BBMobile
Jan 4, 2022 – #BlackBerry – the end of an era
Jan 4 will always be a special and important day for me as it is my son’s birthday. However, this jan 4th 2022 will forever be embedded in my mind for a different reason…the end of an era..a sad day for #BlackBerry. The OG and classic OS is being decommissioned and will no longer be supported. For us loyal blackberrians it is truly a sad day.
My first phone was a motorola razr but once I set my eyes on a BlackBerry that was it. No other phone could match it for many reasons but for me it was that physical keyboard. Wow.
I have a shrine to all the phones I have had over the years.. All with the physical keyboard.
I absolutely love BB10. It was incredibly frustrating to me that it was never given a chance. I recall when it first hit the streets how it was mocked for being gesture based.. And now years later both iOS and Android are gesture based. *cough*Hypocrites *cough*
It was ahead of its time.
The only silver lining…as I write this on my BlackBerry KEY2, is that BlackBerry lives on with android, all be it an inferior OS to BB10.
I hope that in the new year onwardmobility gets their act together and puts out the BlackBerry phone we were promised in 2021.
My @BBMobile #KEYone, 10 Months and One Day Later
*UPDATED*
Not sure how I forgot this but worth mentioning.. Although it’s more an android/app annoyance than a KEYone. What’s with apps like YouTube and Facebook refreshing and taking you back to the top of the feed when you return to the App after it was minimized?
Side note: I swore that early yesterday @BBMobile liked my tweet for this post then the ‘like’ was gone later in the day. Hopefully I didn’t piss anyone off. Interestingly enough my battery is getting battered this morning. Some sort of revenge? Lol. I kid.
I should also mention that I am a die hard fan and look forward to the KEYtwo.
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Ok so this post was supposed to happen yesterday and then life got in the way. So why not wait 2 more months and do a ‘year later’ review? Well, I don’t think anything will change in the next two months. Atleast I don’t think so. If things change then I will post another update.
No huge revelations will come out of this post. Just my experience.
I guess the best way to approach this is a pros and cons list.
Pros
The phone is gorgeous. Beautiful looking and great quality. BBmobile needs to continue to make quality BlackBerry phones. None of that DTEK series nonsense.
The physical keyboard is pure awesomeness. I cannot do without a pkb. I just simply love the feel of the keys. I am a complete superstar writing on the KEYone.
The added features that come along with this great pkb like flicking words onto screen. Swiping back to erase words. Using the pkb as a mouse. Last but not least the fact you can create shortcuts both long and short for each key. I have so many shortcuts set up. So, so convenient.
The split screen feature. Most of the time I use it because I am watching a YouTube video but want to be able to scroll through my twitter feed. BB10 was far superior at this but heck atleast we got something.
The App ecosystem. I put this out here because almost every single BB elite out there that is pushing old time BB users of OS7 and BB10 use this as the main argument to jump on the blackdroid bandwagon. Personally I am not huge on apps. I have the few I use regularly but that’s about it. Instagram, twitter and FB are the main three with a small handful of others. What I will say is that, yes, it is exciting, I guess, to always have these apps getting updated on a regular basis.
Battery life. Amazing that I don’t have to bring my charger with me. Ever.
Cons (or annoyances)
Apps freezing up and getting the dreaded ‘App has stopped working’ window. So annoying. I don’t recall ever experiencing this with BB10.
I feel like I need to throw this one in. The Facebook App on android is pure unadulterated garbage. 99% of the time it is sluggish as shit. Thank God I rarely use it. Unfortunately the few time I do use it, it’s pure hell.
There are times when u press on either the circle, triangle or square and it takes a few cracks before there is a response. The square seems to be the worse.
General lag in responsiveness. It doesn’t happen often but when the phone slows down, it slows down to a crawl and it is the WORST!! There have been times that it was so bad I wanted to launch the phone across a room and into a wall. I have not done it and will never because I can’t bring myself to damaging such a beautiful phone 😀. I recall one time wanting to show an iPhone user friend of mine a video and it took so long to fire up he commented that we would have already watched it on his iPhone. I had no comeback. I mean how can I possibly convince people to join the blackdroid world when shit like this happens.
