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BlackBerry To Release More Android Phones In 2016, But No New BB10 Devices (cnet.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the brand-new dept.

LichtSpektren writes: BlackBerry Ltd. launched its first Android smartphone in October 2015, the BlackBerry Priv. CEO John Chen has commented "so far, so good" on the Priv's sales, two months in. Also in the same month, the BlackBerry developers' blog posted that there are no plans to make enhancements to BlackBerry OS 10 except for privacy and security updates. Now CNET is reporting that BlackBerry will release "one or two" new Android phones in 2016, but nothing with BB10.

13 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Sad news indeed by dgarciam · · Score: 5, Interesting

    BB10 is superior to android in many forms. In part due because they had to build into the OS many features that other have via 3rd parties that no one ever made for them. I own a z10 and i've tried Nexus 5X to try to sub it, but it just doesn't have the same versatility (of course, you can upgrade your experience via 3rd party apps), and to be honest the android emulator on bb10 works fairly good. That being said, i can't imagine a better way to embrace the new paradigms of android world than holding hands with blackberry. I know the gods of smartphones dont smile to them as of lately, but i guess when my phone brakes of, that is the way to go. I just hope for all that is sacred that this works. I don't see the appeal to an iphone device.

    1. Re:Sad news indeed by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 2

      Well, it's not a platform that most devs that want to make a living are going to bother with at this point, so it was probably the right decision. Emulation is a great crutch, but it's not going to be ideal for the kinds of apps that people use day to day, because emulation carries a tremendous processing overhead that translates to battery utilization.

      And I never saw the appeal of iOS either, but I hate walled gardens.

      --
      "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
    2. Re:Sad news indeed by AchilleTalon · · Score: 2

      Yep, really sad. I was expecting at least one new BB10 smart phone from BB in 2016. It seems I will have to contemplate their Android powered smart phones instead.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    3. Re:Sad news indeed by evilviper · · Score: 2

      emulation carries a tremendous processing overhead that translates to battery utilization.

      Blackberry's Android compatibility isn't emulation at all. Why would it be, when they're running on ARMv7 CPUs just like Android? Emulation is unfortunately just a convenient name people call it. WINE has the same issue with such labels...

      And if you look at Intel's Android emulation for Android... It doesn't come with any performance penalty either, because they do a simple translation once at install time. No ongoing overhead there.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  2. Hope they do not abandon BB10 by xra · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That would be sad because BB10 is by far a superior os to android.

    1. Re: Hope they do not abandon BB10 by dgarciam · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The demand for bb10 OS phone has nothing to do with it's quality. It has to do with the lack of (or late) support of mainstream applications to it's ecosystem. It was a catch-22 situation where they need the support of the apps developers to gain the customer base, but need the customer base to gain the support of the apps developers. BB10OS is a wonderful child born a few years too late, where all the milk and food was mainly divided into Android and IOS

    2. Re:Hope they do not abandon BB10 by dgarciam · · Score: 2

      That is true. Doesnt help you much to have android runtime that works more than not, if all the new apps coming out have as a dependency Google Play. Even if I don't like the new direction, i can completely understand why they did it

    3. Re: Hope they do not abandon BB10 by mattack2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Example being that a lot of people thought Betamax was far superior to VHS, but in the end, VHS won.

      You have to be more specific. People thought Betamax was far superior in picture quality to VHS.

      But picture quality wasn't the only important issue. The oft cited examples given for VHS's dominance are initial longer recording time and availability of porn.

      As for the former, that's still an issue nowadays. Even with a huge drive in my Tivo, I still record _some_ things in SD (mostly nowadays non-prime time shows, I have finally moved most of them to HD recordings)... just to be able to record more stuff (and yes, I *have* gone back and watched years old stuff and caught up).

  3. Blackberry Priiv -Android phone of the year! by hguorbray · · Score: 2

    Surprisingly, or not, BB seems to have made one of the best Android phones to come out so far:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/06/blackberry_priv_review/

    Admittedly, there is a lot of junk at the Android low end, but I spent a fair amount on an LG Volt a few years ago and it has it's share of crappy design and performance.

    If the BB is available in the states I will probably make it my next phone based on this review.

    -I'm just sayin'

  4. One last round by DarkOx · · Score: 2

    If you like BB hardware here is your chance. The next phase is no doubt to license the name and logo to some third tier Chinese or Korean manufacturer churning out utter crap that will try and ware the logo as a air of legitimacy.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  5. passport is a damn good phone by PineGreen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I use BB10 on passport (which was my first blackberry phone ever). I bought it on a whim, more for the freshness factor, and I love it, I find it way better than android in terms of workflow and apps that work, work very well. I just love this phone. Check out amazon reviews and you'll see a lot of people love it.
    But I guess, for most people it was too little too late. I'd be sorry if they abandoned it completely...

  6. Re: BB8 was better by tylersoze · · Score: 2

    Yeah it as cool how they got the head to stay upright while it rolled around

  7. sticking with my BB10 device - better multitasking by Necroloth · · Score: 2

    I saw the release of the Priv and was excited... then I started digging into it to ensure it has the same BB10 keyboard as well as the Hub but the kicker for me was that Android doesn't seem to do multitasking like BB10, much to my shock and surprise. So let me give you an example - I can have a playlist on Youtube running (there's no app for it, it's just via the browser) and I can go to another browser tab or reply back to messages or even turn off the screen - and the playlist will continue running. From what I've been seeing on all Android and Apple phones, this is not possible - you have to have Youtube as the main focused app and have to have the screen running. So will be sticking with my Z10 (or maybe get the Z30).