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I really hope they survive, in some way. There is really a market for enterprise grade devices with great keyboards, worldwide roaming (flat-rate, <60$ for eve

I really hope they survive, in some way. There is really a market for enterprise grade devices with great keyboards, worldwide roaming (flat-rate, <60$ for everywhere mobile internet with most carriers), hardened security and real time push services. They just have to get their sh*t right. For example: I got my first Blackberry 3 years ago and they had all the promises for threaded emails and two-way syncing (marking mails as read when I read them on other devices). And… no news over there after so much time. It's just a shame that years and years after they can't even figure the simplest things, like a better user experience and better user experience (most users don't ever get to know about how to get most of their phone, with keyboard shortcuts and real multitasking because of how hard is everything to figure out). Of course they will have to lay off people, open their platform a lot more and work hard, but I don't think they even have a clue of where they should hit. The sad thing is that even their users know… It's probably their stupid corporative system that will sink them.

danilocampos 15y ago
> the simplest things, like a better user experience A better user experience is simple for users but requires non-trivial levels of design expertise, direction and buy-in from leadership. It's not at all surprising to me that in a heavily corporate environment with two CEOs, this would be an impossible needle to thread.
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  I keep hearing about user experience. I have a blackberry 9860 and for the life of me I can't figure out what it so horrible about using it. Is there a direct comparison checklist somewhere that breaks down the joy of iPhone vs the horror of Blackberry?
  - nchlswu 15y ago
    There is a lot of issues. Maybe not so much UI related, but a lot of menus, workflows, etc., are just too complicated. The BlackBerry key is essential to the UX and so are shortcuts for powerusers. But for the average end user consumer, this is a poor UX. I don't have any problem with using BlackBerry, but there are definitely some issues. And even if you don't think the BlackBerry UX is horrible, the iPhone in many people's minds is superior - and that's all that matters. UX is actually an interesting story at RIM. They made some interesting strides and had a nice empirically based approach towards improving the UX. Upon the acquisition of TaT, though, it appears they've ditched that approach and are giving the designers free reigns - very similar to what Google did with their recent redesign IMO.
    - grannyg00se 15y ago
      I think Apple did a really great job innovating (or at least popularizing) the touch interface. There is some clever use of multi-finger gestures that really works - once you get to know them. But I find it similar to any other UX. You have to learn it to really enjoy it. The first time I had a program open on an iPad I had to ask a friend how to close the program - five finger crumple motion. And how to bring up the list of open programs - four finger swipe up from bottom. Great. Once you learn it. But I still don't see a vast chasm of improvement over blackberry UX. I suppose I'd have to watch people using the two devices. I'm sure others have studied this to death but I've never seen a well conducted UX contrast study available online.
      - mietek 15y ago
        You're describing recently introduced optional multi-finger gestures. The standard way to get to the iOS home screen is to press the hardware home screen button.