Battery life. Yes, this is in my Cons list as well. Although I don’t need my charger, battery life is not like it used to be. Seems to have changed somewhat since the last OS update. When it comes to my phone usage during my work week nothing has changed. I rarely use my phone during my work day yet my battery drains at a faster rate than in the past. I start my day at 6am and finish work at 430pm. There was a time when my battery would be in the low to mid 80s. Now it’s low 50s and at time in the 40s. Sure I reboot and get maybe one good day but then it’s back to what seems to be the new norm of low to mid 50s. Mostly the android system is chewing up all the battery life. I get that over time batteries can’t keep their charge like they used to but it hasn’t even been a year yet. Something has to change here. Why do I have to be forced to reboot my phone frequently to hope to get better battery life?
That’s all folks. For the most part my experience with Android has been good but at this point I can still argue that it’s no BB10. At some point I imagine I will no longer be able to say that.
My First Experience with @BBM Support, Kinda Meh.
In all the years I have been a BlackBerry user I have never had the desire or need to open a support ticket. I recently found an issue and initially tweeted @BBM and on their suggestion sent details on the issue at hand.
My email to support:
From my email you can clearly see I am on an Android phone. I think I clearly explain that the issue is trying to share a screenshot to BBM using the long press of O on Android feature. Basically the image is rendered as black. I do have a work around in that I first share the image to noteable and then to BBM to get it to work correctly so it’s not a show stopper albeit it means an extra step. I am all about productivity and apparently so is BlackBerry.
Their response:
Where did I ever mention that my BBM is crashing in my email to them? Needless to say, it’s the last time I will bother.
I don’t know maybe it’s a language thing. Makes me think of the movie ‘Lost In Translation.’
How My @BBMobile #KEYone Battery Blew Me Away!!
I have had my KEYone since May so I have already been accustomed to how great the battery life is on this phone. However, this past weekend it proved it’s worth once again. I have been volunteering at a local soccer club now for over 10 years. Every year we hold a Soccerfest where tons of teams from all over come for a weekend of friendly competition. I wear several hats at the club and one is ‘social media’ guy. I handle their twitter, Facebook and instagram accounts. This weekend was a busy one. I started my day around 8am and called it a day on the social media front around 4pm on Saturday and a little after 6pm on Sunday. On both days I checked what my battery life was like and wow. On Saturday it was at 68% and on Sunday it was at 51%. I should mention though that Sunday was the busier of the two days. Throughout the weekend I was constantly firing off mostly pictures on all 3 accounts. I took alot of photos and video footage. To boot on Sunday we did a Facebook live. Granted it was only a little over 6mins long as we inaugurated the reopening of a field but this I did from my KEYone! Stupid me I didn’t take screen grabs of the battery percentage and I know that if there is no photo it didn’t happen but trust me, it did happen!
Oops. Mea Culpa. My @BBMobile #KEYone does multi-task.
Alright, alright, alright. Looks like I had another brain fart. Turns out Nougat does off multi-tasking. It’s the split screen feature:
As you can see I have YouTube running at the top with Twitter at the bottom. Not all apps however can do the split screen thing. For example instagram doesn’t. So, yes, I can multi-task but I am still limited. Still better than nothing.
