And BB Priv sales weak, Chen discusses leaving the handheld market...

[Artdeco]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/blackberry-reportedly-really-struggling-in-android-market/

Only 600,000 Priv's sold last quarter.

I don't understand why hardware keyboards don't sell better.

 

[Roland00Address]

Would Google allow a Nexus phone with a hardware keyboard to be part of their nexus line, with the nexus line being trademarked?

I really wish there was still the Google Play devices being around where the software is coming from Google and thus the updates are fast.

 

[ChronoReverse]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/blackberry-reportedly-really-struggling-in-android-market/

Only 600,000 Priv's sold last quarter.

I don't understand why hardware keyboards don't sell better.

It turns out despite what many forumites say, not that many people actually want keyboards after all. We're simply the noisy minority.

 

[WelshBloke]

I don't understand why hardware keyboards don't sell better.

Not many people want them?

They make the phone bulkier or take up space that could be screen, they only work in one orientation, they look like crap, and most people are happy with soft keyboards.

 

[Commodus]

If you believe internet forums, no phone can succeed unless it has a hardware keyboard/extra-thin bezels/microSD/removable battery/insert-your-feature-here.

The truth? People just want a touchscreen smartphone that's reasonably easy to hold, has enough storage for their media and lasts through a typical day. The Priv is a pretty solid device, but it's ultimately catering to a niche: those BlackBerry loyalists who insist on a hardware keyboard yet are willing to try Android. It'd have to be mind-blowingly better than the competition to get a big following.

 

[QueBert]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/blackberry-reportedly-really-struggling-in-android-market/

Only 600,000 Priv's sold last quarter.

I don't understand why hardware keyboards don't sell better.

You can only buy them online, people go in an AT&T or Sprint or Verizon store to buy a phone. I haven't seen one with a keyboard for ages. If I want one I have to buy it online, and I won't get any sort of deal on it. I would have taken a physical keyboard phone over my Flex 2, but I got my flex 2 for $0 down and like $12 a month. A BB with real keyboard would have cost me a lot of $$$.

 

[Artdeco]

https://swappa.com/buy/blackberry-priv-att

 

[luv2liv]

$200 phones are now good enough for the majority of people. Samsung and Apple is having a hard time selling $700 phones. Blackberry sales down is no surprise

 

[desura]

I've been using one lately.

It is pretty good.

Hardware keyboard is surprisingly useful. I can type long docs on it better than software.

Curved screen is nice too.

Only real flaw is its thermal management. It gets too hot, and the battery drains pretty fast probably because of the high Rez and the keyboard slider taking away battery space.

 

[Roland00Address]

Only real flaw is its thermal management. It gets too hot, and the battery drains pretty fast probably because of the high Rez and the keyboard slider taking away battery space.

That is the only reason I would not get one, waiting for the newer cpus instead of the first gen 64bit qualcomm 808 and 810 cpus.

 

[WelshBloke]

$200 phones are now good enough for the majority of people. Samsung and Apple is having a hard time selling $700 phones. Blackberry sales down is no surprise

Eh?

The iPhone and S7 are both selling pretty well as far as I'm aware.

 

[core2slow]

I have a BlackBerry classic along with a Mate 8 and let's just say that my on-screen keyboard swiping skillz outshines my physical keyboard by 4-word-to-1. I can also modify the vertical and horizontal dimension of the on-screen keyboard which makes it A LOT easier to swipe if you have a small finger or big finger.

This is what happens when companies refuse to buck the trend and simply follow their clueless/die-hard fans down into the rabbit hole, all parties lose.

 

[Commodus]

I have a BlackBerry classic along with a Mate 8 and let's just say that my on-screen keyboard swiping skillz outshines my physical keyboard by 4-word-to-1. I can also modify the vertical and horizontal dimension of the on-screen keyboard which makes it A LOT easier to swipe if you have a small finger or big finger.

This is what happens when companies refuse to buck the trend and simply follow their clueless/die-hard fans down into the rabbit hole, all parties lose.

BlackBerry's problems were many. Arguably, it all started on January 9th, 2007... instead of seeing the iPhone and realizing that the BlackBerry needed an immediate overhaul, the company made excuses and focused on grafting touch on top of its ancient tech (see: the Storm). There was eventually confirmation of a rumor that I heard first-hand -- that BlackBerry considered the iPhone "impossible" until it got to dissect one after launch, which shows just how imperceptive the company was.

Management was also a serious problem. There was a pretty heavy bureaucracy at BlackBerry for the longest time, and that made any rapid turnarounds difficult.

The most important factor to me: the intransigence of Balsillie, Lazaridis and even Heins to some degree. There really was a "they'll come crawling back" mentality that acted as if BlackBerry had perfected the smartphone, and that anything other than a business-focused device with a hardware keyboard was little more than a fad. It didn't realize that a hardware keyboard wasn't necessary anymore, and that its business features could eventually be matched or beaten.

