BlackBerry Will Buy Your iPhone For $550

mpicpp points out that BlackBerry is hoping to get iPhone owners to switch to Passport smartphones by promising up to $550 to trade in their phones. "The promotion, which starts Monday, promises as much as $550 to iPhone owners who trade in their handsets in favor of BlackBerry's Passport. The actual trade-in value depends on the iPhone, with the iPhone 4S worth up to $90 and the iPhone 6 worth up to $400. (The iPhone 6 Plus is not eligible.) BlackBerry then sweetens the deal by kicking in an additional $150 as a topper for each iPhone. The deal will run through February 13, but it's good only in North America. Customers must buy the $599 to $699 unlocked Passport phone through either BlackBerry's website or Amazon. The trade-in amount comes in the form of a Visa prepaid card."

Comments

Bah hah hah

[bhlowe]

What's a blackberry?

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

BlackBerry is the Kaypro of phones.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a blackberry?

The term BlackBerry refers to a line of wireless handheld devices and services designed and marketed by BlackBerry Limited, formerly known as Research In Motion Limited (RIM). The first BlackBerry device, an email pager, was released in 1999. The most recent BlackBerry devices are the Z3, Z30, Z10 and the newly released Passport. The Z3, Z30 and Z10 were announced on February 2014, September 2013 and January 2013 respectively. The user interface varies by model; most had featured a physical QWERTY keyboard, while newer generations have relied on a multi-touch screen and virtual keyboard.

BlackBerry devices can record video, take photos, play music and also provide functions such as web-browsing, email messaging, instant messaging, and the multi-platform BlackBerry Messenger service.

It was one of the major smartphone vendors until 2012. The consumer BlackBerry Internet Service is available in 91 countries worldwide on over 500 mobile service operators using various mobile technologies. As of September 2013, there were eighty-five million BlackBerry subscribers worldwide.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the phone that runs Android apps on a Unix based OS, preventing them from leaking/leaching data from other parts of the phone. You know, that one that's more secure than the Android phone that runs apps on an Android based OS.

You seem to have left out a rather critical detail...you know the part where anything that runs Android apps is going to leak/leech data in every other direction that you agreed to when accepting the 87 EULAs...

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Blackberry give back door access to their phones to the governments of India, China and pretty much anyone else who asked?

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you suffer from Asperger's syndrome? Or is sarcasm a new thing to you?

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

The only phone to have less market share than Windows Phone. That takes a real, concerted effort to accomplish.

Re:Bah hah hah

[roc97007]

Please add, older Blackberrys had the best physical, tactile keyboard in the industry, before or since, and experienced users could very nearly touch-thumb-type on them.

I went from a Blackberry Tour to an Android phone years ago when IT was outsourced and we apparently lost the ability to keep BES alive. Several years later, I'm still not as fast on the Android virtual keyboard than I was on the old Blackberry. I really miss that keyboard.

I'd go back to a Blackberry in a second (provided it has a good physical keyboard) if our offshore admins could keep BES operational for more than 18 hours straight. The smaller screen and fewer apps were more than made up, in an Enterprise environment, by the high degree of integration with the company intranet. It was something you couldn't play on as much as other devices, but it was something you could work on.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, that one that's more secure than the Android phone that runs apps on an Android based OS.

And yet, Blackberry has only been losing marketshare in the security arena, with even its own Canadian government leading the charge against Blackberry's security claims.

Re:Bah hah hah

[MightyMartian]

???

Our staff's Android and iOS devices all hook into Exchange and can use its address book, all via SSL connections. Maybe BB is a bit more feature rich, but having to run BES as an integrator between BB devices and an Exchange server is a resource-hungry pain in the ass. ActiveSync does the job well enough.

Re:Bah hah hah

[MightyMartian]

BlackBerry is the Windows Phone of phones!

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the only phone that one put next to a Windows phone people go "no, I'd rather have windows".

Re:Bah hah hah

[LostMyBeaver]

Do you mind if I mock your attempt to suggest that a phone which is is probably several million lines of code developed by a company which has a relatively small user base on the new code base and just hasn't been a real hacking target yet is secure?