What I’m missing big time on my @BBMobile #KEYone
This morning, like i do every Saturday morning, i prepared my breakfast and sat down to watch my usual blogcast. While watching the blogcast on YouTube it hit me like a ton of bricks that i had a huge brain fart and missed out on writing about the biggest brain fart that exists on Android on my last post Over a month with my @BBMobile #KEYone. My thoughts on #Blackdroid. That is multitasking. Or lack of it. This post won’t be a long one but i will illustrate my point by using YouTube as an example. On BB10 i’d fire up YouTube and if a video was an hour long that’s exactly how long it would take me to watch (or listen to) it regardless of what else i was doing on the phone (ie: multitasking). So, while watching the video, if i chose to fire up Twitter or FaceBook or Instagram or read emails etc, i would minimize YouTube, it would continue to run in the background so i could listen to it while i did other things. On Android now i don’t have this luxury. So if i want a one hour video to last one hour I have to refrain from doing anything else. That’s pretty hard for me. That basically means that a one hour video usually lasts 1hr20mins or sometimes more because every time i minimize YouTube to do something else it stops in its tracks because Android doesn’t do multitasking. A seasoned OS can’t handle this simple job. Shame, shame, shame.
so when talking productivity one should look at BB10 as a leader, not Android.
I so much wanted to find the meme with Felipe doing the shame, shame, shame bit but couldn’t find it.. however, in this case i don’t agree with Felipe..not for Android, it isn’t. 😉
Over a month with my @BBMobile #KEYone. My thoughts on #Blackdroid.
The KEYone is my first ever Android phone. I am closing in on 2 months since i got it and i figured it was time to give my impressions on Android. Going in i had some high expectations. Android, is some 8-9 years old (if not more) and one would assume “mature”. Thus far, i have been disappointed. Look, some (if not all) of what i will write will come across as petty but at the end of the day this OS has been embraced by a huge portion of the world and hoopla’d all over the place as a godsend and well i don’t see it (so far).
In less than 2 months i have had to reboot the phone 5 times already for various reasons. i know what you’re thinking. Jesus, take a pill dude. A whole 5 times! Well you know what? I don’t remember having to do that with my first BB10 phone. That often, that soon after getting it.
Some of the reasons i have had to reboot so far:
I tried to download an update for an app while on LTE and after waiting 30 MINUTES (yes, i timed it) staring at a spinning donut, i aborted the “downloading…”, rebooted and then boom download/install went through quickly. Never happened with BB10.
i tap an app icon and instead of launching the actual app, i am presented with the last app i minimized to the recents list. Never happened with BB10.
i tried to move apps from one page to another and it wouldn’t allow it. Never happened with BB10
My wife also has a KEYone and typically works off Wifi while keeping data off (don’t ask). The other day during her daily walk she noticed she was receiving emails and was able to surf the net so she called me on it wondering how that was possible. When i got home i checked her phone and data was off yet she received the email i sent her. i proceeded to turn off Wifi as well and again still able to receive and send email. I also surfed the net. To solve the issue i turned on data then turned it off. Never happened with BB10.
I always put my phone on silent mode while at work and sometimes (and actually often) it somehow sets itself to vibrate seemingly on its own. i know. It sounds crazy. And no, i am not inadvertently touching any buttons. i mean it is sitting on my desk i wake it up and it’s in vibrate mode. Still haven’t figured this one out.
There are inconsistencies when i watch a YouTube video and i minimize the app to the recents. There are times when i return to it and the video picks up where it left off and times when it starts over. why? Haven’t found anything on the internet that has shed some light.
Speaking of recents.. i usually never have more than 4-5 apps open at any given time.. sometimes i will go to my recents and some apps are gone. I’m not sure why. how could it not handle 4 apps being open? Maybe this is a KEYone thing, i don’t know.
The one area i thought for sure would be better on Android, isn’t. Notifications. They are just as inconsistent as they are on BB10. I think i almost never get FB notifications which is a problem since i manage a page for a youth soccer league and i need to respond to messages in a timely fashion. I was creeped out when i started to get notifications on how long the drive was from my home to my workplace since i never set up any workplace info on my phone. And what’s up with these intrusive survey style notifications?
