BlackBerry Launches Square-Screened Passport Phone

New submitter Andrewkov writes: BlackBerry released its new Passport phone today. It has a square 4.5" screen and a physical keyboard, and it's aimed at corporate users. The company hopes the larger size, Siri-like voice recognition, 30-hour battery life, and improved security will buoy its market share. Early reviews are not terribly favorable — the Wall Street Journal says BlackBerry is still behind on the software, and "The bulky, awkward design and the unfamiliar keyboard make it hard to justify finding space for it in a pocket or bag." The Verge said, "[T]he Passport got in the way of getting work done more than it helped." Re/code calls it a phone only a BlackBerry user will love.

Comments

As a BlackBerry user

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

I can tell you the only BlackBerry I enjoy using is the 9900/9930. It's the best work productivity messaging tool I've found. It's not a toy, like my Samsung personal phone.

Re:As a BlackBerry user

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. They are probably afraid they will start to like it. That is probably what it is.

This is what today's Slashdot actually believes.

Re:As a BlackBerry user

[Noah Haders]

I applaud bb for making a big move. bb is far behind in the mobile race. one of their historical strengths was in physical keyboards. even in 2014 "today's slashdot" I hear people complaining about how they don't like onscreen keyboards and there are no physical keyboard options. bb might as well throw the 12-sided die and go for a win.

Re:As a BlackBerry user

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

You just said it in your question. For the BlackBerry, messaging is not one of the many things it does, it's the focus of what it does. Here are some simple differences: I get a separate icon for each inbox on BlackBerry, whereas on Android I get one mail 'app' that has drop-down menus for each inbox. With BlackBerry I automatically get true push email, but Android only offers that if I'm using a Google hosted email account (yes, probably some way to fix this, but BlackBerry it is automatically set up on every account). BlackBerry is loaded with really great shortcuts available at all times because the physical keyboard, which allows me to accomplish routine tasks in a fraction of the time required on an Android. If you deal with high volumes of email (both receiving and sending -some people receive lots of email, but rarely respond, so that wouldn't matter), pick up a BlackBerry and try it out. If you don't deal with high volumes of email, then you probably will never understand why such a tool is better.

Lacking developers.

[blueshift_1]

What it comes down to is that it just lacks the development community. People will only spend the time developing apps if it is going to make them money... and with the majority of the user base in android and iOS devices, it's just more reasonable to develop for those platforms. Not to mention, the square screen means you'll have to pretty much rethink the whole layout of you apps. But I guess it'll be useful if you're just going to check your email or make changes in a calendar (I guess it is true that blackberry users are probably only going to do that anyway).

Re:Lacking developers.

[MightyMartian]

If Microsoft, with all its vast resources, cannot make a dent in the iOS-Android duopoly, I fail to see how a company that has basically been swirling around the drain for six or seven years is going to even carve out enough of a niche to stay alive.

Re:Lacking developers.

[gstoddart]

What it comes down to is that it just lacks the development community.

And better products. And market share. And a compelling reason to use them.

RIM may have invented the market for the modern smart phone. But any of the reasons to use them have been dwindling over the last few years.

Checking you email and updating a calendar can be done from pretty much any phone these days. And those other phones already have apps and other things for them.

So except for the people who go "ZOMG! Square screens!", I'm not sure who is going to be buying from them.

My limited experience with them tells me I'm not even remotely interested.

Re:Lacking developers.

[CastrTroy]

Especially considering I haven't heard much criticism of the current generation of Windows Phones, except for that pertaining to lack of apps. The general consensus seem to be (as far as I've read) that Windows Phone is actually quite a good product. From the development standpoint, I've played around with it, and actually find it much easier to get started with than Android or iOS. The only reason I can figure that they aren't succeeding is because of the lack of apps, which leads to less users, which makes it less attractive to developers. It's a circular problem. Blackberry has other sorts of problems. Not only are there no users, but from what I've heard, developing apps on it isn't easy.

Re:Lacking developers.

[hattig]

Luckily it can run Android apps, and includes the Amazon App Store for Android Apps on board.

But I don't know how it runs Android games that use the NDK, not the Android runtime...

It's an odd shape, but I've read a couple of things about it that are positive - non-obscured display because the keyboard is also a trackpad for example, natural left/right handed use, solid software...

Re:Lacking developers.