The old Blackberry might have been secure if for no other reason than it was a glorified PDA without the ability to do much of anything dynamic. The new version is based on QNX makes heavy use of message passing APIs (which I personally have evaluated the code for and will agree that part is secure. At least in transit) but will be coded for by developers who will focus on usability and functionality which will require their apps to become subscribers to many message pipes and eventually will become sources for information which they didn't originate and therefore will become backdoors in the phone allowing pretty much any other program to hack the data when the user really only permitted access to that data to the one app.

QNX IS NOT a UNIX, it is mostly POSIX. It is an embedded real-time operating system. It has a pretty interesting scheduler and I'd love to poke around to see how they managed to get a real time OS to pretend to be a suitable end user OS (a hell of a task if it worked).

Please also understand that sand boxing is only interesting so long as we don't want information to cross between apps. In truth we do. And we want apps to communicate. Therefore it doesn't matter if the OS is the most secure OS on the planet, as soon as you add third party apps and users that use them, security is shot to hell.

As for basic security of the OS, like "Can someone hack it from the internet" or "Can someone hack into from physical access?". The answers are simple. Yes and yes. We may not know how, but if anyone gave a shit about Blackberry, it wouldn't be that hard. I would of course just abuse social engineering instead as it's far simpler, but I have actually hacked a Samsung using a black light on the screen just moments after the user hung up a phone call. It left a lovely smudge in the shape of the password from the fingers tracing it.

Quit talking security as if it's even possible. Especially with the "my system is so secure and yours isn't", paranoia is good and believing that your phone can and will be hacked keeps your nudie pictures off the web.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

That was unnecessarily cruel. My post was trying to give BlackBerry a complement.

Re:Bah hah hah

[roc97007]

Active Synch does fine for the things Active Sync does. I liked having transparent access to intranet shares, and that I could easily transition from any environment to any other -- in 2005 -- by rolling over the item and pressing the button. For instance, in a calendar alert, roll to the Organizer, press, send him an email saying I'll be a little late. Some of these features are now available on other platforms, but Blackberry was there first, and they still do it better.

I can't speak for your environment, but BES here was one (1) server for the entire company (approx 20K employees, admittedly not all with blackberrys). That doesn't sound particularly resource-hungry. As to the pain in the ass part, I haven't administrated BES so I can't say for certain, but before outsource we had two people doing it part time (each backing up the other) and it was rock solid. Now we have an entire silo who can't do anything that had not previously been written down as a step-by-step procedure. But that's not Blackberry's fault.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Some simple fact checking would show this is false, yet it continues to persevere through the grossly uninformed.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a blackberry?

It's a small fruit, similar to a raspberry, which is not to be confused with a BlackBerry.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice spin on the fact that he held up leaving in order to retrieve his BlackBerry, which he mentioned by name. Instead of "Forgot my phone," it was, "Forgot my BlackBerry."

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are missing the point. BlackBerrys are the only smartphones that offer end to end encryption that the users control and noone else. This ofcourse requires you to run your own servers, but being the only option is why it is inherintly more secure than any other phone and is why heads of state and security concious enterprises has stuck with blackberry when everybody else left.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Rigel47]

So your argument boils down to "blackberries can be hacked if only anyone cared to." Which speaks nothing to the various government agencies that have given it the highest security certifications (pretty much all heads of state use blackberries) nor the reality that blackberry stakes its reputation on security whereas the other two contenders are "best effort" when it comes to security.

I agree that no systems is perfectly secure but your argument is specious at best.

Re:Bah hah hah

[BarbaraHudson]

Didn't Blackberry give back door access to their phones to the governments of India, China and pretty much anyone else who asked?

Some simple fact checking would show this is false, yet it continues to persevere through the grossly uninformed.

Actually , it's true. India

The company has provided a solution that allows the government special access to Blackberry’s communication services, including BlackBerry Messenger and BlackBerry Internet Service email. As a result, the Indian government can now monitor the exchange of emails and email attachments on BlackBerry devices, as well as whether messages on Blackberry Messenger have been marked ‘delivered’ or ‘read.’

Saudi Arabia

Research in Motion has reportedly averted a ban on its BlackBerry communications services in Saudi Arabia in exchange for security concessions to the government.