I continue to use religiously the 3 apps that i have always used; twitter, instagram and facebook. The facebook app doesn’t impress me at all and the last update screwed it up even more. As well, i have also already had to deal with spam while in FB. These damn pop ups show up getting me already nervous that i have been compromised.
i have had to force close instagram a couple times as it froze on me completely. Twitter is the only one that has behaved so far. Outside of these i have also installed a file manager (sorely missed), QR code reader, Bell Fibe TV and Waze (because i have a few friends that rave about it). So there are days when i ask myself why i switched over to Android. With BB10 i have a instagram, twitter and facebook (albeit browser). BB10 has a fantastic file manager, QR reader already built in & Bell Fibe (android port). Although i will admit Waze is pretty good, i certainly could live with the BB10 navigation. I mean in the end, there hasn’t been anything great about the switch outside of the fact i get insta stories for instagram which apparently is coming to BB10’s Inst10 but knowing Nemory it will be a half assed job. I say this because when he first announced that he was working on insta stories for Inst10 i asked if we would be able to create our own stories or just view others and he said to start only view others. Translation. Creating our own stories will never happen! Years later and still you cannot upload a video w/Inst10. So ya, trust me, i am right about this.
I do miss BB10. My Passport SE is no longer my daily driver but i go to it from time to time just to get my BB10 fix. I miss it. i sorely miss the “peak” feature of BB10. Such a small feature but so great. Believe it or not, almost two months later and i still find myself trying to do gestures a la BB10. Yes, of course i realize, that going back to my Passport SE from time to time isn’t helping matters! Must. Let. Go.
On the BlackBerry software side of things…
BBM is well more advanced than the BB10 version but it looks too iPhoneish. UGHHHH!!!! This business with the “N” replacing the “*” for new messages is annoying. Bring back the spark!! 
i can also do without the ads… but c’est la vie.
The Android version of Hub can’t touch BB10’s version. Again, as i mentioned in a previous post it’s like having moved from a mansion to a one room apartment. i guess we can thank the gods that we have the dark theme!!! Right? 😛
I don’t really have any other gripes with the rest of the BB apps.
I am sure that Android has something to offer and down the road, and as i continue to work with it, i will see it. For now i don’t. U’d think that a seasoned OS like Android would be leaps and bounds superior than the rookie, BB10. It isn’t. Maybe Oreo will change things.
My @BBMobile #KEYone, Two Weeks Later…
I’ve had the #KEYone for a little over two weeks now and i decided to write a post on my experience so far. A few things to put out before i get into it. I am a hardcore BlackBerry fan. Outside of my very first Motorola flip phone i have never had a cell other than BlackBerry. The #KEYone is my first experience with Android. Also, I will not write about the specs at all. In my previous post i mentioned how this guy at the Montreal KEYone meet up was running comparisons between his dtek50 and the KEYone. Obviously comparing apples and oranges. It was more about how fun it was to see such enthusiasm over the KEYone’s performance and how much he needed to have it.
Although my son rolls his eyes when i say this, i consider myself a power user. I use my phone mostly for communicating (texting, email and if i must, talking 😜) and on the social media front i have 3 main ones i use. I am heavy on Twitter, followed a close 2nd by Instagram and a distant 3rd FaceBook. That’s it. I should also mention that i have not changed my habits now that i have the KEYone. During the work week i turn off data while at work. I do it mostly because having data off allows me to focus on work and not get the urge to look at my phone. It’s not to say i don’t but i do very little. Once i get off work i step up my game. My typical day starts at 6am and goes until about 1030-11pm (occasionally midnight). Therefore, i unplug my phone from the charger at 6am and plug it back when i call it a day. The following random screen grabs show you the typical battery life i have left at the end of my day.
You can certainly tell by the dips when i am off work 😜. Also, during this two week period on a couple of occasions i really used the phone a lot on social media. It’s fantastic that i don’t have to worry about bringing a charger with me. However, having written that, although i have not tried it yet i cannot see how i can go 2 days (or more) without charging the phone. I also think i have tweaked all the settings that will help battery life.
Here’s an example of my battery usage over a weekend. Similar for both days. On weekends i start my day off @7am.
