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BlackBerry Really Struggling In Android Market (cnet.com)
Once an icon in the smartphone business, BlackBerry is having a hard time transitioning to Android. According to a report on CNET, the company's BlackBerry Priv Android smartphone, citing a high-level executive at AT&T, is really struggling. From the report: AT&T offered a more detailed account of why the Priv has disappointed. BlackBerry and the carrier expected to see demand for an Android phone with a physical keyboard. Instead, most of the buyers were BlackBerry loyalists, the executive said. Those faithful, however, struggled with the transition from the BlackBerry operating system to the Android operating system, leading to a higher-than-expected rate of return. BlackBerry's decision to market the phone as a high-end device also hurt its prospects, the executive said. The Priv initially sold unlocked for $699, above the starting price of the iPhone 6S, which sells for $650. Few premium phones have fared well beyond devices from Apple and Samsung.
Just plain struggling
A lot of people think Nokia should have produced an Android smartphone rather than going with Microsoft. I think this shows that wouldn't have worked. Blackberry also failed with their own operating system, so not sure where this leaves them.
The only problem that matters is that it's too expensive. WAY too expensive. Would I love to have a speedy android phone with a narrow-format blackberry-style physical keyboard? Yep. For over $600? You have to be kidding me. Maybe at $300 ($150 subsidized), I'd bite. I do hate onscreen keyboards, but not *that* much.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
I hate to say it, but the creaking killed the priv for me. (including the 'whistling' camera)
That and the fact the UK model didn't have wireless charging.
The creaking though, and flexible back were the worst. didn't smell of quality and felt plasticy (with the flexing - you could move the back a good 3-4mm just by pressing on it)
I currently use a Dumbphone. I would be in the market for a smartphone only if:
1) It has a physical keyboard.
2) It does not require touch screen use.
3) Its OS and Programs are not made by companies who use my data for their profits.
4) The OS and Programs have not been back doored by government agencies.
5) The company who makes the phones and OS does not cooperate with government agencies when they ask to weaken security and encryption.
From the looks of it, I'll be keeping my dumb prepaid phone forever.
Is that blackberry spent 17 years being the most expensive phone on the planet until Apple, with the lowest quality handsets in the history of north american cellular communications, and the most unreliable corporate email integration since the advent of SMTP, only to emerge unaccountably as a player in the Android marketplace.
at this point RIM is akin to a boardroom full of geriatrics huffing their own farts and insisting that a phone with only 23 million users in the world is somehow expected to be bought at nearly three times the price of a phone with 90 million users in the US alone. That, magically, Blackberry is supposed to commit to and compete with a marketplace that has offered 1080p, N wireless, wimax, NFC, and an open API with a product that still requires a hobbled network of randomly unavailable email proxies for its devices explicit use.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I was really looking forward to this phone... but it failed to deliver, and I returned it.
The main problems I had with it were:
- Overpriced.
- Ran VERY hot.
- Crappy build quality. Creaky / loose bottom.
- Didn't really like that it was a slider, would prefer if it wasn't.
- Single mono speaker under the bottom grill? Really?
- Crappy camera
Pros:
- Effectively ran stock android, which was amazing!
- Tiled app switcher instead of the shitty rolodex android uses.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Because, at least here in Europe, there simply is no other phone with a hardware keyboard. Not even Motorola marketed their Photon Q here. Thing is, I'd always prefer a design like Motorola's to the BlackBerry, with the keyboard on the small side, and I'd prefer a smaller phone, too, but the Priv is still is better than no hardware keyboard at all...
Probably going to buy a used one, though, since new ones are too expensive indeed.
They've put themselves in a situation where it's almost impossible to succeed. The other players have gone through the trouble of figuring out what sells and what doesn't in terms of android phones. If BB does the same things, they'll be called copycats and nobody will want their phones. If they do something different, it's very unlikely to be more popular than what the bigger players are doing.
As a Canadian, I should be more upset about this, but the BlackBerry community had become extremely elitist and and toxic near the end of BlackBerry's success and I have no sympathy.
