BlackBerry users running out of loyalty: 50 percent plan to defect to iPhone or Andro

[DivideBYZero]

I think you missed his point...

Somehow I doubt that RIM has been "hard at work" on OS6 for all these many years, while continuing to release phone after phone with the same tired operating system...

I think RIM is only recently waking up to the fact that they can't rely on their momentum going forward, and have shifted their OS development into high gear in response to Android and iOS4...

Does that mean OS6 isn't a huge leap forward? No.

Does that mean OS6 won't be highly anticipated? No.

It simply means that RIM is falling behind the curve with new subscribers. Realistically, OS6 is at least a year late to the game. When it's finally released RIM will be playing a solid game of catch-up trying to convince people to choose a Blackberry over an Android or iPhone...

What point did I miss? You're post doesn't highlight where I missed anything, it just goes off on another tangent, which I would like to address.

Somehow I doubt that RIM has been "hard at work" on OS6 for all these many years

Why do you doubt that? Is it because you work at RIM? Obviously not. My Wife, when in the internal RIM beta program for the last two years, would get daily OS bundles for the unreleased device she was using. There are HUGE OS teams inside RIM working on OS bundles for each and every type and form factor they produce. There are other teams tasked with core OS function. RIM is a huge company, employing tens of thousands of people.

They haven't change gear, they've changed focus, and quite rightly.

 

[zerocool84]

i had a storm and it was the worst phone i've ever had (for its class)

bb will have to pay me to use their next product

That's what you get for not reading reviews before buying a phone.

 

[DivideBYZero]

I couldn't agree with this more.

BB OS 6
Symbian 4
WinMo 7

None of these major players were hard at work and are just a response to the fierce competition from Android/iOS4.

Android/iOS4 have been in development for several years prior to even BB O6, Symbian4, or WinMo7 was conceived. Which is why we are all still playing the waiting game for these OSs to release.

You are seriously incorrect if you think there has been no OS development inside RIM before BlackBerry 6.

 

[DivideBYZero]

i had a storm and it was the worst phone i've ever had (for its class)

bb will have to pay me to use their next product

Yep, the original Storm with shipping code was nasty, very nasty. However, with a good OS 5 bundle it's a very handy phone.

 

[OS]

That's what you get for not reading reviews before buying a phone.

lol right, I read the reviews which were fine, but like the obligation is on me to make sure i get a working product..

do you have a job and who do you work for?
Must be nice to work somewhere, have a customer where you can deliver a bad product and still get paid for it...

 

[gsaldivar]

What point did I miss? You're post doesn't highlight where I missed anything, it just goes off on another tangent, which I would like to address.

Sorry, I forgot you are on a BB. Browsers on most *modern* smart phones have the ability to scroll up rather than relying on people to include quotes 2 levels deep...

If you even care to take the time to read Cuda's post (that you yourself replied to), you'll that you disregarded all but the last sentence of it. That's what my "tangent" addresses.

RIM beta program for the last two years, would get daily OS bundles for the unreleased device she was using. There are HUGE OS teams inside RIM working on OS bundles for each and every type and form factor they produce. There are other teams tasked with core OS function. RIM is a huge company, employing tens of thousands of people.

Ok, so your wife gets beta updates and RIM employs thousands of people. This means nothing. *Of course* RIM has been maintaining their platform, and adapting it to new phones. The point is that's a far cry from evolving it to the next level as iOS4 and Android have been pushing hard to do during the same period of time.

If RIM had been working on OS6 as seriously as Apple or Google, it makes no sense that they would continue to release phone after phone after phone with the same stale features... year after year.

Once again...

Nobody is saying OS6 sucks, or won't be highly anticipated, or welcomed for competition's sake. The fact remains that RIM is falling behind the curve. You don't have to be a beta tester or a RIM employee to see this, it's pretty obvious (to those who aren't too close to the drum). 🙂

 

[thescreensavers]

^ your one of the few, but question do you have any apps on your phone? Do you have lots of emails? and what device is it?