What can be said about the hardware other than it is gorgeous. Look at it. Another great looking and quality phone here. It feels great in the hand and although some reviewers have referred to it as “chunky” i don’t see it that way. It is also much lighter than i expected. Definitely lighter than my Passport SE. Truth be told, my initial observation was that unlike my Passport SE i felt that the KEYone would not survive a drop. I have never dropped any of my phones and i don’t intend to intentionally. The bend test “fail” by JerryRigEverything had me all bent out of shape but the “durability” test by @CrackberryKevin got me back on track and feeling better about things. I sported my Passport SE without a case however, for my KEYone i did purchase one. I opted for a transparent one because like my Passport SE it would be scandalous to hide such a beautiful phone!!!
My typing experience so far has been interesting. I have always been a keyboard guy and my transition from my Classic to the Passport SE (4 rows of keys vs. 3) was less difficult than my transition from the Passport to the KEYone. I struggled more than i thought i would. It took a little over a week before i got back to being my ninja self again . Some reviewers feel the keyboard is cramped. I don’t think so. One reviewer went as far to complain that when he needs to type 7 and he presses the Alt key with his left thumb and 7 with his right it’s cumbersome. Well buddy, try pressing the Alt with your left thumb and the 7 with your left thumb. Amateur. The flicking capability of the PKB is on fleek and i notice that swiping back to erase words is better than with the Passport. Quick and efficient. There are times though that it takes several cracks at flicking successfully the word from the middle of the PKB. As some reviewers have already mentioned .. sometimes when i do flick a word i inadvertently fire either the triangle, circle or square action. Using the PKB to scroll has been for the most part excellent. There are times when it hiccups & is not so smooth. And just like flicking words, when i scroll mostly from the middle, at times i fire off the circle action. Not the end of the world. Finally, one of the best features of a PKB is shortcuts. I cannot stress this enough. I use both the short and long press shortcuts. I have so many set up; from launching apps, to texting/emailing contacts. it’s not only A-M-A-Z-I-N-G but EFFICIENT!!!! For example, i set up the short press ‘M’ to email my wife, long press to text. ‘F’ set up the same for my son and ‘D’ for my daughter. Instagram gets long press “I” and Twitter gets long press “T” while tasks gets short press “T”. Notes gets long press “N”, while Notable gets short press “N”… anyway you get the idea.
I will end it by saying that i do love the KEYone PKB but for now atleast i give the edge to the Passport SE PKB.
Not much to say about the fingerprint scanner on the spacebar; super quick!
My transition to Blackdroid has been smoother than i thought. I honestly thought i would lose my shit but i would say that after a few days i was pretty much assimilated. Admittedly a few times i found myself trying to do things a la BB10. Also, and maybe it’s my lack of experience with Android but it seems that to find some setting you have to always go 2 or more levels deep. Like, it’s never ‘voila’ here it is!!! I don’t know, maybe i am being too picky. No. i am not. BB10 is better 😀!
The KEYone is pretty snappy. There have been a few times when i tap on an app in the recents list and there is this lag but for the most part it seems to be the Google Play music & videos app while i am listening to music.
