blackberry
@BlackBerry, The end Of An Era?
At this past Wednesday’s earnings call @BlackBerry made it official that they are exiting the hardware business. That is they will no longer design and manufacture phones. For anyone paying attention, even remotely, to the goings on with BlackBerry this should not come as a surprise. The first glaring clue should have been the #Dtek50. That was BlackBerry telling us without telling us. One other piece of item that should not be forgotten is that John Chen is a software guy so should the path BlackBerry is on really surprise anyone?
BlackBerry will continue to put out phones only they won’t be the one making them. Let’s not forget the #Dtek60 is around the corner and the ‘mercury’ I assume at some point in early 2017. This of course means nothing because after their announcement all you could read were headlines with ‘quit’,’bailed’,’ending’,end of an era’,’no longer’ and on and on and on.. why? Because haters gonna hate.
This announcement certainly garnered a lot of reaction and emotion… some of it even anger. I am a proud Canadian and proud to support a Canadian icon like BlackBerry. I am first and foremost a BlackBerry supporter. It’s a business and I have come to terms and understand that John Chen had to do what he had to do to ensure BlackBerry didn’t go away. Am I angry that BlackBerry will no longer manufacturer the phones? No. Am I sad? Yes. It does make me sad. Interestingly enough I think BlackBerry has always been about software but let’s face it when u hear ‘BlackBerry’ your first reaction will always be hardware; the cell phone. For me BlackBerry has always been about gorgeous ‘look and feel’ and quality phones. Name me a BlackBerry phone that didn’t have quality behind it? That’s what I worry will happen with outsourcing. Take a look at the #DTEK50.. I had a chance to look at one up close and personal and in hand I don’t feel that quality. I understand it’s a low end phone but still. The ‘powers in the know’ are reassuring the BlackBerry faithful that BlackBerry will continue to have a say and QA input with these future outsourced phones. Let’s hope so.
The Passport SE one of the best examples of what quality is..
So is it the end of an era? Well ya I kinda think so… but is it a new beginning as John Chen put it? It certainly is.
http://crackberry.com/john-chen-its-start-new-chapter-rather-end-era
http://crackberry.com/john-chen-blackberry-keyboard-will-live
Is @BlackBerry #BB10 Barb from #StrangerThings?
Over the weekend i watched the final episode of #StrangerThings. Last weekend i watched the first seven episodes and i waited an entire week to watch the last one. I mean, who does that? lol.
Anyway – as i always do every week, i listened to the UTBBlogs podcast. They now have a segment where they answer questions from viewers. Again, there are folks out there wondering about the status of BB10 and 10.3.3 and whether there will ever be another BB10 device. You can tell that Brad and company are tired of answering these questions. It’s the same old, same old. BB10 isn’t going anywhere and it was made clear that in the next couple of years BB10 would be given very little attention. One update supposedly now in September (10.3.3) and one some time in 2017 (10.3.4).
Yes, John Chen and company have stated this a few times but i can’t help but feel like BB10 is Barb.
This poor kid was snatched up by the Demogorgon and she was barely on anyone’s radar. I mean, outside of Nancy who was concerned, noone really went out actively looking for her. Incredibly strange, no? Then later in the movie while chief Hopper and Joyce were in the upside down looking for her son, Hopper sees Barb and it was like “nothing to see here, let’s move it along”… This poor girl!! Nobody cared!
On more than one occasion, John Chen, while re-iterating that BB10 isn’t going anywhere has also mentioned that he “will let the market tell BlackBerry what to do”. This, in my opinion, is very important. You see, while BB10 is getting very little love, Android is getting tons. As a consumer who loves and uses BB10 i have taken notice of this. My son rolls his eyes when i say this but i consider myself a power user and i love how BB10 allows me to be that. So is BB10 an awesome OS? Yes it is. Having said that though i am feeling the pinch in areas where i think it’s lacking. i am not a heavy app user but i do like some social media apps. I am big on Twitter and Instagram and to a lesser degree FaceBook. For the most part the native apps give me what i need and when they don’t i use the android version. Still though at times, the experience on the android side isn’t ideal. For example, android instagram allows me to enjoy viewing “stories” but for whatever reason when i record a story it is transmitted and saved all garbled. Only photos work. Same goes with Snapchat. Android Periscope can’t be installed because of the version of the runtime we have (too old). Facebook live? i won’t even bother installing Android FB as i think it will be the same result as Snapchat. I volunteer at a soccer youth club as their social media guy and certainly some of the features i can’t have/get would come in handy. As you can see there is a struggle within that is happening. I know that if i go BlackBerry Android i can get all this. I am obviously not the only one and that’s what John Chen is counting on. As the Android side gets updated frequently, we the BB10 user, will start to feel “we are missing out” and we will ultimately transition over because nothing is really happening or will happen on the BB10 side. It’s almost like a waiting game. BlackBerry is dragging their feet on the BB10 side in the hopes that BB10ers will get fed up with the lack of “anything” and jump to BlackBerry Android. If this does happen and in a large scale then BlackBerry can come back and state the the market has spoken and they will no longer support or expand on BB10. All you have to do is take a look at the likes of UTB “i will never go android” Brad. Here’s a guy who keeps telling everyone to relax about BB10 and that “it’s going nowhere” while he sports a #Priv and can’t stop talking how great an android it is. The poster boy of what BlackBerry is counting on. For me, the reality is simple. Once my Passport SE goes (and hopefully it will be a long time before it does), i will go the way of BlackBerry Android unless some shocking revelation happens on the BB10 side.
