‘Inflexion point’ BlackBerry washes hands of hardware biz Here’s your chance to design your own BlackBerry. BlackBerry today ended its 17-year adventure as a phone-maker with CEO John Chen announcing “a new strategic direction focussed on licensing our secure device software and the BlackBerry brand.” There will still be BlackBerrys – a new one is imminent - but BlackBerry won’t make …
We all knew it was coming. Blackberry had some brilliant moments and I personally welcomed the idea (if not always perfect execution) of security THEN fashion.
However their business decisions all too often resembled someone stepping (even tap dancing) on their crank with golf shoes.
We were going to buy into the BB ecosystem 10+ years ago but we were denied because they didn't have some shiny feature or other. I guess the C suite was correct.
I happened to charge, boot up and update my daughter's Z10 BB10 phone the other evening.
After almost 18 months it didn't actually feel slow or dated, and the hardware was as tank-like as ever.
But the is no question that things have moved on, my daughter is now using Android and my son had a new iPhone 7 delivered today. There are not going to be many competitors to these two platforms now until a new generation emerges whenever that will be.
Why?
Is he independently wealthy? A phone that costs more than many laptops (nearly £700 excluding accessories) and twice comparable phones made by others, though more awkward (no 3.5mm jack for car/hifi/earphonse, non-standard I/O connection compared to most phones, nearly impossible to transfer content without iTunes, glued in battery).
It's a shame the only choices now are really Android, or else Apple if you want to spend x2 more and have less functionality. Like 1995 to 2005 for PCs.
I was looking at a MS phone. The Win8 is poorer than Android, the Win 10 upgrade doesn't support some features and is as creepy privacy wise as Android. Shame as it's nice HW, though no USB host mode and probably doomed as a platform.
> Why?
Because he wanted one, and it's his money not mine. He previously had an iPhone 4S and then an iPhone 6 so he's replaced each phone after a couple of years. By the 2 year mark the screens are usually cracked, I am hoping that he manages to look after this one better with the assistance of a decent Spigen case.
I did mine myself. New screen for a Bb Z10: £12. Set of 30-odd impossibly tiny Torx drivers down to #2 : six quid, including shipping. Oh and a pair of +3 reading glasses from the chemist -- really needed for the fiddly bits of the job, which was most of it. Fascinating to see inside the box, though: the actual /phone/ board (as opposed to battery, display, case etc)is the size of a stick of gum.
Edit: oh yeah, and a walk-through of the process on YouTube was an essential help.
In 20+ years of mobile phone, PDA and smartphone ownership (many, many devices used as every day workhorses, most of them pre-dating "Gorilla Glass") I have never once suffered a cracked screen on a single device.
They don't crack spontaneously ya know and adding a case is not synonymous with - nor a substitute for - actually "taking care" of a device.
My BlackBerry Priv says Made in Mexico on it.
I've actually quite enjoyed my Priv, I'm slightly saddened that there is now unlikely to be a successor of any real quality. Back to Samsung Notes I guess, as long as they can stop them exploding, my Note 2 and 3 were fantastic aside from the lack of keyboard.
... this is not the end of phones with real keyboard. But probably few years before someone comes and fills the hole left by RIMBlackberry. For now, since I cannot type on touch screens and am not willing to learn it, I am going to make a small stock of Blackberry phones.
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