As i mentioned i use Twitter alot. Talon for twitter is my choice and it’s helped cope with not having @Blaq which is a fantastic twitter client on BB10. Instagram is instagram but completely ridiculous that it doesn’t offer the ability to repost photos/videos like BB10 apps. You are forced to download a 3rd party and the drawback to these free apps is the in-app ads … MY GOD, SOOOO ANNOYING!!!! I also notice that if “battery saver” is on, instagram videos refuse to play. I tried it on 3 different occasions thinking “it’s me, not you”… but no, it’s you. I don’t get it though. When you turn on battery saver, you select a threshold so you would think that the saver would kick in when you hit that threshold and not before. It almost seems like it kicks in, period. The Facebook experience sucks. That’s all i can really say there. It was suggested (by Kylie aka @kewlgirl05) i try “Friendly”. I may do so at some point. We shall see, as i mentioned i am not high on FB. btw, she is also the one that gave me the heads up on Talon! I am also not sure what is going on with notifications. On BB10, truth be told, notifications were hit and miss. Very erratic and inconsistent. Well, it appears to be the same for Android. They either happen quickly, late or not at all. Speaking of notifications, during the first couple of days with the KEYone, whenever the LED would go off, my first instinct was to check the hub but at times there was nothing new there and it would drive me bananas because i couldn’t understand what was triggering the LED light. Well, eventually I discovered it was the Android notification bar (or whatever it is called) at the top. And speaking of the hub; no comparison yet. BB10 hub is a rock star, Android hub is still the wanna-be. On BB10 i basically lived in the hub. I still do but it’s like i went from a luxurious mansion to a one room apartment. I also miss the file manager. I have looked at a few alternatives in the Google Play Store but i am still undecided. There are so many and i am weary of just taking any old one. Now as for the Google Play Store i don’t know what the deal with it is sometimes.. There are times when i try to download an update and it takes seconds to download and install and then there are times when that spinning donut just spins and spins and spins and nothing happens.. whether on wifi or data. The last time i got fed up and rebooted the phone, got back into the play store and then everything was fine. Install of updates was seconds.
I use the productivity tab as i think it’s pretty useful.. but admittedly there are times i forget it’s there. I know with time that will change.
The camera is phenomenal. It’s the best camera on any previous BlackBerry phone. The speed is fantastic, as is the quality of the photos. So far, i am a point and shoot guy but I will look to expand on that. My photos posted to instagram are all #nofilter (ok maybe 1 or 2 i used a filter). Over the weekend i had the opportunity to take video on a long road trip we had with our senior AAA soccer team. Great footage (you’ll have to take my word for it) . I really like the slow mo feature.
After getting my Passport SE, i wrote all my blog posts on it. All of them. This is not the case with this post. I do intend on using my KEYone for future posts though. This post was also not written in one sitting but over the course of several days. I used both “Notes” And “Notable” to take notes and screen grabs for use on this post.
I’ll leave off with a few words about my BlackBerry phones. i have always and will always treat them with huge care.
I have never sat anywhere while having my cell in my back/front pocket. And it will never happen. As a matter of fact i have rarely ever had my cell in my back pocket. If my shirt has a pocket i will use it otherwise the phone is always in my hand, front pant pocket or table. I also make it a point of holding the phone such that the BlackBerry logo is facing outward because people have to know that i am a proud BlackBerry supporter 😀!
.. anddddd speaking of the logo.. There is no question that the BlackBerry logo is well recognized around the world but i have to say i was saddened that the BlackBerry brand name is not on the KEYone. It got me wondering how much longer before the logo will disappear altogether too. Ironically while chatting with a BBM contact he made a sarcastic comment that eventually it could be branded AlcatelBerry!
well that’s all folks for this post.. It’s really sad that BB10 was not given a chance. I am not an X-files conspiracy theorist but i do believe the big two had a hand in making sure BB10 didn’t get off the ground. I have zero proof though 😜.. so i guess it is a conspiracy theory!! lol. I am far from being sold on Android right now but i am enjoying every minute of my KEYone. No regrets.
Why the @BBMobile #KEYone delay has me feeling like Jack Tripper!
Before the #KEYone showed it’s beautiful face i could care less about Android or Blackdroid for that matter. I had no plans to leave my trusted #Passport SE… Then we got teased with the KEYone.. Then we got more at MWC.. Then we were promised that we could get our hands on the #KEYone starting in April.. then the bomb dropped that it was delayed. Then silence…it bothers me that i am bothered by the delay but the fact is i actually got excited. The KEYone got me willing to go to the dark side!!! I am a volunteer at a youth soccer club and started to plan out what i’d be using the KEYone for.. well, our season has started and at this rate who knows when i will get this phone. Hopefully, before the season is done. In any case, this delay has got me feeling all kinds of this:
My Random Thoughts 