Blackberry needs some serious HorsePower since the OS is inefficient and clumsy, maybe with OS6 it will be better, it better be.

With my Blackberry storms Dual Core CPU, it could not scroll through anything smoothly, not even text messages. Forget websites. All because of the OS inefficient use of the CPU.

The only reason most of blackberry users have a blackberry is for BBM.

The other users use the Email function for business and its one of the best.

OK, don't take any of this personally.

- "Blackberry needs some serious HorsePower since the OS is inefficient and clumsy", really? Hang on, when BlackBerrys had only 64Mb RAM they were inefficient? The 81xx, 88xx and so on. This is an incorrect statement, IMHO.
- You're Storm is not 'dual core'. Like most smartphones it has an application processor in addition to the radio CPU.

The Storm scrolls perfectly, in my experience. My Storm 2 is hooked up to my BES, has endless emails and calendar entries, tons of apps and games and runs great. I'm sorry to hear you have not had such a great experience. If you like I can help you with your Storm. PM me and I can advise what you need to do to get it working smoothly.

They still are bad, even with there extra memory BB OS5 was better then 4, but still is lacking.

Yes the storm is a dual core CPU look it up, Actually your right in Email app, it was fine, but try scrolling in text messages, how about the web. It would hick up all together, the CPU in the phone is plenty capable to provide smooth web experience but the OS is hugely inefficient thus why it is so clumsy.

And Thanks for the offer, But I have since dumped my Storm which had Lyrical Custom Rom already which did help but still was not "good" due to the crappy underpinnings, If it wasnt for that guys custom roms I would of changed phones sooner.

I now use Droid X as my Primary device. Yes its newer, but Its day and night difference, everything is fluid and is lag free. Much more pleasant experience I no longer want to kill my self of jump off a bridge. I am not even looking back at all, this new phone is all smiles.

I am not even rooting my phone. Why? Because there is no back up and if I brick my phone I need to go back to my storm. Going back to that god awful phone scares me more then bricking.

I think you are one of the very few who actually enjoy the Storm Line of phones. More power to ya.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Sorry, I forgot you are on a BB. Browsers on most *modern* smart phones have the ability to scroll up rather than relying on people to include quotes 2 levels deep...

If you even care to take the time to read Cuda's post (that you yourself replied to), you'll that you disregarded all but the last sentence of it. That's what my "tangent" addresses.

At any rate, it's pretty obvious that you're deaf to anything but the beat of your own RIM drum, so if it makes you feel better by all means keep banging away on it...
<Snip>

Go and take a read of the stickied post at the top of this forum, then rewrite your post to have some content, and we can have a discussion.

 

[DivideBYZero]

They still are bad, even with there extra memory BB OS5 was better then 4, but still is lacking.

Yes the storm is a dual core CPU look it up, Actually your right in Email app, it was fine, but try scrolling in text messages, how about the web. It would hick up all together, the CPU in the phone is plenty capable to provide smooth web experience but the OS is hugely inefficient thus why it is so clumsy.

It's not 'dual core', as I said, it has two cores, one for apps, one for the modem. They are different CPUs, one an ARM9, the other an ARM11. To be a true dual core CPU you would need them to be the same and run at the same speed.

 

[gsaldivar]

Go and take a read of the stickied post at the top of this forum, then rewrite your post to have some content, and we can have a discussion.

If you don't want to address the points set forth by people who disagree with you, that's fine. But pretending that those points aren't there to begin with is rather childish.

Here is the "content" that you ignored (quoted for your convenience):

Ok, so your wife gets beta updates and RIM employs thousands of people. This means nothing. *Of course* RIM has been maintaining their platform, and adapting it to new phones. The point is that's a far cry from evolving it to the next level as iOS4 and Android have been pushing hard to do during the same period of time.

