointed me to buying some pdf viewer for something like $25. at the same time, my co-workers iphone 3G or whatever it was, opened the pdf without any additional apps. so much for a "computer" in your pocket and being all about "business and not play", the stereotypical mantra of old crackberry.com. i think the next year on valentines verizon got the iphone 4 and that was the end of blackberry for me. i can't believe people have nostalgia for this garbage phone.