Sometimes I would post reasonable questions in various places, including BlackBerry's official forums, and I would get ridiculed. I had a Z10 and a Q10 for a short while (testing for my company), and it was even still a problem at that point. I switched to Android (Nexus devices) and haven't looked back.
One very specific example: I had a friend's BB curve and they had forgotten the password. I asked on the forums how they could still login to BlackBerry (they had the account password, just not the phone's) and maybe somehow back it up (maybe via USB). I was accused of stealing the device and laughed at. My friend tried to remember, but after 5 guesses the device wiped itself and there's no way to recover it. Ever.
I get security, but come on, there were photos on there that they really wanted and there was literally no recovery process, and the community was shit. So I'm not upset by this. All those toxic supporters can go fuck themselves.
I have tried switching to Android and iOS and couldn't do it. I lost too much integration between my main apps. The Hub is where I live the most followed by calendar, contacts, remember, browser, twitter, maps and weather app. Occasionally I use VMware Horizon View. That's pretty much all I do. I don't play games and I rarely use other apps (I have access to the google play store via Snap). The BB10 OS is intuitive, responsive and completely integrated.
I would like to stay on BB10 for my next device, but I know that's probably not possible.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
As a Classic owner, I don't get BlackBerry releasing the Priv without a keyboard that has the distinct BB textured keyboard and the all mighty tool belt. Granted, for the toolbelt they would need to bring more BB10 features over to Android then just the hub (which is cool). These things should have their top driving motivations. If you are going make it or break it, you don't make a device that is the same old same old, slap a substandard keyboard on, and then try to sell it for way too fucking much. They had the chance to build an innovative phone based with a launcher taking heavily from BB10 without totally ignoring the Google Now launcher interface. It could have been awesome.
People who see me with a Classic ask why I don't just get Priv or any other Android phone. They just don't get my kind of nerd. I have no allegiance to the BlackBerry brand past BB10. It's one of the greatest operating systems\interface I have ever had the pleasure of using.
I get that their **dying, but I will use my Classic until it is no longer supported.
**Still buying their cheap ass stock just in case : )
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Yes, I *do* want a physical keyboard. I know there isn't that much demand for phones with physical keyboards anymore, but there is still some. I absolutely want to know that when my current phone dies, I'll be able to replace it with another phone with a physical keyboard.
My current phone cost about 90 bucks, though, and I'm not going to pay like 8 times more for my next one. I'm also not a big fan of the blackberry style keyboard - the form factor I like is the slide-out kind where the keyboard puts the phone in landscape mode - easiest to hold while typing, and generally what I'd want anyway if I were doing something that required much typing.
They bought out QNX, why? They dumped the real time platforms and embedded platforms in favour of Android in desperation to get part of the 70%+ market share of disappear into insignificance like Windows Mobile. So now they are a me too seller.
They should sell QNX to somebody that can use it, for real.
I have a few months experience with one of these phones and it's pretty good. The biggest mistake blackberry made wasn't in engineering, it's that they tried building an iPhone/Galaxy competitor at an iPhone/Galaxy price. What would've been better (and what I hear is coming down the line) would be something cheaper targeted at business customers who care about productivity and not flashiness. Blackberry cannot win the flashiness competition.
Before the phone was released to all carriers I went to a T-mobile store to ask about it and the store representative actually laughed at me for being interested in a phone made by blackberry. Also, the representative at the store I eventually bought my phone from actively tried to sell me a samsung, despite my coming in for the blackberry specifically.
Unfortunately, the name is also stupid... they should've just kept it at "venice" that whole privilege/privacy thing is a turn-off.
I see lots of posts here saying things like "I want a physical keyboard." So do I. That's why I bought this phone. In a market economy, we have to vote with our dollars. The problem is that this vote costs a lot of dollars.
If i recall correctly, Samsung spend some billions on marketing when launching their android phones.
They where litterally everywhere, with advertisment, tv, billboards, etc... and with popup sales demos all over.
