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People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

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Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#91

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).

I’m fairly sure that Blackberry devices were the first to do Wi-Fi calling in the US on T-Mobile.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#92
post #90
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…

> Also, the privacy is unmatched Unless nation states or mercs are in your threat model, that is.

You're still gonna be Mossad'ed upon.

Need magic amulets and submarines in that situation.

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#93
post #14

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).

AFAICT from the Internets, BB10 OS actually supports VoLTE, but there's no way to manually enable it. Given the support status of the devices no carrier will provision VoLTE on it for you these days either, so we're out of luck.

I wonder if it's something in the baseband, if you can get QXDM to talk to the modem, you could probably enable it.

You just need to enable a diag modem on bb10, if you can, then voila.

https://mt-tech.fi/en/modify-sony-xz-xzs-xz-premium-xz1-and-...

Something like this.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/guide-qxdm-port-activatio...

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#94
Let’s say it’s January 9th, 2007 and Steve Jobs has just come off stage after the original iPhone announcement. You’re in charge of BlackBerry. What do you do differently?

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#95

I had a blackberry until last year. I love a physical keyboard. I know I'm the minority but I'll never be able to type as well on a screen with no tactile feedback as I can on a physical keyboard.

I don't think anyone prefers the screen keyboard over a real one. I use my phone mainly for consuming information, any typing can wait until I get to a real keyboard. Even when I had a Blackberry, typing was only marginally more tolerable.

>I don't think anyone prefers the screen keyboard over a real one

I like the idea of a physical phone keyboard but I have yet to find one that would allow me to switch language inputs quickly and customize the keyboard as deeply as I want to (taking into account various nonstandard characters)

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#96
post #94

Let’s say it’s January 9th, 2007 and Steve Jobs has just come off stage after the original iPhone announcement. You’re in charge of BlackBerry. What do you do differently?

Go meet customers, your friends, guys in a bar, kids, your parents with a bag full of iPhones the minute you can. Whatever you do, bypass IT teams that love Blackberry and have invested their time in it and like it. Talk to consumers. IT teams and the profits from having people tied to BES etc will blind you.

Make everyone watch a 20 minute video clip on both phones and ask them which was easier to use. Get them to type out XYZ thing that they hear. Give them the phones for a week and bring them back and ask them to type something else out. See how fast they can type on a screen vs keyboard. Think about what will be more useful a big screen or slightly faster typing.

Then go make a iPhone version and Mac/Windows version of Blackberry Messenger. Give it away for free on all platforms. When that's done. Expand BES to control MDM laptops.

Go find a small company that does music well, ideally one in Stockholm. Integrate their product into your phone and cross platform desktop offering. Use the cheap data deals you have for BES for music, it'll be expensive but will capture a young audience and will differentiate quickly from the iPod to iPhone leap many will make. Data plans are still expensive so driving down the cost will be helpful.

Open source the phone code early but keep the services under your control. Find whoever is running the BlackBerry Store and fire them. Then anyone else who was involved with that. Invent a Men-In-Black memory eraser and use it wisely on anyone involved with that. Find out what the cost of the iPhone app store is, undercut it and switch the model so that the first X percent of initial sales go to the developer.

Hire a couple of smart people and build a free online training course and certification to help people build apps. Treat them nicely. Give them free stuff and whatever tooling they need to build stuff. Translate it into many languages. Pick up the phone and get people from all walks of life, including dire poverty in places in Asia and Africa. Ask them what they would look for to make their life easier (hmm payments you say, hmmmm cheaper phones you say, hmmmm use BES as a sort of Free Basics). Build a decent Chinese Keyboard.

Build search into your phone.

Don't join PRISM, don't do some shady stuff in the Middle East and India about encryption.

Build you the stuff that BES can do well. Messaging turning into productivity. Expand cloud hosting. Turn messaging into something more fun and social. Use encryption as a competitive advantage in the long run. Strike a few deals with phone companies for VOIP.

Go tell the world you aren't worried about it and your main concern is Microsoft (they'll balls up mobile eventually anyway) and oh report Steve Jobs for engaging in anticompetitive contact crap for developers.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#97
post #45

“What can I say—I just love the keyboard,” Ron says. “I feel like an idiot when I tap a glass screen.” You look like an idiot when you take out a bb though.

If you start worrying what people think of your phone choice of all things, you are giving them way too much power over your life. In reality, they don't care as much about others as you might think they do.

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#98
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone prefers the screen keyboard over a real one. I use my phone mainly for consuming information, any typing can wait until I get to a real keyboard. Even when I had a Blackberry, typing was only marginally more tolerable.

>I don't think anyone prefers the screen keyboard over a real one I like the idea of a physical phone keyboard but I have yet to find one that would allow me to switch language inputs quickly and customize the keyboard as deeply as I want to (taking into account various nonstandard characters)

Which keyboard app do you recommend that can customize character locations?

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#99
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't think anyone prefers the screen keyboard over a real one I like the idea of a physical phone keyboard but I have yet to find one that would allow me to switch language inputs quickly and customize the keyboard as deeply as I want to (taking into account various nonstandard characters)

Which keyboard app do you recommend that can customize character locations?

Multiling-O/Honso keyboard. Any aspect of the keyboard can be customized, but it is obviously a slight hassle

Re: People Keeping BlackBerry Alive

#100

I picked up a keyone for my personal device after my Nexus 5 bit the dust (it lasted over 5 years), and I'm really happy with it. I had used a few newer android flagship devices as work phones (pixel 3 most recently), but I really hated the huge screen size on everything. I was getting frequent hand cramps on the latest pixel, and one handed usage, even for light browsing was impossible for me (fwiw, I'm a 5'5" woman…

Also using a KeyOne without a case. After one too many drops on concrete, the frame ended up ever-so-slightly bent out of shape. As per TFA though, everything about the KeyOne is relatively easy to repair when compared to all the other glass-and-glue phones. So far, I've replaced the midframe, keyboard, back cover, and battery, making my phone a mish-mash of the bronze, silver, and black edition.

Strangely enough, my screen has never broken either. It must be something about the keyboard and the nice big bezel.

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