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Is BlackBerry Launching an Android Phone?
An anonymous reader writes: According to a Reuters report BlackBerry may launch an Android phone with a hardware keyboard. If true, it's a definite shift in their business model. "We don't comment on rumors and speculation, but we remain committed to the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which provides security and productivity benefits that are unmatched," said the company in an email. Google declined to comment.
This rumor comes up every year. There would be no advantage to them releasing an Android device. They wouldn't get any cut of app sales, they can't control Android security (which is an absolute joke), and people still won't buy it because it's a BB.
I'm a die hard BB fan. I've had 6 or 7 BB devices since 2004 (currently a Z10 running 10.3.1) and I'm a 10+ year BES admin. The BlackBerry 10 OS is solid, secure and fast. Give it time. A lot of time. It already runs most Android apps.
Android is a mess. It varies wildly between phone manufacturers and it is dominated by 2 or 3 companies. Don't go down that path.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
It's only what a tiny minority of consumers have been asking for since the release of Android...
FTFY
That "tiny minority" who wants blackberry hardware with android software is likely a multiple of the current size of blackberry users. Not that it isn't tiny compared to other android phone users, but it's probably still much much larger than the current BB userbase.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
A 1% market share of a huge global cell phone market still means they sell a lot of phones. They sold 8 million phones in 2014. That's nothing to laugh at. There are companies who are very profitable who wish they could sell 1/10 as many units. What BlackBerry did wrong was to simply hire too many people. They had over 19000 employees when they were popular. They are now around 4000 employees. That is still too many people. It should not take that many people to do what they do. They could remain profitable and still put out a good product if they just learned to focus on what they do best, and get rid of all the employees they don't need.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I think people would be surprised how many users still want a decent android phone with a keyboard. I still have my droid4. It is not uncommon for me to get comments from strangers like "wow, I wish I still had a phone like that" whenever I'm typing away. Good on BlackBerry if they can pull it off, I know I'm not alone in hoping this isn't a rumor.
It's only what consumers have been asking for since the release of Android...
Blackberry-like keyboards on Android phones have been around for quite a while.
Motorola has a few. They're mostly geared toward business users, but a consumer can still find them if he looks for them.
I have owned Blackberry devices in the past and currently own an Android phone. I have always loved hardware keyboards and for the longest time insisted on phones with hardware keyboards including Android phones. However, over time, I have observed that software keyboards have improved a lot. And I mean a lot. To the point that I no longer wish to dedicate precious real estate on my phone to a hardware keyboard.
Hardware keyboard is an idea that is now dead on mobile phones. It will never (I usually advise my kids to never say never but I am making an exception here) be popular on mobile phones again. It takes too much space and many can type faster on a software keyboard. Speech recognition function has also come a long way. And usually, for me, that is the fastest way to enter text.
Actually, you're dead wrong, except for the fact that Blackberry is probably way too late for this to make a difference.
Blackberry should have released an Android phone YEARS ago instead of dumping tons of money into BBOS 10. If they would have instead spent that money on Android by adding working full device crypto and out of the box BES support, they would have dominated the enterprise market and also been able to move into consumer by touting the privacy features.
Instead, they wasted all their time and resources writing this other OS that no one wants to write apps for and implementing an Android emulator on top of it because it is the only way to get anything decent. It was a horrible, stupid move from beginning to end.
And before you say "hindsight is 20/20", I have been saying Blackberry should move to Android since 2011.
You should be ashamed of yourself carrying on like you are 12 when you are old enough to have that user number.
...is that if Blackberry pulls it off, Apple should also do the same thing and release an Android phone. Then Google should make their next Nexus phone have Windows 10. And the Microsoft version of Nokia should release a webOS phone too.
And Intel should release a MeeGo phone
Blackberry Passport. I got one last week. Holy shit, this is a great phone. Specs very close to the 1+One. Have a look.
Runs android 4.x alongside QNX, runs BB apps, runs Android apps, **sandboxes** the Android apps for better security than typical Samsung implementation. It took me two tries to get standard Google Play services installed, and now it handles both personal and work google accounts cleanly and separately. All the amusements are there, and all the business stuff is there too.
And it has a sweet physical keyboard with a capacitive surface, so I can gesture on the kbd without obscuring what's on that gorgeous 1440x1440 screen.
The weird hipster factor is pretty high on the Passport, but it's so damn functional.
I think not...(*poof*)
They are not committed to BlackBerry 10. Proof is they stopped development in Qt5 for BBX half a year ago. They are stuck with Qt4, which is out-of-support already. Smells bad.