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Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

arstechnica.com

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Re: Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

#81

Post by Mordak »

stevenameyer wrote: post #46
brown9-2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpret "I have watched in envy as my wife could get so much done on her phone" as regarding how many apps are available for one phone and how few were available for his Blackberry. It's great if the phone at launch has all sorts of modern features, but this same sort of device/feature envy will exist if Blackberry can't attract significant developer attention.

This. In my opinion BB10 will live or die on third party support. You can have a great OS, but people won't adopt it without a good number of high quality apps. I haven't looked into development for BB10. But I know that previous versons were horrible to develop for. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard BB developers curse over having to have dev build signed by BB servers. Especially during heavier se…

I've never done any legacy BB development, but coding for the playbook / BB10 is pretty excellent. Write C/C++ like you normally do for any *nix/Qt type system (using the Eclipse based IDE); Compile locally and deploy over the air to the device; stdout/err get sent back to the Eclipse console. I remember being really surprised at first at how easy it was to rip through the build/deploy cycle. The dev kit is pretty well done.

I can say with certainty that there is no RIM server involved beyond getting a Dev cert at the very beginning. You can develop offline and deploy over an ad hoc LAN or USB - so there's no requirement for Blackberry to sign your dev builds.

Anyway, if you haven't looked into it, do. There's also a bunch of BB folks on github porting libraries and such to BB10, so if the library you want isn't in the SDK, it may already be ported. Though in my experience it's pretty easy to just build most vaguely POSIX compliant code yourself.

Re: Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

#82

Post by MBCook »

dean wrote: post #54
untog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still relevant. Increasingly, mobile OSes are less about where they are now than where they will be. Apple have been outstanding in that regard- providing OS updates to really quite old phones. Vanilla Android has been just as great, but individual Android manufacturers less so. MS has been terrible. BB has a history of being terrible. So, Blackberry's past is relevant. No, they might not repeat it, but absent o…

" Apple have been outstanding in that regard- providing OS updates to really quite old phones. " Yes, like the iOS 4 update for my 3G -- which made my phone so slow as to be almost useless. Came close to smashing it in frustration many, many times. So in my case at least, Apple providing an update to an old phone is definitely nothing to brag about. However, it did force me to upgrade the phone, and I'm guessing that…

That wasn't a good upgrade, but at least the option was there. The phone came with 2.0, received 3.0, 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2. Every one of those was available day one.

Most android manufacturers aren't releasing updates, or they're months behind. WP updates were often stalled months by carriers/manufacturers, and phones bought last year can't get WP8.

Re: Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

#83

Post by MBCook »

soperj wrote: post #69
untog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still relevant. Increasingly, mobile OSes are less about where they are now than where they will be. Apple have been outstanding in that regard- providing OS updates to really quite old phones. Vanilla Android has been just as great, but individual Android manufacturers less so. MS has been terrible. BB has a history of being terrible. So, Blackberry's past is relevant. No, they might not repeat it, but absent o…

BB is also making good on that now, updating things that can be updated like their playbooks, even though they're several years old.

I'll say I was very impressed that they're going to update those tablets. That was an excellent show of good will. So many manufacturers would have released a new tablet (even if it was only cosmetic differences) and told their existing customers "Thanks for your last purchase, here is the new hotness, buy again."

Re: Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

#84

Post by MBCook »

rayiner wrote: post #19

I'm psyched about the Q10. Just release it and take my money!

I'm surprised they're not promoting it more, it seems like an obvious win for they keyboard loving crowd.

Too bad it may be delayed until mid year.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/blackberry-q10-may-be...

Re: Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

#85

Post by [deleted] »

zmonkeyz wrote: post #79
untog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still relevant. Increasingly, mobile OSes are less about where they are now than where they will be. Apple have been outstanding in that regard- providing OS updates to really quite old phones. Vanilla Android has been just as great, but individual Android manufacturers less so. MS has been terrible. BB has a history of being terrible. So, Blackberry's past is relevant. No, they might not repeat it, but absent o…

Then I can only judge Apple by OS 7.

[deleted]

Re: Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

#87

Post by stevenameyer »

Mordak wrote: post #81
stevenameyer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. In my opinion BB10 will live or die on third party support. You can have a great OS, but people won't adopt it without a good number of high quality apps. I haven't looked into development for BB10. But I know that previous versons were horrible to develop for. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard BB developers curse over having to have dev build signed by BB servers. Especially during heavier se…

I've never done any legacy BB development, but coding for the playbook / BB10 is pretty excellent. Write C/C++ like you normally do for any *nix/Qt type system (using the Eclipse based IDE); Compile locally and deploy over the air to the device; stdout/err get sent back to the Eclipse console. I remember being really surprised at first at how easy it was to rip through the build/deploy cycle. The dev kit is pretty we…

It's good to hear they've improved the development experience. It was something that I think that really hurt them in the past. I will have to take a look into it when i find the time.

Re: Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

#88

Post by ianb »

manishsharan wrote: post #11

I am not falling for BB again ! In my last iteration of smartphone purchase, I bought a latest-at-the-time Iphone 3GS for my wife and the latest-at-the-time Blackberry Bold. Since then I have watched in envy as my wife could get so much done on her phone than I could on my BB. My BB never did much beyond email and BBM ( I love BBM ) In this iteration, I recently placed an order for Nexus 4 and a Iphone 5. maybe if th…

Out of curiosity, and having never used it, what is cool about BBM?

Re: Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

#89

Post by eropple »

zmonkeyz wrote: post #79
untog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still relevant. Increasingly, mobile OSes are less about where they are now than where they will be. Apple have been outstanding in that regard- providing OS updates to really quite old phones. Vanilla Android has been just as great, but individual Android manufacturers less so. MS has been terrible. BB has a history of being terrible. So, Blackberry's past is relevant. No, they might not repeat it, but absent o…

Then I can only judge Apple by OS 7.

Mac System 7 was released in 1997. The earliest BlackBerry Bold (assuming that's the one under discussion, which I'm not clear of) was released in December 2009.

One of these things is not like the other.

Re: Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

#90

Post by yareally »

MBCook wrote: post #82
dean wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Apple have been outstanding in that regard- providing OS updates to really quite old phones. " Yes, like the iOS 4 update for my 3G -- which made my phone so slow as to be almost useless. Came close to smashing it in frustration many, many times. So in my case at least, Apple providing an update to an old phone is definitely nothing to brag about. However, it did force me to upgrade the phone, and I'm guessing that…

That wasn't a good upgrade, but at least the option was there. The phone came with 2.0, received 3.0, 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2. Every one of those was available day one. Most android manufacturers aren't releasing updates, or they're months behind. WP updates were often stalled months by carriers/manufacturers, and phones bought last year can't get WP8.

>Most android manufacturers aren't releasing updates, or they're months behind

HTC finally released the Android 4.0 update for the HTC Thunderbolt (Verizon's variant of the HTC Desire HD). I guess 14 months after Android 4.0 was released is better than never, but it kills me it takes that long for some Non-Nexus devices.

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