Waterloo-based RIM has agreed to hand over user codes that would let Saudi authorities monitor its BlackBerry Messenger, a source close to the talks told Reuters News Agency on Tuesday.

The source said 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 that is so popular with its prized corporate and political customers.

Russia, China

On November, 2007, in order to sell its devices inside Russia, RIM provided its encryption keys to Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) which, in turn, provided access to the Federal Security Service (FSB). The official Russian law which mandates this supervision is Order 6 from 16.01.2008 "About the statement of Requirements for telecommunication networks for operational and search activities."

In January, 2008, RIM China announced that BlackBerry sales through China Mobile were on track although 2007 was the expected start date. The delay was due to the fact that "RIM needed to satisfy Beijing that its handsets posed no security threat to China’s communication networks, according to sector analysts." There’s only one way to satisfy the Chinese government regarding "security threats" and that’s to comply with Chinese law regarding supervision and monitoring.

You can find more if you look.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

but having to run BES as an integrator between BB devices and an Exchange server is a resource-hungry pain in the ass. ActiveSync does the job well enough.

Which is why you no longer need to run BES to connect a BB10 phone to Exchange.

ActiveSync does the job well enough, so that's what BlackBerrys can use.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Allowing them to view the unencrypted versions of BIS email (but not BES or any other email) and BBM messages is a far cry from back door access to their phones. Im not sure why you're trying to equate the two.

Re:Bah hah hah

[BarbaraHudson]

How many people are actually going to go to the trouble of setting up a BES (Blackberry Enterprise Services) server? If you read through the posts, you'll see that businesses are finding it's easier to use activesync, since so many former crackberry users have switched to something else.

And it allows the governments to view both encrypted and unencrypted BIS and BBM messages.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

No, his argument is the correct argument. Rule no.1 of using codes is "The enemy knows the code." If you operate on any other basis then more fool you. Encoding information DELAYS the enemy getting access to it. You better believe it doesn't prevent them getting the information in the long run. The basis for this is simple, you just have to accept that the enemy is as smart as you are; or if you prefer, that you aren't any smarter than the enemy.

Re:Bah hah hah

[ArhcAngel]

It's amazing how a little information and a huge lack of understanding leads people to comment as if they are an authority on a matter they obviously do not understand. Let's focus on a key piece of information that virtually nobody understands when it comes to this story from India...This is about the wireless network not the phones! BlackBerry's BIS was/is a global network BlackBerry deployed to support its phones. Think of BIS as AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint for BlackBerry data. The wireless carriers in each country pay BlackBerry to jack into the BIS so they can support BlackBerry (BB OS 7 and earlier) phones on their network. Now all the carriers in India were already providing a direct link to the Indian government but because of BlackBerry's security focus they refused to provide access. They negotiated with the Indian government for over two years until the Indian government gave them an ultimatum. Give us access or lose all access to India. So to recap...the only reason you heard about it in the news is because BlackBerry fought to keep its network secure from the government whereas ALL other carriers happily complied without incident. This means no matter what device you use in India (or Saudi Arabia, or Russia, or any place else where the government insists on access) you are being monitored. However, if you happen to be connected to a BES the government does NOT have the keys and has no more access than they did prior to BlackBerry providing the keys to its BIS network.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

>Do you mind if I mock your attempt to suggest that a phone which is is probably several million lines of code developed by a company which has a relatively small user base on the new code base and just hasn't been a real hacking target yet is secure?

Certainly. In that case, I mock OpenBSD's security, as it meets your criteria quite nicely.

Or do you accept your reasoning makes no sense?

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it has been put through security and encryption testing and only ones authorized on certain high government networks, where the other phones were tested and failed.

You leave many hints you live in your mother's basement because your opinions are just that. You have home work to do on security in BB10.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that relevant? The question still stands: why are you trying to equate the ability to decrypt BIS email and BBM messages with back door access to their phones? It isn't that at all.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

And Android is the Windows of smartphones, bloated, insecure and inconsistent but runs ok on just about any smartphone hardware. Oddly enough Windows Phone is the Linux Desktop of smartphones, small userbase, not a lot of apps but lightweight, fast and relatively secure.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Noah Haders]

that's why I never accept the eulas

Re:Bah hah hah

[davester666]

I see you've read the marketing pdf for the phone.