Never seen anything similar, not even from Apple, not to mention Blackberry.
news flash... if it's on the market, it's technically obsolete. if it's 18 months old, it's functionally obsolete. if at that point you start saying things like "nobody can touch us, we're so far ahead," you are now a laughing stock. BBM in car slabs seems to be working, as it allows iWhatever and droidWhatever to run users thingies. the rest of the outfit... dust, dust in the wind.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Long time mobile admin here, working for a sizeable law firm (one of the former BlackBerry's bread-and-butter markets)
We went from over 1000 OS7 devices (Bold, Torch, Curve and the like) in 2008/2009 to a current mix of 950+ iOS devices and 150 or so OS10 devices (Z10, Q10, Classic, Passport) devices today.
Priv is not even a factor in this mix, despite us being ready for it on day one by installing BES12 late last year and getting a pack of "Gold Premium - Android For Work" CALs.
Since Nov/Dec 2015 up until today (early June), we got exactly 6 requests to activate Priv. Six.
Four in the first couple of weeks after the release, two after Christmas. That's it.
Out of those 6, 3 users are now admitting they made a mistake (old school BlackBerry users who went from Bold 9900 to Q10/Classic, bought the Priv because it said "BlackBerry" on it, with no research into what they were getting themselves into)
They are now looking into either going back to Classic/Passport (while it's still available) or kicking the tires on the iPhone 6.
The remaining 150 BB10 users are basically waiting for their contracts to expire, then having no option to upgrade to new BB10 device (since they will be essentially EOL) the expectation is that pretty much all of them will move to iPhone.
They aren't doing that well in their traditional market. They have one way of going forward in the Android ecosystem: Solid electronics, with traditional keyboard (Blackberry Quality(tm)), at a reasonable price. If they go at the market like apple (ultra uber high end prices, for something everyone else offers), then they are done (as we have seen). They need to advertise outside of their traditional markets, offer quality with extras for a reasonable price (they can likely charge up to $50 more than the average android phone for similar features, for the BB name and real keyboard). Maybe throw in exclusive BB security and you can get $100 more than the average android phone maker (similar or better build quality). No more than that. $600? What kind of latest Samsung or Apple phone were you offering? BB? No.
RIM needs to die. I have an idea which will be highly effective for that - get Microsoft to buy you. That has always worked to kill off any smartphone company.
Loved my Blackberry - Pre "BlueBerry", but that blueberry device kinda sucked.
When I first switched to Android, I would have killed to get a physical keyboard from Blackberry - alas, that was not to be, so I adapted - got a bluetooth keyboard that travels with me.
Haven't looked at a blackberry since and don't plan to look unless it is competitive to the smartphones budget I'm looking at these days - sub-$200.
I also remember all the things I couldn't do on the BB because the company locked it down. We were running about a few hundred BES for all the employees with blackberries.
Plus I remember them refusing a direct data connection, which we would pay for, between their infra and ours. They only wanted internet traffic, no private lines. That didn't go over well with us either and the following year, we started using Apple and Android devices more and more rather than blackberries.
a) Listen to the customer
b) give them what they want
c) when they want it.
I think the 950 was the best thumb-board I've ever used. Could touch-type on that thing without any mistakes without looking. On android, I tend to dictate messages - much easier.
They need some 30 yr old to lead them out of this and should move into the IoT stuff - forget smartphones.
Campaign/marketing strategy
1. Advertise the Porsche Blackberry like no other company would
2. Don't mention the price only an oil sheikh can afford
3. Advertise the *more affordable Priv
4. Profit! (from either one)
5. Advertise the Porsche Design Blackberry
6. Go to step 4
A root-friendly version of the Priv would have at least mitigated the damage.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The Blackberry Hub was the best feature of the BB10 phones, and by switching to Android they lost it (going by the reviews the app gets on the Android store). Good news is you can buy a Z30 for $200 now, but it'll die pretty soon, Facebook doesn't work anymore, and WhatsApp will stop supporting it in the next few months. They got too distracted with the weird hardware stuff (like the physical keyboard, old people would have gotten used to the touchscreen), BB10 is a great OS.
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
RIM creates a phone that is supposed to protect my privacy but the company has a history of bending over for governments.
The Priv is a great idea but offered by a company that is not trustworthy.
https://www.google.de/search?q...