5 ms·

The Rise and Fall of the BlackBerry

16 points by tjwds 3y ago

Baguette5242 3y ago
What killed the blackberry it’s the lack of apps, picture quality and everything that made the iPhone a easy casual phone for everyone. Not only a phone for executives in their 40’s For emails, connectivity and messaging, BlackBerrys were insanely good. As soon as you stepped out of these fields, it sucked. I still believe there’s a (niche) room for a keyboard smartphone.
- rogerkirkness 3y ago
  Signal and iMessage really only recently caught up with how awesome BBM was.
  - paradox460 3y ago
    I miss BBM all the time. I wonder what would have happened if RIM didn't try to treat it like a garden gate, and instead opened it up, or put apps on other platforms early on
- an_aparallel 3y ago
  i hope what killed the blackberry is what brings it back. a phone that has qwerty, a OLED non colour screen (to hardcode the idea of distraction free), 4g, a downloadable local map database that works without internet and can read me instructions while im driving) is made - i'll be all over it. i feel like a bot at this stage on HN banging on about the lack of options :/
  - twbarber 3y ago
    There are dozens of us!
  - skydhash 3y ago
    I was too young for PDA (My introduction to tech was iPhone 3G-4 and Windows XP SP2). But I've been looking at demos on Youtube and they do practically all I need (Except calling, but I rarely do that to). I've reduced the apps I use to a similar state, but I'd like the physical keyboard back and a cursor like the the one on the Apple TV remote.
  - rchaud 3y ago
    Unihertz has been making keyboard phones specifically for Blackberry fans for several years now. In today's world, a Kickstarter-driven, Shenzhen-based small batch manufacturing run is the best that can be expected. Cellphones aren't a billion-dollar business for anybody besides Apple, Huawei and Samsung. Only small companies will be willing to take the risk on unconventional phones, and that comes with tradeoffs like mediocre screens and cameras.
    - an_aparallel 3y ago
      if they had a "baremetal" OS it would be perfect - the only thing stopping me getting one is that it runs on Android
- lawgimenez 3y ago
  I agree, back in the day I tried to setup Blackberry SDK on Eclipse and it was a miserable experience.
walterbell 3y ago
Earlier discussion (~200 comments) on the movie: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36021741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36021741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37306401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37306401
paradox460 3y ago
I had a BlackBerry during this transition period, the storm. It launched with no app store at all, and took nearly a year to get one. When it launched, the apps were so paired down that they were borderline useless. The SMS system didn't have conversation based chat for 6 months, so it felt like sending and receiving emails. But it did some things very well. The unified inbox was really nice, being able to see all your messages in one place. Google talk and MSN messenger, as well as BBM, were very good, talk being better even than the android version at the time. And it's media management program was extremely fully featured, having filters and search far superior to that of an iPhone or iPod at the time I was excited for the QNX based os they moved to, but it ultimately didn't move the needle

16 points by tjwds 3y ago

What killed the blackberry it’s the lack of apps, picture quality and everything that made the iPhone a easy casual phone for everyone. Not only a phone for executives in their 40’s For emails, connectivity and messaging, BlackBerrys were insanely good. As soon as you stepped out of these fields, it sucked. I still believe there’s a (niche) room for a keyboard smartphone.

rogerkirkness 3y ago
Signal and iMessage really only recently caught up with how awesome BBM was.
- paradox460 3y ago
  I miss BBM all the time. I wonder what would have happened if RIM didn't try to treat it like a garden gate, and instead opened it up, or put apps on other platforms early on
an_aparallel 3y ago
i hope what killed the blackberry is what brings it back. a phone that has qwerty, a OLED non colour screen (to hardcode the idea of distraction free), 4g, a downloadable local map database that works without internet and can read me instructions while im driving) is made - i'll be all over it. i feel like a bot at this stage on HN banging on about the lack of options :/
- twbarber 3y ago
  There are dozens of us!
- skydhash 3y ago
  I was too young for PDA (My introduction to tech was iPhone 3G-4 and Windows XP SP2). But I've been looking at demos on Youtube and they do practically all I need (Except calling, but I rarely do that to). I've reduced the apps I use to a similar state, but I'd like the physical keyboard back and a cursor like the the one on the Apple TV remote.
- rchaud 3y ago
  Unihertz has been making keyboard phones specifically for Blackberry fans for several years now. In today's world, a Kickstarter-driven, Shenzhen-based small batch manufacturing run is the best that can be expected. Cellphones aren't a billion-dollar business for anybody besides Apple, Huawei and Samsung. Only small companies will be willing to take the risk on unconventional phones, and that comes with tradeoffs like mediocre screens and cameras.
  - an_aparallel 3y ago
    if they had a "baremetal" OS it would be perfect - the only thing stopping me getting one is that it runs on Android
lawgimenez 3y ago
I agree, back in the day I tried to setup Blackberry SDK on Eclipse and it was a miserable experience.

walterbell 3y ago

Earlier discussion (~200 comments) on the movie: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36021741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36021741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37306401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37306401

paradox460 3y ago

I had a BlackBerry during this transition period, the storm. It launched with no app store at all, and took nearly a year to get one. When it launched, the apps were so paired down that they were borderline useless. The SMS system didn't have conversation based chat for 6 months, so it felt like sending and receiving emails. But it did some things very well. The unified inbox was really nice, being able to see all your messages in one place. Google talk and MSN messenger, as well as BBM, were very good, talk being better even than the android version at the time. And it's media management program was extremely fully featured, having filters and search far superior to that of an iPhone or iPod at the time I was excited for the QNX based os they moved to, but it ultimately didn't move the needle