Re:Bah hah hah

[BarbaraHudson]

Most consumers aren't going to be running their own BES server. Encrypted BBM and BIS messages ave viewable. They weren't before. Blackberry caved in.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for posting anonymously, but since I *know* what I'm talking about, I need to be AC:

In fact, every government that wishes and has something called "Lawful Interception" in place (like, nearly all governments) can force Blackberry to redirect a copy of all BB traffic to their own servers. There, with something called an "RDAS-Server", you can, decrypt all incoming and outgoing traffic on any BB handset. The RDAS server is a solution that BB provides, i.e. you can't decrypt yourself, but you can force BB to provide you an RDAS-Server which then automatically decrypts all traffic and provides this to another server where you have then to put together all the packets into the original (unencrypted) email, bb-message, or browsing-session data.

A lot of governments have this in place (provided by BB) and are using it. Admitted, you can't just mass-collect data, but if you want to snoop-in on someones BB conversations (email, chat, browsing), you can do that.

This system is installed in various Middle-Eastern, Asian and (probably also) European+American countries.

Summary: literally speaking, no BB doesn't provide a backdoor for governments.
But, BB have their own backdoor and can then provide the government the unencrypted data.

BTW: the RDAS-Server is NOT run by BB, it is usually run by the government agencies - but provided by BB...

Re:Bah hah hah

[ArhcAngel]

What part of everybody else caved first didn't you comprehend? By your logic AT&T is to be commended for bending over first and not even trying to protect your privacy. Can you name a carrier that hasn't "caved"?

Re:Bah hah hah

[BarbaraHudson]

The others didn't stake their brand on security and privacy being top-most. If Blackberry had said "Fine, we'll stop selling in your country" to the first one, maybe no other country would have made the same demands. Sometimes you have to take a hit to avoid long-term damage to your brand. They blinked, and went from #1 to ... well, mostly irrelevant. And that was sad.

Re:Bah hah hah

[Kielistic]

I'm not sure not selling phones is a good business plan for a company that was in the process of hemorrhaging market-share. Their drop had nothing to do with this move. If anything the countries in question saw an opportunity to pressure the weakened RIM at that time.

What kind of threat would that be anyway? "Won't sell us phones? Alright, our people will buy iPhones instead which already do what we want".

Re:Bah hah hah

[ArhcAngel]

They blinked, and went from #1 to ... well, mostly irrelevant.

Put in perspective this comment is irrelevant.
When BB was #1 (~March 2007) Their subscriber base was less than 10 million. In 2012 when their market share percentage (percentage is the keyword here) had "eroded" to nothing their subscriber base was 80 million yet everyone had already written them off. You see the market for smart phones expanded quicker than BlackBerry but they were still growing year over year until 2013. BlackBerry is the BSD of cell phones. Netcraft confirms it! You can be angry at them for "caving" all you want. They are a business and if they can't do business they are no longer a company. Just ask Aereo.

Re:Bah hah hah

[BarbaraHudson]

My point was that by foregoing market share in the first country to make such a threat, the other countries would have a choice between giving up their Crackberries or not threatening RIM. Instead, by giving in, they launched a cascade of similar demands. Sure, this only affected customers who valued encrypted email, etc., but that was a key selling point to business and government. "Big Brother doesn't know what you say" became "We gave the keys to all your secrets to Big Brother."

If they had ended up losing half their market share, they would STILL have been better of than they are today.

Re:Bah hah hah

[jittles]

Maybe you just have small hands but I found Blackberry phones to be completely useless. I can't type or even dial a phone number on them without a serious case of fat finger syndrome. It takes forever for me to type out the simplest things on a blackberry.

Re:Bah hah hah

[zippthorne]

Not selling phones in one country (and.. not refusing to sell phones, just not being allowed to) for the reason of protecting your customers' security when every other phone company had already caved?

Yeah, I'm sure that wouldn't have helped their sales anywhere else.