If RIM had been working on OS6 as seriously as Apple or Google, it makes no sense that they would continue to release phone after phone after phone with the same stale features... year after year.

Once again...

Nobody is saying OS6 sucks, or won't be highly anticipated, or welcomed for competition's sake. The fact remains that RIM is falling behind the curve. You don't have to be a beta tester or a RIM employee to see this, it's pretty obvious (to those who aren't too close to the drum). 🙂

 

[DivideBYZero]

If you don't want to address the points set forth by people who disagree with you, that's fine. But pretending that those points aren't there to begin with is rather childish.

Here is the "content" that you ignored (quoted for your convenience):

I'm fed up with people, such as yourself, who when presented with an alternative view become agressive and combative. If you want to debate, debate. If you want to be sarcastic and unpleaseant I'd rather not discuss anything with you. That's not childish, it's adult behaviour.

As for you points, most of the 'stale' features have been copied,(push email, copy/paste, for example) some very badly (iOS multitasking), so your point moot, IMHO.

My point is the OS has been solid, the user experience has been at fault. The BlackBerry 6 UE is going to bring it up to or even ahead of the curve, and as for the browser, well, even Android devices and desktop browsers are being left behind. See sig.

 

[gsaldivar]

I'm fed up with people, such as yourself, who when presented with an alternative view become agressive and combative.

Aggressive and combative...?

Nope. Not even close.

The points I made aren't moot just because you don't agree with them...

Just because RIM may have pioneered some smart phone features doesn't mean they are immune from falling behind the curve.

My point, and the point of many others in this thread, is that RIM has become complacent with its lucrative and captive base of business customers. As a result, they have had little incentive to innovate and push the evolution of their platform, until now.

Only now that there are several other innovative, mature, feature-complete operating systems on the market, has RIM been motivated to shift their OS development into high gear.

As you say, OS6 *may* bring the BB platform back ahead of the curve, but that remains to be seen. People are deciding today based on what is available in the market today. Not what might possibly exist tomorrow when RIM finally gets around to releasing OS6.

As I mentioned before, the problem for RIM is that their OS refresh about a year late already. People have been complaining about BB's speed, mediocre browser, and lack of apps for many years now. And yet, RIM still continues to ship dozens of new phones loaded with the same stale software.

 

[gsaldivar]

If your wife has any bb stock, I would strongly encourage her to sell in the next few months...

Agreed.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Aggressive and combative...?

Nope. Not even close.

The points I made aren't moot just because you don't agree with them...

Just because RIM may have pioneered some smart phone features doesn't mean they are immune from falling behind the curve.

My point, and the point of many others in this thread, is that RIM has become complacent with its lucrative and captive base of business customers. As a result, they have had little incentive to innovate and push the evolution of their platform, until now.

Only now that there are several other innovative, mature, feature-complete operating systems on the market, has RIM been motivated to shift their OS development into high gear.

As you say, OS6 *may* bring the BB platform back ahead of the curve, but that remains to be seen. What people are acting on is what exists in the market today - not what might possibly exist when RIM finally releases OS6.

As I mentioned before, the problem for RIM is that their OS refresh about a year late already. People have been complaining about BB's speed, mediocre browser, and lack of apps for many years now. And yet, RIM still continues to ship dozens of new phones loaded with the same stale software.

Fine, well at least you've stopped attacking me and addressing the discussion, so you're learning.

The points are moot, as I provided reasoning and you missed that I put, 'IMHO'.

As for stale software, OS5 isn't half as stale as you may think, but then you know that because you have few OS5 devices right now, or are you just regurgitating what the cool kids are saying? It's not cool to have a BlackBerry or say you like them on tech forums. People bash you for saying you enjoy using them or like them. I'm coming to terms with it, but it doesn't mean I have to like it, or put up with it. Everytime you mention a cool trait, good feature or something you like, a poster will yell 'BROWSER!' or 'TIRED FORM FACTOR' to deflect the discussion. It's really boring.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Agreed.