[ArhcAngel]

I'm curious why running Android apps isn't enough? Are you aware that the Amazon's Android App Store is loaded on the PassPort out of the box and the Passport runs 98% of all Android apps?

Re:Lacking developers.

[CastrTroy]

Interesting. Although I guess the question is, what is in the 2% of apps it doesn't run? From a quick search, it looks like there's 1.3 million apps. Which means that there's around 26000 apps that don't run. If they are all just fart apps, then that's fine. But if it includes popular games or programs that I want to use, then it's a big problem.

Also, how did anybody test that all those apps are even working. They would have to download each one individually and test them out. Even automating something like that would take a while. And how did they get access to all the apps if they had to pay form them. And how do you determine if an app "runs" do you launch it and check for crashes? Do you actually try out every feature of the app, play through the entire game?

Re:Lacking developers.

[ArhcAngel]

The PRIMARY reason to use a BlackBerry device is because I don't want the NSA or 4chan all up in my business.

Re:Lacking developers.

[Just Some Guy]

I don't think there are accurate market share numbers available, and most of what you see are educated guesses. Here's a link to mobile usage which shows Android at 45.01%, iOS at 44.34%, Java ME (!!!!) at 3.77%, and Windows Phone at 2.69%. BlackBerry at 1.18% comes in behind Symbian at 2.61%.

As I can't think of a good reason why Windows would be disproportionately undercounted compared to iOS (unlike Android which is widely available on dirt cheap phones in developing nations), I'd say Windows Phone is a whole hell of a lot very far behind iOS.

Re:Lacking developers.

[exomondo]

The PRIMARY reason to use a BlackBerry device is because I don't want the NSA or 4chan all up in my business.

Well the NSA most certainly can be "all up in your business" if you use a BlackBerry so perhaps it's time to switch to something else. As for 4chan, well just don't use "cloud services" for hosting stuff you don't want to be public.

OK

[kv9]

But does it bend?

Square screens

[itzly]

Square screens are probably the only way to stop people making vertical videos.

Awful awful timing of launch

[presidenteloco]

Trying to launch one week into the shadow of the massive iPhone 6 launch?

Guaranteed burial and gross embarassment by comparison.

Execution matters, and now we'll see an execution.

Re:Awful awful timing of launch

[Guspaz]

What I'm aware of us that everybody is repeating the same tiny handful of stories/reports of bent iPhone 6 Plus phones over and over again, so it's not clear if the negative press represents a real problem, or just a handful of defective phones that has raised an uproar. They're still selling like gangbusters, and it'll probably take at least a few days or weeks before we can find out if "bendgate" is the result of defective units or an actual design flaw.

The Blackberry Passport, for its part, is ridiculously wide, roughly equivalent to a six-inch tablet (it's half an inch wider than the 5.7" Galaxy Note 4). The form factor will probably relegate it to niche status.

Re:Awful awful timing of launch

[Rigel47]

Nobody's sitting on the phones. The issue affected people putting the phone in their front pocket. As to the million of phones sold, yes, Apple has a lot of lemmings.

Re:Awful awful timing of launch

[BarbaraHudson]

You want to see lemmings? Look at every Android owner who continues to buy into a platform that is horribly insecure and a second class citizen where applications are concerned. Buying Android because "Not Apple" makes you guys the largest bunch of lemmings history will ever see.

I guess you don't watch the news much. Apple Yanks iOS 8 Update, Apple Allegedly Knew of iCloud Brute-Force Vulnerability Since March (with screen shots of emails), Users Report Warping of Apple's iPhone 6 Plus ... and that's just today on slashdot.

Apple has been playing catch-up with android for a while. Near Field Communications is a big new thing for Apple in the i6, but it's been in android since Gingerbread.

Buying something "because it's Apple" is starting to sound like "Nobody got fired for buying IBM". It was the safe bet - until it wasn't.

Re:WTF?

[Ash-Fox]

My brother was visiting recently, and his POS BlackBerry (no idea what model) wouldn't charge from a standard USB, it kept complaining it needed a special cable.

My work blackberry charges fine off every USB cable I've used. Are you sure you weren't using a data-only USB cable?

Need customers first

[sjbe]

Especially considering I haven't heard much criticism of the current generation of Windows Phones, except for that pertaining to lack of apps.

I think someone would have to actually buy one for anyone to criticize it...

Re:WTF?

[jeffmflanagan]

Have you been diagnosed?

Re:WTF?