Re:Bah hah hah

[BarbaraHudson]

Being #1 in a rapidly-expanding market is a huge advantage due to the "network effect" - people buy what the people around them buy.

The writing was starkly on the wall last year when their sales didn't put them in the top 10. Going from #1 to being lumped in with "Other" == "yuck".

And there's a big difference between "subscriber base", which is accumulated over years, and "annual sales."

Re: Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they didn't. Even enterprise and government customers left BB in droves.

Re:Bah hah hah

[ArhcAngel]

Yet again you fail to see the bigger picture. BlackBerry phone sales aren't where the company makes money. They make it on MDM and EMM offerings which are subscription based thus the subscriber base numbers. When BES only supported BB devices phone sales were crucial for them. Now that BES 12 supports iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices phone sales are a secondary concern. They really don't need to be #1, 2, or 3 in phone sales to make money as long as they continue to grow their MDM business...which, despite rumors to the contrary, they are doing. In fact they just entered into a partnership with Samsung to integrate the Knox security platform into the BES system to enhance Android security.

Jon Chen knows BlackBerry addicts love their QWERTY based devices and he will continue to build those phones to keep the faithful but he is a businessman and not an idealist like Lazrdis or Balsillie. He won't hesitate to cut off a limb if it is toxic to the company.

Re:Bah hah hah

[roc97007]

Maybe you just have small hands but I found Blackberry phones to be completely useless. I can't type or even dial a phone number on them without a serious case of fat finger syndrome. It takes forever for me to type out the simplest things on a blackberry.

You have to type with the tip of your thumb rather than the pad. It's not that hard.

Re:Bah hah hah

[BarbaraHudson]

Which is why, if Blackberry had any brains, they would stop wasting effort on producing phones and concentrate on secure messaging, which has a higher profit margin, lower inventory costs and risks, and has a real demand.

Re:Bah hah hah

[ArhcAngel]

Do you even read the news?

Re:Bah hah hah

[BarbaraHudson]

There's no such thing as a message retraction feature - all you need is a camera to make a copy of the message or picture. They can delete it from the server, you'll still have a copy. Anyone sending sensitive information using this bogus "feature" is an idiot. Doubly so if they're sending nude selfies.

Netcraft confirms it!

[Anonymous Coward]

iPhone is dying and there's a new replacement in town folks! Trade in that software keyboard lemon and get with the future times. Move all funds to hardware keyboard stock ASAP as Jim Cramer would yell (and point to the heavens of sweet future money)!!

Money how?

[Anonymous Coward]

How on earth are they planning to make money with that? Aren't they constantly almost bancrupt?

And how is that not unfair competition?

Re:Money how?

[MightyMartian]

They have virtually no sales, but a huge amount of cash from their halcyon days. Rather than simply hand that money back to investors and close shop, they've decided that a "flush it all down the toilet" strategy is in order.

I get that they're trying to do the loss leader game, but if this is successful, BB will be out of pocket a heap load of cash with little immediate benefit. If it isn't successful, then the stunt demonstrates they're fate is to be a bit player with a niche in keyboard smartphones, and no hopes of ever taking on Android and iOS devices.

Re:Money how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than simply hand that money back to investors and close shop, they've decided that a "flush it all down the toilet" strategy is in order.

I rather have them spend money on innovation and increased competition on the market than to give that money to some ties at wall street.

Re:Money how?

[MightyMartian]

If Microsoft, with orders of a magnitude more cash available to burn is finding it almost impossible to break the Android-iOS duopoly, I'm thinking BB's chances of making a comeback sufficient to create a third player in the market are somewhat on the same order of a extrasolar comet flying into the solar system, slingshoting around Jupiter, hooking off Neptune, doing four orbits of the sun before being captured for three orbits by Saturn, being flung at Earth, breaking up under the Moon's gravitational pull and a one inch piece flying to earth severing John Chen's left testicle as he takes a leak.

Re:Money how?

[roc97007]

I agree with you in general, but feel obligated to point out, the difference (and it is a small one) is, Blackberry had at one time a superior product. Whereas, Microsoft never did.

Re: Money how?