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    It has a screen lock and a device password. It has an entire physical button to unlock the device, in an awkward-to-reach-one-handed place, and all that does is let me type in a password. It's a bothersome redundant thing every time I go to use it. It doesn't remember open websites for more than 10 minutes after the browser is closed, and after using Mobile Safari, it's like using a device with alzheimers. The default menu/home screen is just dreadful, filled with pointless sliding panels going up and down, left and right, by default with lots of redundant icons, but not adding anything useful, just triggering often and accidentally. There is an extremely fine distinction between pressing the back button (which does one thing), and pressing and holding it (which does another thing). It's way too easy to accidentally press for too long. The much vaunted messaging abilities are a mess - email is empty because I have no POP accounts, messages doesn't contain my messages, Text Messages does, and my email is in "Desktop". I set it up this way to stop it being even worse and pushing all kinds of mixed message types into one list (who wants that?!), and that (by default) puts the top item in the list as the message I've just sent. On a screen which shows 5 things, the least important is the one I've just finished dealing with. The web browser is poor compared to mobile safari. I always have to fight what I want (click on a link) with what it wants (needlessly zoom in more and more and more). Resizing with gestures is finnicky - it will often resize as I want, then undo to suit itself. The trackpad replacement to the thumb-ball is horrible. It is awfully sensitive in one sense (jumping long distances when I'm not meaning to touch it) and awfully insensitive in another sense (often have to move my thumb over it several times before it registers at all). The 'convenience' key is in such an inconvenient place I've had to disable it because I kept pressing it by accident. It often says things like "this charging source cannot charge your blackberry" when it definitely can because I have before, or it's the proper adapter and cable. The menu system is a nested mess - the difference between 'device setup' and 'options', the reliance on the Blackberry button to bring up a long scrollable list of 10-20 things. This one has a touchscreen, but the icons don't have text under them and touching to select them doesn't change the "what you've selected text" so it is mystery meat navigation for the less commonly used ones. It took five hours to install an updgrade. And that's normal. Nothing about it is as bad as a phone from 10 years ago, but many, many things about it grate as unpolished, clunky, as if designed-to-annoy.
thematt 15y ago
I wouldn't worry, if there really is a market for those things you listed somebody else will step up to fill the gap. Especially with enterprise customers who rarely go un-served for very long.
notatoad 15y ago
>better user experience This is exactly what you won't get from a company that insists on pandering to the enterprise. The bean counters and IT departments that make purchasing decisions don't care about UX. you need to take a consumer-first product and upgrade it to work in the enterprise networks if you want UX. and that's exactly why android and iOS have been outpacing BB lately - they built their devices into something that people want, not just something that corporations want.
dfc 15y ago
" And… no news over there after so much time." No news over where? About what?
stcredzero 15y ago
There is really a market for enterprise grade devices with great keyboards, worldwide roaming..., hardened security and real time push services. In a way, I was wrong and I was right. When people were predicting the death of RIM a year or more ago, I noted all the above. RIM and Blackberry won't die from lack of features or from an inadequacy of the basic product. Their own internal pathologies which keep them from executing will kill them off.
dbg9 15y ago
> There is really a market for enterprise grade devices... Not really. Who wants to carry two communication devices? Everyone already has an iPhone, or an Android. Do I really want another one? Who is this mythical consumer who ONLY wants business communication on a device? They don't exist. If your product doesn't appeal to consumers for their personal needs... they aren't going to go out of their way to use it for their business needs.