OK, so now you're just trolling. /thread

 

[gsaldivar]

Fine, well at least you've stopped attacking me and addressing the discussion, so you're learning.

The points have been in every one of my replies in this thread. You just choose to disregard what you don't agree with.

OS5 isn't half as stale as you may think, but then you know that because you have few OS5 devices right now, or are you just regurgitating what the cool kids are saying? It's not cool to have a BlackBerry or say you like them on tech forums.

I don't know where you are getting this from, but maybe you've confused me with someone else on this forum?

People bash you for saying you enjoy using them or like them. I'm coming to terms with it, but it doesn't mean I have to like it, or put up with it. Everytime you mention a cool trait, good feature or something you like, a poster will yell 'BROWSER!' or 'TIRED FORM FACTOR' to deflect the discussion.

Look, if you post on a public forum, you're going to get replies from people who don't agree with you. It's that simple. I think I've made a decent attempt at justifying at length the reasons why I believe the points I made, and other than the "drum" remark I really don't think I've been very critical of you at all.

I think RIM makes great phones, I use them and recommend them and work with them on a regular basis. I'm also responsible for sending them tens of thousands of dollars in business. And I also think they are falling behind the curve with new subscribers.

OS6 may change that. May...

 

[gsaldivar]

OK, so now you're just trolling. /thread

No, I think Pliablemoose was giving you some honest advice which I happen to agree with.

 

[MrX8503]

You are seriously incorrect if you think there has been no OS development inside RIM before BlackBerry 6.

BB OS 6 is late, a few years late. This translates to several years of development late. This gives me reason to believe that they would of been happy with their crappy OS if it wasn't for iOS/Android.

iOS/Android are currently the movers of the smartphone world. Others revamping their stagnant OS is proof of that

 

[MJinZ]

i have never had to battery pull my BB. my BB gets thrown on the dash of my work truck and rides down dirt/gravel/stream bed roads, gets dropped in the dirt, gets squished in the pocket of my FR coveralls. I would have cracked the glass on the Iphone, broken a touch screen or 2 at least by now. all i do is blow it out with a can of air once in a while and it works like new.

are you really sure about 'Just thought I would throw out there that those that want a rock solid cell phone certainly wouldn't consider a BlackBerry." ??
I have seen too many other phones go to the trash in my line of work. my BB has never let me down when i have needed to be in communication with someone at the camp.

Um, yea. Not my experience.

Blackberry's servers are down intermittently, which kills all internet (except through Opera).

My Curve has had to pull the battery every once in a while for various reasons (mostly GPS).

My Curve's build quality was a POS. I don't think I would call that thing close rock solid. Maybe plastic solid.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Blackberry just needs to get serious with the Storm. That's the form factor that people want, and the Storms I played with just missed the mark. They need to beef up developer support, everyone who talks about mobile apps usually thinks about iOS and Android. When WinMo7 is released then there will be a lot of talk about that because Microsoft is good at making solid developer tools and they have money to back up their platform.

My point is RIMs problems are deeper than just the stock software they ship, the cell phone market is all about platform and RIM isn't doing enough to build a healthy one. I have a feeling they may turn out like Palm; licensing their tech for inclusion on other platforms, or bailing on their own OS in favor of shipping devices with Android.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I guess we could all post anecdotal evidence claiming that iPhone or Android were also unstable and needed restarting, too, but that would be childish.

My apologies, I shouldn't use anecdotal; and you are right about the clear bias. When you look to BB forums-

http://www.blackberryempire.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=751

or

http://www.blackberryforums.com/general-blackberry-discussion/180331-truth-crap-csr-said.html

Perhaps I should tell my wife that she simply needs to pull her battery every morning to prevent all of the issues she is having. Being an ancient almost 100 day old device, perhaps it is to be expected, but the dirty looks and the 'why don't the Android or iPhones ever need their battery taken out' get on my nerves quite a bit. As someone who gets to handle every new app setup and general phone issue for a couple BBs, a couple of iPhones and a couple Droids in my family(even one WinMo phone- and yes, I tried to talk sense into him) there is absolutely no question on which OS has the most stability issues by a huge margin. Call up any CSR with a BB issue, they will tell you it is normal and to pull the battery.