[dj245]

Well, my question would be what are they doing with all the phones they get? If they are being destroyed, it's exactly like flushing money down the toilet. If they are being resold (through a 3rd party obviously) then those phones are still on the market and working against the very marketshare they are trying to buy.

Re:Money how?

[Desler]

Their product was only "better" because their competitors at the time only had crap products. Not to mention that smartphones were a tiny niche product during the heyday of the BlackBerry. The global sales of smartphones during that time was about 1/20th of what they are now. It's easy to be the biggest fish when the pond is small.

Re: Money how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at the prices they're offering, my guess is they're selling them to recycling companies and turning a profit while doing so. iPhone 4S 'up to' $90? I guess the up to means for a good condition 64GB model. My network (O2 UK) will buy mine off me for £75, which is $120. So blackberry could pay you the $90, sell it to O2 and turn a $30 profit. O2 themselves doubtless make a profit, so blackberry could skip them and keep that profit too. The sweetener then comes out of that profit and the profit they'll make on the blackberry they've just sold you and the backhander from the network you've just locked yourself into a 24-month contract with.

What those recyclers do with the phones... some will be refurbished and put back on the market. Some in 3rd world countries. Many are sold for parts. Some will be melted down to extract precious metals.

Re:Money how?

[jcr]

If Microsoft, with orders of a magnitude more cash available to burn is finding it almost impossible to break the Android-iOS duopoly

Microsoft is the canonical proof that having piles of cash on hand is no guarantee of success in product development.

-jcr

Re:Money how?

[Lehk228]

microsoft should buy blackberry.

MS has lots of marketing ability but shit for phone development. Blackberry's management couldn't sell crack to an addict

Re:Money how?

[ArhcAngel]

microsoft should buy blackberry. MS has lots of marketing ability

Sure, I mean it worked so well when they bought Danger.

Re:Money how?

[Moderator]

Blackberry had at one time a superior product

They still do.

Re:Money how?

[narcc]

Their product was only "better" because their competitors at the time only had crap products.

That's kind of how it works in general. Some products are superior to other, inferior, products.

Why not just say "they wouldn't have had a product that was 'better' than the competition if the competition had a superior product". So silly...

The global sales of smartphones during that time was about 1/20th of what they are now. It's easy to be the biggest fish when the pond is small.

Good effort. Now, ask yourself: 'why did the market grow?' Because the smartphone market expanded in to the consumer space. Companies started to offer their inferior products (read: ill-suited to the enterprise) with features attractive to consumers. BlackBerry faltered in the consumer market because consumers aren't interested in the features that enterprise users demanded. As the market grew, it was no surprise to see their market-share fall -- they weren't competing in the same space. (Ignoring their less-than-successful entries in to the consumer market, that is.)

Anyhow, now that the smartphone hype as all died down, I don't see any reason that BlackBerry couldn't make a strong come-back, at least in the enterprise. Someone else linked to this review which indicates that BB can still build a workhorse for the serious business user. (I'll even offer the same quote: " It was unexpectedly the best smartphone we've ever used from the perspective of taking care of business.")

Time will tell, but they've clearly started to play to their strengths. The new BlackBerry Classic has caught my eye. My battered old 8820 never let me down. A 2014 version of that just might cure my mobile woes. I doubt that I'm the only one who feels that way.

Re:Money how?

[ruir]

You are joking, but actually this move can very well be a manoeuvre to boots sales numbers to look better in paper to prospective buyers.

Re:Money how?

[0xdeaddead]

So it's the 'trade in your iPod for a Zune strategy'... got it.

They're NOT buying it

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were buying it they would give me the money, all they're offering is a trade-in value.

Aw, man!

[XxtraLarGe]

Unwanted to take advantage of this, but I only have an iPhone 6 plus. :-(

Re: Aw, man!

[XxtraLarGe]

As you can see, the autocorrect on this thing is awesome!

Re:Aw, man!

[aliquis]

If only they paid $600 for OnePlus One.. Invites..

Re:Aw, man!

[tsa]

I feel your pain. My iPhone 4 is worth nothing to BB.

Not enough

[bl968]

They couldn't pay me to use or carry that monstrosity. Makes you wonder just what were they thinking...