btw I googled the cast of #StrangerThings.. take a look at this:
No respect at all.. where is the actress that played Barb? Even “Will” who was snatched up in the first episode and was seen a few times here and there is listed!!!
SwiftKey has been sharing users’ phone numbers and email addresses with strangers
well that’s special…
and that’s why i am #TeamBlackBerry
via SwiftKey has been sharing users’ phone numbers and email addresses with strangers
Media “conditioned” to ask BlackBerry about handset business, says Chen | CrackBerry.com
so true.. there is more to BlackBerry!! The irony is the very same people that continuously dwell on the same old things are the same people that accuse BlackBerry of living in the past!
via Media “conditioned” to ask BlackBerry about handset business, says Chen | CrackBerry.com
Comedian Seth Meyers Likes To Write Jokes On His BlackBerry Q10
via Comedian Seth Meyers Likes To Write Jokes On His BlackBerry Q10
Now this makes me happy… you see.. @KimKardashian why don’t you take a page from Seth’s playbook? The guy is rocking a #Q10!!!…He probably moved on from a #Bold…The #Q10 is great but the #Classic and even more so the #Passport… hands down an even better experience!!! The point being though that there is a life after the #Bold!!!
@KimKardashian Kim Kardashian: “I’am So Close To Giving Them (BlackBerry) Up,”
via Kim Kardashian: “I’am So Close To Giving Them (BlackBerry) Up,”
Reading this article annoys me. I am annoyed because i have no clue if Kim has any clue that the @BlackBerry #Classic is the answer to her prayers.. seriously. Did she not get the memo??
Open sentence to @KimKardashian : grab a @BlackBerry #Classic, spend some quality time with it. You will not regret it. Thank you.
This Supercharged Stylist Says Her Passport Helps Her Stay Fashionably on Time | Inside BlackBerry
Karin Elgai started a career in fashion styling, she thought she w
via This Supercharged Stylist Says Her Passport Helps Her Stay Fashionably on Time | Inside BlackBerry
Karin is one intelligent person! Just yesterday i had a guy comment on my @BlackBerry #PassportSE … his first reaction on seeing it was “What’s thatttt??” .. Told him it was a BlackBerry.. Showed him what it can do.. of course, the touch sensitive keyboard impressed. Showed him all the android apps i run..The frustration comes with the “what’s that?” comment. It just seems to never end.
How I Put My @BlackBerry #Passport To Use
This is but one example of how @BlackBerry works for me. I have been involved in youth soccer for many years. This year I have the pleasure of being on the coaching staff for our club’s semi pro and reserve teams. I am also responsible for their social media. Yesterday I got the opportunity to put my skills to work. One hour before the start of the match I put out a photo of the starting lineup.
I prepare the above image on my laptop the day before our match and save it to the cloud. One hour before kick off I access it from my #Passport and tweet it out. Simple enough.
During in-game I keep busy tweeting out as much play by play as possible.. mostly through the great BlackBerry 10 App @Blaq. I use the Android version of twitter when I need to tweet out a video. An example of the flexibility of BlackBerry 10.
During the first half using my digital SLR camera I take a lot of action shots. The purpose is two-fold… one is to practice my photography skills. Secondly, I select 2 shots to use as the image when i tweet out the match score. One at halftime. One at full-time. Here are two examples from yesterday’s match:
Now how do I pull this off, you ask? From camera to my #Passport? Easy. I use an OTG cable and card reader.
Admittedly yesterday a few times I had to verify some jersey numbers and last name spelling.. no pblm.. file manager and documents on the go.
.. and the battery life on the #Passport… ridiculously good. No sweat.
Why I choose @BlackBerry
#BlackBerry #productivity
My Random Thoughts 