[gstoddart]

My work blackberry charges fine off every USB cable I've used. Are you sure you weren't using a data-only USB cable?

Unplugged the cable I use to charge my Nexus 7 and my cell phone (and half a dozen other things) and plugged it straight into the BB. It had just finished charging my phone.

Kensington 4 port USB wall wart I've charged dozens of different devices.

Got the big message that the device couldn't charge the BB.

If it was data only, I'd never have been able to charge anything else with it. My wife's Playbook has the same problem ... it will only charge with the BB cable and wall wart.

So, yeah, I'm 100% sure it wasn't a data-only cable.

Review are actually quite positive....

[Maxwell]

...thanks for cherry picking the worst part of every review. Most reviews seem to like it, appreciate it, but are on the fence about the size and form factor.

My Issues with BB

[Champaklal]

As an ex-user (had Storm 2, now I'm a disgruntled iSheep), I found these problems with Blackberry:

1. Ergonomics - Touch was often very hard and mobile unresponsive.
2. Overheating when playing games (there were only 2 of them, which brings me to 3rd point)
3. all the apps were extremely costly
4. battery wouldn't last
5. had to pay extra for internet connectivity, when my sim had free internet.

Unless Blackberry corrects these issues (issues like ergonomics are still missing from latest one), I don't think they'd be able to sway market.

"Doing business"

[sjbe]

I use a Blackberry. A BB Bold, to be precise.

I'm sorry. My mother had one of those. One of the worst interfaces on a smartphone I've ever had the miserable experience of using. Absolutely hated working with it when she needed something fixed.

It makes me look with pity upon iOS / Android / Windows Phone users.

Can you hear the sound of the rest of us not caring?

a BB is **not** a toy, you use it for doing business

I use my iPhone for "doing business" quite successfully thanks. I could say the same about quite a few Android phones I've worked with too. BB has precisely zero features that make it better than the alternatives for "doing business" that are relevant to me. It does however have quite a few things I don't like that make it worse for me for non-business use though.

First, independent, now a corporate SW Architect

[Just Some Guy]

That reeks of sour grapes. "I don't want to play the games I can't run! I don't want to download the apps that aren't available!"

My iPhone is **not** a toy, I use it for doing business. I have roughly a zillion apps, for very precisely described needs. Only the bare basics were on the phone when I got it, and I was able to pick a great SSH client, slick personal finance app, excellent public transit apps, a nice RPN calculator, my bank's app (so I can deposit checks by taking pictures of them), Yelp for when I want to take my team to a good dinner on business trips, a few instant messengers (because I can't get all my friends to "upgrade" to the ones I like), a document scanner with OCR, our corporate chat client, an outstanding GTD system (wassup, OmniFocus?), and a passel of games for idling away downtime at the airport.

I'm sure a BlackBerry would meet my needs if I had very few needs. But then again, I use Unix as an IDE and drive a minivan.

Re:Trust Blackberry?

[BarbaraHudson]

How soon people forget. RIM was very quick to roll over and give access to their servers in 2010, to the Saudis of all people: as reported by Reuters and LOTS of other news sources.

RIM would share with Saudi Arabia the unique pin number and code for each BlackBerry registered there. That will allow authorities to read encrypted text sent via Messenger, an instant messaging service that's distinct from email sent on the BlackBerry.

The arrangement would effectively give Saudi Arabia access to RIM's main server for Messenger, but only for communications to and from Saudi users, the source said..

The Canadian company declined to comment, referring media to its earlier statement in which it said it "cooperates with all governments with a consistent standard."

Just google for "rim gives government access to servers" India quickly got the same. The US and China? Yep!

Significantly, DoT was pulled up by a parliamentary committee a week ago over liberal extensions given to RIM on providing messages to security agencies in a readable format. Unlike the intransigent stance it took in India, RIM had provided access to its services to the U.S. and China.

The real question is, who doesn't have access to encrypted BBM messages?

Re:No

[yabos]

I personally don't "get it" how bb is better at those 3 things. Perhaps you can enlighten us?
iPhone, Android, BB: All can send emails. You can argue whether the physical keyboard is better etc. but that's personal preference.
iPhone, Android, BB: All can sync contacts. Not sure why one is better than the other.
iPhone, Android(never used it but I believe?), BB: Can work with Exchange if you use that, calendars seamlessly sync between devices, computers, etc.
All I have ever heard is BB is "better" at it, but no one says *why*.