I just checked the uptime on my device and it says it's been up for just over 130 hours.

For an embedded device 130 days uptime isn't impressive. For iPhone/Android the only time I can recall rebooting them was for a system update. I'm not saying that they can't crash, but BB's it is common(according to polls on BB fan sites even).

i have never had to battery pull my BB. my BB gets thrown on the dash of my work truck and rides down dirt/gravel/stream bed roads, gets dropped in the dirt, gets squished in the pocket of my FR coveralls. I would have cracked the glass on the Iphone, broken a touch screen or 2 at least by now. all i do is blow it out with a can of air once in a while and it works like new.

I have a Moto Razr I talked a buddy into letting me have, it is split entirely in half and still sends texts and makes calls. I think everyone can recall how fragile Razrs were(the reason I wanted the snapped phone); sometimes you get very lucky. BTW- what model BB do you have? By your description I assume it must have Gorilla glass but I honestly wasn't aware that they used that in any of their phones. IME their screens tend to be rather frail(not as bad as the iPhone, but typical for cells and not even close to gorilla glass).

 

[DivideBYZero]

My apologies, I shouldn't use anecdotal; and you are right about the clear bias. When you look to BB forums-

http://www.blackberryempire.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=751

or

http://www.blackberryforums.com/general-blackberry-discussion/180331-truth-crap-csr-said.html

Perhaps I should tell my wife that she simply needs to pull her battery every morning to prevent all of the issues she is having. Being an ancient almost 100 day old device, perhaps it is to be expected, but the dirty looks and the 'why don't the Android or iPhones ever need their battery taken out' get on my nerves quite a bit. As someone who gets to handle every new app setup and general phone issue for a couple BBs, a couple of iPhones and a couple Droids in my family(even one WinMo phone- and yes, I tried to talk sense into him) there is absolutely no question on which OS has the most stability issues by a huge margin. Call up any CSR with a BB issue, they will tell you it is normal and to pull the battery.

Have you updated the OS to the latest version on her device? I would suggest you PM me the model and I can help.

Let's not get bogged down in he said, she said, deal? It's too easy to keep posting pointless links to threads or fan pages that 'support' your argument and it really does neither you or your point justice. Let me show you:

My iPhone keeps rebooting every 30 seconds
My iPhone constanly restarts
HTC EVO constantly restarts itself

That was almost too easy and proves nothing other than I can use Google to push my own viewpoint.

For an embedded device 130 days uptime isn't impressive. For iPhone/Android the only time I can recall rebooting them was for a system update. I'm not saying that they can't crash, but BB's it is common(according to polls on BB fan sites even).

And leaving out the fact that I stated the only reason it was restarted over 130 hours ago was due to an application install that required a restart is just devisive.

Again, being one of the few BlackBerry fans in this forum

 

[oddyager]

Even among the BB community, am I the only way who had absolutely no issues running with the Storm 1? I bought it on the first day it came out and it's been absolutely flawless for me. The update to OS5 made things even better.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Even among the BB community, am I the only way who had absolutely no issues running with the Storm 1? I bought it on the first day it came out and it's been absolutely flawless for me. The update to OS5 made things even better.

Proabably. My Storm 1 was a hot joke, but after moving to OS5 on it I loved it. I then moved to S2 and had the same pain again, till I ended up on the OS I have now, a Hybrid 5.0.0.580 which is almost flawless.

 

[lupi]

Last I checked, and while not a banner line product, they are the only smart phone product that comes with a camera-less product. That is still going to leave them as the only option on a lot of business hips.