Wondering how many still use these
I still do, and I still mantain an open source Twitter client replacing the official one (no longer supported, as most apps on the platform). Q10, best phone I've ever had
End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
41–50 of 57 posts
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#42I was more productive with phones that had a physical QWERTY keyboard. I could touch type and required less autocorrect. Like autocorrect today still doesn't support typing Spanish with 'vos' conjugations well. For example it keeps wanting to change the 'to be' verb 'sos' to 'SOS' or a 'SOS' emoji. Has any of you used modern phones with physical keyboards? How has your experience been?
I've been using a BlackBerry Key 2 for the past few years, that I got new. It's a great Android phone with a keyboard. I'm sad they discontinued the line, the build quality is great and the keyboard is great. Fortunately it's just an Android phone so there may come a time when they discontinue support and I have to flash it with a modern distro but that should at least be possible, assuming the phone lasts that long.
That won't be possible unless you own a special unit. The bootloader on these devices is completely locked down and there's no way to unlock it - so you're going to be stuck running the official software forever.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#43Any chances to flash those phones to alternate open operating systems? I would expect a load of them to appear shortly in the used market, so it might be interesting to have something to experiment with while giving the devices another life.
Not really. The older BlackBerries were not powerful enough for any modern OS, whereas more recent ones (i.e., the many Android-based models) have permanently locked bootloaders, meaning that even while some form of Linux might run on them, it will not be able to without the keys.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked for Blackberry in the period running up to the iPhone launch. Was many tech people in support who saw it as a threat, though upper management did not and IMHO some serious mistakes were made as they were more focused upon shifting towards catering for consumers devices and yet had to keep their business offerings going and kind of ended up miss-managing both. Then the whole business culture did change, the r…
> the jog wheel was brilliant for email navigation The experience of using one was always great. They took usability very seriously in a market that was easily impressed with 3D accelerated transitions. What I really liked was having all messaging streams converging into a single app. Now I need to keep two Outlook windows (email and calendar) along with another for Teams and monitor stuff happening from all sides, a…
The BlackBerry Hub especially on BB10 is quite possibly one of the best ways to use a mobile device. It's a shame that this concept isn't more popular, but I guess things like Matrix and Beeper [0] are still an option.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the explanation, though I think I still don't quite understand it. Is there something that's required to be provided by Blackberry on either side to make this work? I would have kind of expected that 2G/3G/etc. are device-agnostic and would work with just about any device with a valid SIM card trying to connect to the network. I know someone who's using an older pre-Android Blackberry, so I'll have to figu…
> Thanks for the explanation, though I think I still don't quite understand it The underlying point is that the Blackberry was not your average smartphone. Your average smartphone (assuming it is not carrier locked) can be used forever (although it would not be advisable to do so due to lack of security and OS updates). The Blackberry was a wolf in sheep's clothing. It might just look like another smartphone, but it…
I actually miss the architecture. Although the centralisation had its problems, the efficiency was fantastic. Everything was compressed, data was pushed instead of pulled, and with BES every device had an automatic always on VPN-like connection, like WireGuard. And now my phone has to deal with hanging TCP connections, IP address changes and ActiveSync just crapping out.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#46I was more productive with phones that had a physical QWERTY keyboard. I could touch type and required less autocorrect. Like autocorrect today still doesn't support typing Spanish with 'vos' conjugations well. For example it keeps wanting to change the 'to be' verb 'sos' to 'SOS' or a 'SOS' emoji. Has any of you used modern phones with physical keyboards? How has your experience been?
> I was more productive with phones that had a physical QWERTY keyboard
I miss those too.
My favorite was the Samsung Sidekick 4G. I was able to modify the keyboard map to include the missing ASCII characters, and actually did a little programming with it. The HTC G1 had a decent keyboard too. After the Sidekick 4G was past its prime, I considered trying to mod a Motorola Photon Q to work with my carrier, but the phone was expensive.
I never really liked the phones that had portrait mode keyboards like the BBs though.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#47I was more productive with phones that had a physical QWERTY keyboard. I could touch type and required less autocorrect. Like autocorrect today still doesn't support typing Spanish with 'vos' conjugations well. For example it keeps wanting to change the 'to be' verb 'sos' to 'SOS' or a 'SOS' emoji. Has any of you used modern phones with physical keyboards? How has your experience been?
Maybe your phone is set to Latin American spanish?
That wouldn't explain it: vos is used in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Costa Rica and in parts of several other Latin American countries.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#48Nothing about On Mobility...
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#49> An indication of its importance is that early internal builds of Android looked like a cheap BlackBerry knockoff, rather than the cheap iPhone knockoff that was eventually released.
Heh, I chuckled.
Re: End of the line finally coming for BlackBerry devices
#50I was more productive with phones that had a physical QWERTY keyboard. I could touch type and required less autocorrect. Like autocorrect today still doesn't support typing Spanish with 'vos' conjugations well. For example it keeps wanting to change the 'to be' verb 'sos' to 'SOS' or a 'SOS' emoji. Has any of you used modern phones with physical keyboards? How has your experience been?
I've been using the unihertz Titan [1] for the last couple of years, and more recently (last 6 months or so) the unihertz Titan pocket [2] - The Titan had a bunch of UX issues, which almost all have been fixed in the pocket version. The cameras on them are very bad, but with the price for the device I was able to pick up a half decent camera cheaper than a flagship phone would have cost me anyway. The battery life is a god send, lasts a whole day of solid use, 2 days+ with minimal usage. All apps I've used work fine with the keyboard, and I'm much more productive using a qwerty keyboard, and the keyboard shortcuts you can assign than I ever would be with a touch screen.
[1] - https://www.unihertz.com/collections/all-products/products/t...