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>Blackberry lost because of their keyboard. Controversial take. I think Blackberry lost primarily because of their locked-in/niche OS at a time when the app sc

>Blackberry lost because of their keyboard. Controversial take. I think Blackberry lost primarily because of their locked-in/niche OS at a time when the app scene was exploding. The keyboard if anything was a compelling reason to stay with them, especially in the exec/professionals sector of the market. If blackberry had successfully executed a full iteration of their build/design quality with Android OS at a point where they could have retained their enterprise dominance, I think they would still be a major player today. But it didn't go that way (a major cause for which was the scale of change that would have been needed to pivot BES/BIS early enough). I don't think the keyboard contributed to Blackberry's demise. That weird scroll nubbin, on the other hand.... and let's not forget the 'haptic' touch on the Storm.

msh 6y ago
I would argue that the BB keyboards was bad, its just that contemporary alternatives like T9 and the first touchscreens were even worse. I would say that a modern swipe keyboard after training by far beats old style BB keyboards (not real computer keybords where you can use up to 10 fingers).
- nikau 6y ago
  Actually blackberry keyboards were awesome, I use swype on Android which is pretty good, but the blackberry was less fatiguing. I still miss my blackberry for sending emails. There were keyboard shortcuts for everything too, like press F to forward or R to reply, q to expand display names to email addresses. You could also assign tasks for when you held down a key at the home screen. Most models also had a dedicated hardware mute button with distinct tones for mute/unmute. If you were a heavy user they were much quicker than touch screens. They just sucked at anything unrelated to email, and weren't great for most users who never bother to learn their tools and become efficient.

msh 6y ago

I would argue that the BB keyboards was bad, its just that contemporary alternatives like T9 and the first touchscreens were even worse. I would say that a modern swipe keyboard after training by far beats old style BB keyboards (not real computer keybords where you can use up to 10 fingers).

nikau 6y ago
Actually blackberry keyboards were awesome, I use swype on Android which is pretty good, but the blackberry was less fatiguing. I still miss my blackberry for sending emails. There were keyboard shortcuts for everything too, like press F to forward or R to reply, q to expand display names to email addresses. You could also assign tasks for when you held down a key at the home screen. Most models also had a dedicated hardware mute button with distinct tones for mute/unmute. If you were a heavy user they were much quicker than touch screens. They just sucked at anything unrelated to email, and weren't great for most users who never bother to learn their tools and become efficient.