People Keeping BlackBerry Alive • Hacker News Board

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#21

Post by 908B64B197 » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

I remember seeing the first touchscreen blackberry (it was named the Storm).

It came out two months after the iPhone 3G and the app store. I remember it being extremely laggy, even scrolling basic webpages while the iPhone was buttery smooth. And for some reasons they wouldn't include Wifi on it, so even indoor it was forced to use edge making it even more sluggish.

You couldn't really install apps on it, there was no app store. I mean I think there was an SDK but it was for that device only and no easy distribution method. I don't think anyone ever bothered anyways.

Blackberry was at least 3 years behind at that point, having almost managed to ship an original iPhone's prototype in terms of specs.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#22

Post by mato » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

bluecatswim wrote: post #15

andmikey wrote: post #5

I've been using a Blackberry Passport since early 2019 - as a replacement for the "dumb" phone I used for many years. I love it! The build quality is fantastic. The keyboard is a beauty to type on. The camera is great quality. In terms of build it's my ideal phone. What I wouldn't give for an up-to-date version of this [edit: at an affordable price]! Unfortunately the software limitations mean that I'm likely going t…

>means I can't use banking apps, or government apps (eg. Track&Trace or recently the EU Settled Status app) Can't you use a web browser for those things?

Here /Europe/ some banks are starting to require the use of mobile apps for authenticating transactions, instead of providing hardware tokens.

When I ran into this problem they told me: "either pay us X EUR/month extra for Business Banking or, no hardware token for you". Calculated that (X * 12) < (cost of cheap Nokia Android phone), and got the latter which I keep in flight mode in a desk drawer and use for the banking app only.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#23

Post by Nition » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

simo_dax wrote: post #6

I'm one of those guys, I still use a Q10 (OS10 family) as my daily driver. I felt in love with its ux e.g. the hub which acts both as notification center and timeline, full gesture-based navigation (back in 2013!) and an app permission system which allowed you choose which one should be granted to the app (again, back in 2013! Android had to wait years before this was implemented) Apps are scarce, many don't work any…

> full gesture-based navigation (back in 2013!)

Only two years behind the N9.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#24

Post by boomskats » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

The Key2 is the best phone I've ever owned.

My K2 died (I broke one of the smd antenna connectors). Went back to using an iphone (mini) and quite liked it, but getting anything done was soooo slow. I bought another Key2 last week and I'm in task switching heaven again. The k2 is the i3wm of the phone world.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#25

Post by volkl48 » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #20

HarryHirsch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the infrared touchpad beats the hell out of swiping around the screen!

I can't recall who, but someone showed me a phone with a physical keyboard that had a touchpad built into the keyboard. Which is to say, if you ran your thumb over the keys without pushing any, a cursor would move on the screen. Was that a Blackberry?

Yes. My Priv and Key2 both support it, at least if you mean in terms of scrolling functionality.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#26

Post by bengale » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #21

I remember seeing the first touchscreen blackberry (it was named the Storm). It came out two months after the iPhone 3G and the app store. I remember it being extremely laggy, even scrolling basic webpages while the iPhone was buttery smooth. And for some reasons they wouldn't include Wifi on it, so even indoor it was forced to use edge making it even more sluggish. You couldn't really install apps on it, there was n…

I seem to recall the whole screen sort of clicking. I don’t remember why it did that though.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#27

Post by simo_dax » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:10 PM UTC

mato wrote: post #11

simo_dax wrote: post #6

I'm one of those guys, I still use a Q10 (OS10 family) as my daily driver. I felt in love with its ux e.g. the hub which acts both as notification center and timeline, full gesture-based navigation (back in 2013!) and an app permission system which allowed you choose which one should be granted to the app (again, back in 2013! Android had to wait years before this was implemented) Apps are scarce, many don't work any…

Which is your Twitter app? Now that m.twitter.com no longer works in the BB10 browser, I need one.

Bird10! It's open source (https://github.com/SimoDax/Bird10) and you can find it here https://forums.crackberry.com/blackberry-10-apps-f274/bird10...

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#28

Post by jeffbee » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

gertrunde wrote: post #10

In the 10-12 years since I last had a Blackberry, no phone that I've had has come close to it in terms of an email device. Current phones do a lot of things much better (apps, games app stores etc), but not email, and voice calls have only recently started to show some advantages (Voice over LTE/Voice over WiFi/HD Calls etc).

BlackBerry had wifi calling since 2007.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#29

Post by numpad0 » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:16 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #20

HarryHirsch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the infrared touchpad beats the hell out of swiping around the screen!

I can't recall who, but someone showed me a phone with a physical keyboard that had a touchpad built into the keyboard. Which is to say, if you ran your thumb over the keys without pushing any, a cursor would move on the screen. Was that a Blackberry?

Keyboard surfaces that doubles as touchpads aren’t exactly a bleeding edge feature, PS3 chatpad has it and it works on PC(IIRC feels broken until calibrated through secret combo shortcut)

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#30

Post by dfxm12 » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

bengale wrote: post #26

908B64B197 wrote: post #21

I remember seeing the first touchscreen blackberry (it was named the Storm). It came out two months after the iPhone 3G and the app store. I remember it being extremely laggy, even scrolling basic webpages while the iPhone was buttery smooth. And for some reasons they wouldn't include Wifi on it, so even indoor it was forced to use edge making it even more sluggish. You couldn't really install apps on it, there was n…

I seem to recall the whole screen sort of clicking. I don’t remember why it did that though.

It was just another input button. It had capacitive touch and you could also press on the screen as a button. So there was a touch and a click. This more or less replaces the other BB's trackball functionality (which I think you could click as a button). So moving your finger around the touchscreen was like moving the trackball and pressing the screen as a button was like pressing the trackball button.

At a time where most apps were being designed for the touchscreen iPhone, most devs didn't take advantage of the Storm's device specific hardware, which is one of the reasons why it wasn't very memorable...