It's not so much a question of refusing to buck the trend as refusing to accept that its trend had been bucked.

 

[Anon_lawyer]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/blackberry-reportedly-really-struggling-in-android-market/

Only 600,000 Priv's sold last quarter.

I don't understand why hardware keyboards don't sell better.

Keyboard don't sell better because for most users it isn't important enough to make a difference. I hate typing long emails on my phone (Galaxy S6). So much that if it's more than a couple sentences I will turn on my PC and VPN in to work to type on a real keyboard. But if I'm not near a PC, I'll suck it up and write it on my phone. And my work would issue me a blackberry instead of using the Good app for my email if I wanted. I decided that I didn't want to worry about two devices. And the form factor is not as good for most other uses such as reading email, documents, web, video, etc.

I'd go so far as to say misunderstanding this point is one of the core factors in Blackberry's marketshare collapse. It's not that the hard keyboard isn't better, it is - massively so! But it's not enough by itself to beat the ways the slate style phones are superior. Same thing with battery life. Remember using a Bold that you only needed to charge once every two days? Try that with your Iphone or Galaxy! Again, on this one dimension BB was way better. But there were too many other dimensions on which the slate style phones win, so much so that BB can't even compete with their form factor.

 

[Oyeve]

From an IT standpoint BES Klee the blackberry. Costly, another server to administer and license issues. When I started managing the servers at my current job the first thing I did was kill BES and issue new phones to my users. A mix of apple and Android. Then I could manage email servers and devices in one window.

 

[Roland00Address]

Rhetorical question, which are you more sad at the fate of this company in the handheld market compared to it was 10 years ago (the iphone announcement happened 10 years 5 months ago, and on June 29th the first Iphone turns 10 years old since it was release on that date in 2007)

Blackberry
Motorola
Nokia / Lumia

 

[WelshBloke]

Rhetorical question, which are you more sad at the fate of this company in the handheld market compared to it was 10 years ago (the iphone announcement happened 10 years 5 months ago, and on June 29th the first Iphone turns 10 years old since it was release on that date in 2007)

Blackberry
Motorola
Nokia / Lumia

Nokia by far.

 

[Commodus]

Rhetorical question, which are you more sad at the fate of this company in the handheld market compared to it was 10 years ago (the iphone announcement happened 10 years 5 months ago, and on June 29th the first Iphone turns 10 years old since it was release on that date in 2007)

Blackberry
Motorola
Nokia / Lumia

The iPhone turns 10 next year, but I'll let that slide.

As a Canadian: BlackBerry. It went from being part of the cultural zeitgeist (the term "crackberry" existed for a reason) to just another so-so Canadian tech company whose best days were clearly behind it. And a lot of it was avoidable -- the company just didn't want to accept that the smartphone market had permanently changed when the iPhone showed up. Even Nokia was talking about brand new interfaces and multi-touch in 2008.

 

[poofyhairguy]

BlackBerry's problems were many. Arguably, it all started on January 9th, 2007... instead of seeing the iPhone and realizing that the BlackBerry needed an immediate overhaul, the company made excuses and focused on grafting touch on top of its ancient tech (see: the Storm). There was eventually confirmation of a rumor that I heard first-hand -- that BlackBerry considered the iPhone "impossible" until it got to dissect one after launch, which shows just how imperceptive the company was.

They had the time to catch up with the iPhone but they got distracted by the stupid Playbook. They thought it would be such a hit that it would keep BBs relevant until they could update the OS. Instead it sucked up the OS development resources, and killed BB's product line. If BB10 would have come in 2011 instead of 2013 and the Playbook never existed then they might still be relevant.

Rhetorical question, which are you more sad at the fate of this company in the handheld market compared to it was 10 years ago (the iphone announcement happened 10 years 5 months ago, and on June 29th the first Iphone turns 10 years old since it was release on that date in 2007)

Blackberry
Motorola
Nokia / Lumia

I would say Moto. I loved their phones prior to smartphones, and quite frankly they had a lot of innovative ideas early on in the smartphone era (the Atrix look like Nostradamus phone today). Plus the Moto X 2013 kicked ass.

Secondly would be Nokia. They made great devices, a flagship Nokia Android device would be hard to ignore.

Blackberry was always as fun as a Bible, I won't miss them at all.

 

[ericlp]

Having worked in the government fields... I've had 3-4 BB. I hated them all. IMO, all the keyboards felt like cheap small bubbles...

I have bigger than average hands, and I hated trying to type on them. While they may not take up screen real estate, they are taking up space that could be used for a bigger battery or a smaller device. Granted I hate typing on my phone, I use "OK GOOGLE" a lot...

I kinda hope BB goes away, there is no room for them in this market.

 

[nexus5rocks]

Loved the old BB keyboards. Had a Priv assigned to me from work and returned it after a week. It's just doesn't have the same feel anymore. Or I got used to virtual keyboards.