Re:Not enough

[MightyMartian]

They're thinking "Hmmm, do we hand this mountain of cash we're still sitting on back to the shareholders and close up shop, or do we spend that cash frivolously on doomed loss leaders schemes and executive salaries?"

I think you can probably guess at the answer. But really, anyone still holding BB stock at this point is staking more of a religious position than a business one. Anyone with any interest in meaningfully profitable investment strategies dumped BB a long time ago.

The next stage, I'm presuming, is for BlackBerry to turn into SCO and start trying to extort license fees from Android manufacturers and Apple.

Re:Not enough

[roc97007]

They couldn't pay me to use or carry that monstrosity. Makes you wonder just what were they thinking...

I'd have to reluctantly agree. It doesn't look ergonomic. It looks like an odd compromise between having a physical keyboard and having a smartphone-sized screen.

I'd be more interested in a Classic.

Re:Not enough

[CrankyFool]

They could totally pay me to use or carry that monstrosity. The rest is just negotiations ...

Loose Tips Sink Ships

[SuperKendall]

Unwanted to take advantage of this,

Now *that's* a freudian slip typo if I ever saw one!

Re: Loose Tips Sink Ships

[XxtraLarGe]

It didn't help that it was about 15 degrees outside when I typed it.

Re: Loose Tips Sink Ships

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry--was that degrees C or K?

Re: Loose Tips Sink Ships

[XxtraLarGe]

Degrees Fahrenheit.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Chas]

No...

Blackberry does communication better

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who recently switched from a blackberry to an iphone I must say that the blackberry does communication much better.

Contacts, Emails, SMS, phone calls, all are handled much better than the iphone.

Re:Blackberry does communication better

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who recently switched from a blackberry to an iphone I must say that the blackberry does communication much better.

Contacts, Emails, SMS, phone calls, all are handled much better than the iphone.

That's only because it had a better OS and software. It isn't actually better than the iphone.

Re:Blackberry does communication better

[roc97007]

> That's only because it had a better OS and software. It isn't actually better than the iphone.

Right.... because.... got it! Because it's not an iphone. There, I've run circles around you logically. Now it's time for the penguin on your iphone to explode.

Re: Blackberry does communication better

[Anonymous Coward]

Contacts and texts are insuferrably shitty on a bberry. I've had one for fifteen years from employers and they're shit at this and always have been

Bah hah hah

[Anonymous Coward]

You know.. the thing even the President wants to forget:

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/president-obama-forgets-his-blackberry-103228872249.html

Math

[Russ1642]

So they give you $400 for an iPhone 6. Then they sweeten the deal by adding another $150. That's $550. I have a better idea. Give iPhone 6 users $350 for their phones. Then sweeten it with a further $100. And then, yes that's right, throw in another $100 just because. Wait. I have an even better idea. Give $200 for the phone, then sweeten it with $100, then another $100, and THEN ANOTHER $150 on top of that!!!!! Wow!

Re:Math

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, I am from the BlackBerry marketing department. We are intrigued by your ideas and would like to offer you a position on our team, with a starting salary of $500,000. Please reply as soon as possible, thank you.

Re:Math

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to offer 50,000 more, just to sweeten the deal

Re:Math

[Desler]

But what are you going to offer to sweeten the deal?

Re:Math

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd throw in an iPhone7 plus plus to sweeten the deal

Re:Math

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they sweeten the deal by adding another $150.

When the new blackberry user finds out there are almost no apps in the blackberry store compared to millions in the iphone app store, he will stay only because he got a sweet deal.

Re:Math

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades,11056/

Re:Math

[jcfandino]

Customers must buy the $599 to $699 unlocked Passport phone through either BlackBerry's website or Amazon.

What if they just sell the unlocked phones for $50 to $150?

THIS is a Blackberry...

[SternisheFan]

....and it's not for 13 year old girls....

http://www.arstechnica.com/gad...

Re:THIS is a Blackberry...

[Anonymous Coward]

From your link...

"...Because of the Passport's unique position in the smartphone market, it’s only fair to review the Passport as a business tool—not in comparison to the latest Lollipop thing or iPhone Whatever+ as a consumer device. So rather than doing the usual feature-by-feature crawl, we put the Passport through the paces of several typical Ars 18-hour workdays to focus on its business acumen. And while we ran some basic benchmarks and explored its features, this focus was mostly on its security features. We even did some packet sniffing to see what could be seen.

