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This is frustrating - I agree that they've finally gotten their act together, particularly with 10.2. The writing has been on the wall for a while - I stopped

This is frustrating - I agree that they've finally gotten their act together, particularly with 10.2. The writing has been on the wall for a while - I stopped building apps for them earlier this year. I've tried Android and iPhone and don't particularly want to return to either one. The former because of too many apps that want all the permissions under the sun while the OS offers a complete lack of fine-grained controls of them[1], and a subpar UI experience (subjective, I know). The latter due to lack of control without rooting it. My windows 8 desktop experience has spoiled that OS for me on a phone, fairly or otherwise. But it begins to look like I will have no choice very soon. I hope they manage to pull out of this - they're still releasing a new flagship, and have other irons in the fire - but it's not looking good. [1] as in 'yes, let the app get to GPS, but no do not let it get to my personal data or phone info'. Something BBOS legacy offered, and BB10 only slightly less - when you make an app you were expected to plan for the user to deny functionality and degrade nicely.

maxsilver 13y ago
I completely agree, especially around the permissions. I'm also worried that this is the end. Every previous company thats built decent 'prosumer' or 'power-user' phones appears to be dead or dying. I loved my Palm Pre (WebOS), it was my first smartphone. They're dead now. I upgraded to an HTC Arrive (Windows Phone 7), but HTC's slowly dying off, and no one makes (or Microsoft blocks?) hardware keyboards for that platform now. Windows Phone also didn't support any notifications or push notifications at the time (and 'live tiles' aren't solid enough to replace them). I upgraded to a Motorola Photon Q. Software's ok, and there's no terrible skin. But the battery life and reception are both terrible (and the battery is sealed in, so every day it gets worse...). I knew the sealed battery was a mistake, I tried it anyway and got burned. Won't be making that mistake again. The Q10 was my last refuge. When BlackBerry goes away, I suspect there will be literally nothing left for me to turn to.
ifni 13y ago
Android 4.3 has that fine-grained permission control built in now, but it's hidden. It may not be 100% production ready, but it can be exposed and used by apps that launch it, such as: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.schurich.android.tools.appopsstarter https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.schurich.a... Of course, the chances are that no small number of apps you might be tempted to restrict will promptly crash since they'll assume that having asked for the permission up front means they'll get whatever data they want when they ask for it.

maxsilver 13y ago

I completely agree, especially around the permissions. I'm also worried that this is the end. Every previous company thats built decent 'prosumer' or 'power-user' phones appears to be dead or dying. I loved my Palm Pre (WebOS), it was my first smartphone. They're dead now. I upgraded to an HTC Arrive (Windows Phone 7), but HTC's slowly dying off, and no one makes (or Microsoft blocks?) hardware keyboards for that platform now. Windows Phone also didn't support any notifications or push notifications at the time (and 'live tiles' aren't solid enough to replace them). I upgraded to a Motorola Photon Q. Software's ok, and there's no terrible skin. But the battery life and reception are both terrible (and the battery is sealed in, so every day it gets worse...). I knew the sealed battery was a mistake, I tried it anyway and got burned. Won't be making that mistake again. The Q10 was my last refuge. When BlackBerry goes away, I suspect there will be literally nothing left for me to turn to.

ifni 13y ago

Android 4.3 has that fine-grained permission control built in now, but it's hidden. It may not be 100% production ready, but it can be exposed and used by apps that launch it, such as: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.schurich.android.tools.appopsstarter https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.schurich.a... Of course, the chances are that no small number of apps you might be tempted to restrict will promptly crash since they'll assume that having asked for the permission up front means they'll get whatever data they want when they ask for it.