4 ms·

This article starts out acting like the release of Z10 was what killed blackberry. Hardly. They were dead long before the Z10, and releasing the Z10 with a keyb

This article starts out acting like the release of Z10 was what killed blackberry. Hardly. They were dead long before the Z10, and releasing the Z10 with a keyboard was not the answer. To think it is is laughable. As others have stated, they could have sold high end custom Android phones and done well. They have/(perhaps had) a good brand. If they had released a solid phone like a nexus or galaxy they would have done fine. The execs in the story admitted that their technology was significantly behind. Once they realized that, they should have pivoted to Android. Perhaps keep working on their own stuff behind the scenes to try to catch up. But they can't keep releasing inferior phones and expect to stay on top. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but there are a lot of people on the outside that have said blackberry is making the wrong decisions and headed to failure for quite awhile.

w1ntermute 13y ago
The fundamental mistake they made was not realizing that while the smartphone OS had been commoditized by Google, the userland and the hardware had not. What set BlackBerry apart wasn't their OS, it was the userland and associated online services, as well as their keyboard-centric hardware. They wasted precious time and money acquiring and integrating companies like QNX when Android was there for the taking. Skinning it and rebuilding first-party BlackBerry apps on top of it would have been sufficient - the BlackBerry developers would have been happy to port their apps to Android. There's no real good keyboard-centric Android phone out there these days. Motorola's continued to half-assedly release phones in the Droid lineup, but nothing has come close to the OG Droid. That is a niche that BlackBerry could have easily dominated.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  I've heard good things about those slide-out keyboards that basically convert your touch-oriented phone into an incredibly huge version of the slider-keyboard phones.
solve 13y ago
I would buy the shit out of Z10 with a keyboard+pointer. Until a new decent keyboard phone comes out, I'm sticking with my Torch 9800. Also have an HTC One and often use a SG4. Wow, awful. And I hate games.
- fnbr 13y ago
  Have you tried a 9900? To me, it felt like what the Torch should have been like.
  - solve 13y ago
    I do way too much web browsing (Opera with the text-wrapping setting) for the smaller screen of the 9900, I think, but I never tried it. Strangely, I can't get Opera to work as well on the HTC One, and don't much like the built-in browser.
- Asterick6 13y ago
  Why not use the trace keyboard? I know Sense 5 on the HTC One comes with a trace keyboard option. It might take a bit of learning to get used to, but using trace keyboards seems to be a lot faster and more efficient than clicking on small physical keyboard buttons. Then again, they don't provide the tactile feedback that a physical keyboard does, so you can't really type with muscle memory and have to look at the screen when trace-typing.
  - JimmyL 13y ago
    >> you can't really type with muscle memory and have to look at the screen when trace-typing. I used to be a devout BlackBerry user, and could happily type out entire emails in meetings with my device under the table, send then, and be 100% confident that I had typed what I was planning on typing. Likewise I could type while walking, and only glance down to see what my incoming messages were. In many jobs, the ability to do that is essential to success. I can't come near that with any type of soft keyboard. Having said all that, I don't use a BB any more - my 9900 died, and I bought a Nexus 4. I was looking at a Q10, but it was $300 more expensive than the Nexus, it still doesn't have anywhere near the number of apps, and I was no longer in a place in life where the key BB features - BBM and the ability to type long emails without looking - mattered any more.
protomyth 13y ago
I don't think they had any shot at building a high end Android phone. They just didn't have the culture and I don't think they had the time to get it. Look at the Playbook, it was a business / culture decision that made it suck. They probably should have realized their service had value and if they could have undercut the iPhone price, go after the texters, and hit the pay as you go market ; they could have bought themselves the time to think about what a Blackberry should be as opposed to a iPhone killer.

w1ntermute 13y ago

The fundamental mistake they made was not realizing that while the smartphone OS had been commoditized by Google, the userland and the hardware had not. What set BlackBerry apart wasn't their OS, it was the userland and associated online services, as well as their keyboard-centric hardware. They wasted precious time and money acquiring and integrating companies like QNX when Android was there for the taking. Skinning it and rebuilding first-party BlackBerry apps on top of it would have been sufficient - the BlackBerry developers would have been happy to port their apps to Android. There's no real good keyboard-centric Android phone out there these days. Motorola's continued to half-assedly release phones in the Droid lineup, but nothing has come close to the OG Droid. That is a niche that BlackBerry could have easily dominated.

Pxtl 13y ago
I've heard good things about those slide-out keyboards that basically convert your touch-oriented phone into an incredibly huge version of the slider-keyboard phones.

solve 13y ago

I would buy the shit out of Z10 with a keyboard+pointer. Until a new decent keyboard phone comes out, I'm sticking with my Torch 9800. Also have an HTC One and often use a SG4. Wow, awful. And I hate games.

fnbr 13y ago
Have you tried a 9900? To me, it felt like what the Torch should have been like.
- solve 13y ago
  I do way too much web browsing (Opera with the text-wrapping setting) for the smaller screen of the 9900, I think, but I never tried it. Strangely, I can't get Opera to work as well on the HTC One, and don't much like the built-in browser.
Asterick6 13y ago
Why not use the trace keyboard? I know Sense 5 on the HTC One comes with a trace keyboard option. It might take a bit of learning to get used to, but using trace keyboards seems to be a lot faster and more efficient than clicking on small physical keyboard buttons. Then again, they don't provide the tactile feedback that a physical keyboard does, so you can't really type with muscle memory and have to look at the screen when trace-typing.
- JimmyL 13y ago
  >> you can't really type with muscle memory and have to look at the screen when trace-typing. I used to be a devout BlackBerry user, and could happily type out entire emails in meetings with my device under the table, send then, and be 100% confident that I had typed what I was planning on typing. Likewise I could type while walking, and only glance down to see what my incoming messages were. In many jobs, the ability to do that is essential to success. I can't come near that with any type of soft keyboard. Having said all that, I don't use a BB any more - my 9900 died, and I bought a Nexus 4. I was looking at a Q10, but it was $300 more expensive than the Nexus, it still doesn't have anywhere near the number of apps, and I was no longer in a place in life where the key BB features - BBM and the ability to type long emails without looking - mattered any more.

protomyth 13y ago

I don't think they had any shot at building a high end Android phone. They just didn't have the culture and I don't think they had the time to get it. Look at the Playbook, it was a business / culture decision that made it suck. They probably should have realized their service had value and if they could have undercut the iPhone price, go after the texters, and hit the pay as you go market ; they could have bought themselves the time to think about what a Blackberry should be as opposed to a iPhone killer.