danilocampos 15y ago

> the simplest things, like a better user experience A better user experience is simple for users but requires non-trivial levels of design expertise, direction and buy-in from leadership. It's not at all surprising to me that in a heavily corporate environment with two CEOs, this would be an impossible needle to thread.

grannyg00se 15y ago
I keep hearing about user experience. I have a blackberry 9860 and for the life of me I can't figure out what it so horrible about using it. Is there a direct comparison checklist somewhere that breaks down the joy of iPhone vs the horror of Blackberry?
- nchlswu 15y ago
  There is a lot of issues. Maybe not so much UI related, but a lot of menus, workflows, etc., are just too complicated. The BlackBerry key is essential to the UX and so are shortcuts for powerusers. But for the average end user consumer, this is a poor UX. I don't have any problem with using BlackBerry, but there are definitely some issues. And even if you don't think the BlackBerry UX is horrible, the iPhone in many people's minds is superior - and that's all that matters. UX is actually an interesting story at RIM. They made some interesting strides and had a nice empirically based approach towards improving the UX. Upon the acquisition of TaT, though, it appears they've ditched that approach and are giving the designers free reigns - very similar to what Google did with their recent redesign IMO.
  - grannyg00se 15y ago
    I think Apple did a really great job innovating (or at least popularizing) the touch interface. There is some clever use of multi-finger gestures that really works - once you get to know them. But I find it similar to any other UX. You have to learn it to really enjoy it. The first time I had a program open on an iPad I had to ask a friend how to close the program - five finger crumple motion. And how to bring up the list of open programs - four finger swipe up from bottom. Great. Once you learn it. But I still don't see a vast chasm of improvement over blackberry UX. I suppose I'd have to watch people using the two devices. I'm sure others have studied this to death but I've never seen a well conducted UX contrast study available online.
    - mietek 15y ago
      You're describing recently introduced optional multi-finger gestures. The standard way to get to the iOS home screen is to press the hardware home screen button.
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  It has a screen lock and a device password. It has an entire physical button to unlock the device, in an awkward-to-reach-one-handed place, and all that does is let me type in a password. It's a bothersome redundant thing every time I go to use it. It doesn't remember open websites for more than 10 minutes after the browser is closed, and after using Mobile Safari, it's like using a device with alzheimers. The default menu/home screen is just dreadful, filled with pointless sliding panels going up and down, left and right, by default with lots of redundant icons, but not adding anything useful, just triggering often and accidentally. There is an extremely fine distinction between pressing the back button (which does one thing), and pressing and holding it (which does another thing). It's way too easy to accidentally press for too long. The much vaunted messaging abilities are a mess - email is empty because I have no POP accounts, messages doesn't contain my messages, Text Messages does, and my email is in "Desktop". I set it up this way to stop it being even worse and pushing all kinds of mixed message types into one list (who wants that?!), and that (by default) puts the top item in the list as the message I've just sent. On a screen which shows 5 things, the least important is the one I've just finished dealing with. The web browser is poor compared to mobile safari. I always have to fight what I want (click on a link) with what it wants (needlessly zoom in more and more and more). Resizing with gestures is finnicky - it will often resize as I want, then undo to suit itself. The trackpad replacement to the thumb-ball is horrible. It is awfully sensitive in one sense (jumping long distances when I'm not meaning to touch it) and awfully insensitive in another sense (often have to move my thumb over it several times before it registers at all). The 'convenience' key is in such an inconvenient place I've had to disable it because I kept pressing it by accident. It often says things like "this charging source cannot charge your blackberry" when it definitely can because I have before, or it's the proper adapter and cable. The menu system is a nested mess - the difference between 'device setup' and 'options', the reliance on the Blackberry button to bring up a long scrollable list of 10-20 things. This one has a touchscreen, but the icons don't have text under them and touching to select them doesn't change the "what you've selected text" so it is mystery meat navigation for the less commonly used ones. It took five hours to install an updgrade. And that's normal. Nothing about it is as bad as a phone from 10 years ago, but many, many things about it grate as unpolished, clunky, as if designed-to-annoy.

thematt 15y ago

I wouldn't worry, if there really is a market for those things you listed somebody else will step up to fill the gap. Especially with enterprise customers who rarely go un-served for very long.

notatoad 15y ago

>better user experience This is exactly what you won't get from a company that insists on pandering to the enterprise. The bean counters and IT departments that make purchasing decisions don't care about UX. you need to take a consumer-first product and upgrade it to work in the enterprise networks if you want UX. and that's exactly why android and iOS have been outpacing BB lately - they built their devices into something that people want, not just something that corporations want.

dfc 15y ago

" And… no news over there after so much time." No news over where? About what?

stcredzero 15y ago

There is really a market for enterprise grade devices with great keyboards, worldwide roaming..., hardened security and real time push services. In a way, I was wrong and I was right. When people were predicting the death of RIM a year or more ago, I noted all the above. RIM and Blackberry won't die from lack of features or from an inadequacy of the basic product. Their own internal pathologies which keep them from executing will kill them off.

dbg9 15y ago

> There is really a market for enterprise grade devices... Not really. Who wants to carry two communication devices? Everyone already has an iPhone, or an Android. Do I really want another one? Who is this mythical consumer who ONLY wants business communication on a device? They don't exist. If your product doesn't appeal to consumers for their personal needs... they aren't going to go out of their way to use it for their business needs.