Never used a Blackberry, but I seriously miss physical keyboards.
Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
21–30 of 268 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
#22I remember the BlackBerry Storm, the first touch screen phone by RIM launching at the same time as the iPhone 3G. No Wifi, slow janky scrolling, no apps (well, sure, if you don't mind downloading some random .jar that had to be recompiled for the custom fork they ran on that device). Felt like a rushed beta.
Meanwhile the iPhone just worked. Smooth scrolling, fast browser especially on Wifi. You could get apps from the AppStore that launched at the same time as the phone, no friction.
By the time the 3GS was released, if your firm still issued BBs you knew it was time to look around!
Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
#23Maybe a poll would have been a better approach ? HN has a little used poll feature.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
#24Since Swype-style virtual keyboarding came about, I lost my nostalgic feels for the BlackBerry. But the in-between times were miserable.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
#25No
Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
#26Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
#27I remember the BlackBerry Storm, the first touch screen phone by RIM launching at the same time as the iPhone 3G. No Wifi, slow janky scrolling, no apps (well, sure, if you don't mind downloading some random .jar that had to be recompiled for the custom fork they ran on that device). Felt like a rushed beta. Meanwhile the iPhone just worked. Smooth scrolling, fast browser especially on Wifi. You could get apps from t…
I had a business-provided Storm and it was sooo bad, I could hardly believe it was released to the public. The thing would reboot randomly, and an actual cursor would appear on screen!
I struggle to think of any redeeming quality on that phone. Even the tactile screen was a mushy mess.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
#28I remember the BlackBerry Storm, the first touch screen phone by RIM launching at the same time as the iPhone 3G. No Wifi, slow janky scrolling, no apps (well, sure, if you don't mind downloading some random .jar that had to be recompiled for the custom fork they ran on that device). Felt like a rushed beta. Meanwhile the iPhone just worked. Smooth scrolling, fast browser especially on Wifi. You could get apps from t…
The storm was absolutely rushed to market. That's actually the reason that the whole screen was a big physical clicky button. Existing BB software was designed around cursor based interaction, and cursors can both hover and click. In order to release an iPhone competitor sooner RIM opted to create hardware that could separate "hover touches" and "click touches" rather than take the time to redesign their software for touch.
At least, this was the story as I heard it.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
#29IIRC the secret sauce of BlackBerry, before Android / iOS, was they used the mobile carriers to push notifications to the phone.
You had to usually pay for a expensive BlackBerry plan, but you got notifications immediately. It used the mobile carrier rather than keep a push notification data channel open.
Kind of wouldn't work these days what with so many notifications and background tasks, but you can definitely see why people loved them.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?
#30I remember the BlackBerry Storm, the first touch screen phone by RIM launching at the same time as the iPhone 3G. No Wifi, slow janky scrolling, no apps (well, sure, if you don't mind downloading some random .jar that had to be recompiled for the custom fork they ran on that device). Felt like a rushed beta. Meanwhile the iPhone just worked. Smooth scrolling, fast browser especially on Wifi. You could get apps from t…
Same as all the Windows CE / Windows Mobile devices. They were uniformly awful - no hardware acceleration for a start and some of them lost all your data if the battery ran out!