When viewed in the right light, the Passport ends up looking pretty. It was unexpectedly the best smartphone we've ever used from the perspective of taking care of business. Yes, it benchmarks somewhat below phones in its price range on the tests that would run in the BlackBerry 10 OS. And there’s still a significant “app gap” between the Passport and competing devices. But that's all background noise when you use the Passport as it’s intended—as an information and communications machine, designed for people who still live and die by the e-mail inbox rather than iMessages and Hangouts and Snapchats....."

Re:THIS is a Blackberry...

[Anonymous Coward]

So a phone that makes Windows Phone look desirable?

Re:THIS is a Blackberry...

[MightyMartian]

Because iOS and Android have no email and calendaring support whatsoever...

Re:THIS is a Blackberry...

[Bing Tsher E]

The only Android phones I have been able to find with a hardware keyboard are cheap gimped models. Virgin Mobile sells one in their lineup for $40. It's a terrible smartphone. Not because of the keyboard.

Re:THIS is a Blackberry...

[narcc]

That's like saying a telegraph key is just as good as a keyboard. They are worlds apart.

Put legs on it..

[toonces33]

and you would have a fine table.

Putting it Basically for BlackBerry

[Anonymous Coward]

If Usable = Gui + Paper(Large, FoldedUp, "Start Here") Then
        Gui = Fail
End If

Does anyone here on /. plan on taking this offer?

[jfdavis668]

Seriously, anyone?

Re:Does anyone here on /. plan on taking this offe

[dstyle5]

Bueller?

If your product is any good...

[jcr]

Then you don't need to hand people hundreds of dollars to take it off your hands.

-jcr

Re:If your product is any good...

[Anonymous Coward]

If your product is any good...

Yes, but this story is about a BlackBerry.

Re:If your product is any good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you don't need to hand people hundreds of dollars to take it off your hands.

-jcr

All the carriers do this though, Virgin is offering $350 for an iphone6.

Re:If your product is any good...

[Lunix Nutcase]

Sunce when did BlackBerry become a carrier?

Re:If your product is any good...

[ArhcAngel]

Sunce when did BlackBerry become a carrier?

1999 when they launched their first two way pager. Their BIS network is deployed worldwide.

Re:If your product is any good...

[Carewolf]

Then you don't need to hand people hundreds of dollars to take it off your hands.

-jcr

Yeah, but considering the product has been constantlly sold out and impossible to even get hands on, this really doesn't make any sense. Maybe they have ramped up production and the initial buyers are all done?

Re:If your product is any good...

[ruir]

I read their BS network...sure it would find a niche market around politicians and salesmen.

Re:Does anyone here on /. plan on taking this offe

[MildlyTangy]

Seriously, anyone?

I would like to officially confirm that I am in no way interested in selling my 6+ for anything less than retail.

To get a Blackbury instead of my 6+, they would have to pay me significantly more than what I paid for my smartphone as its obviously a big downgrade.

Do.
Not.
Want.

I Was With Them...

[SoVi3t]

right up until they said I had to buy their phone. I'll sell you my old iPhones for cash though, Blackberry, straight up!

Re:Does anyone here on /. plan on taking this offe

[ne0n]

If I had an ipoophone I would totally take 'em up on it. It would be a neat feeling to be the only person in a country with a Blackberry passport, whatever that is.

Local prof says "desperate move"

[kbahey]

A local business prof says this is a "desperate" move.

It would help if the certificate to buy was good

[Anonymous Coward]

https://shop.blackberry.com fires an error that the Cert only belongs to *.jabra.com, jabra.com

even Blackberry can't get enough iPhones!

[swschrad]

this is what I call a trend ;) droids are not what we're looking for :-D

Apple may give you a gift certificate for your BB

[Plumpaquatsch]

https://www.apple.com/recycling/ipod-cell-phone/

Re:Does anyone here on /. plan on taking this offe

[Anonymous Coward]

I would if I wasn't already using a Blackberry Q5.