BlackBerry's 'Classic' Smartphone Is About to Disappear (fortune.com) 74
From a Reuters report:The beleaguered tech company continues its shift to software. BlackBerry will stop making its Classic smartphone, 18 months after launching it in an effort to entice users who prefer physical, rather than touch, keyboards, the Canadian technology company said on Tuesday. The Classic was launched early last year, with a physical keyboard in the vein of its Bold predecessor and powered by the company own overhauled BlackBerry 10 operating system. BlackBerry has since launched a phone powered by Alphabet's Android software and plans several more, and BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen last month expressed confidence the company's trimmed-down handset business can turn a profit by a self-imposed September deadline.
It's Like (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's Like (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if most of the American population suddenly stopped eating burgers and instead ate burritos, it would be a sensible business move. However, it's questionable how many people would start eating at McDonald's again, considering their competence is in burgers (if you like McD's burgers), not burritos. Usually, when this happens, the business ends up failing. Trying to belatedly "join the crowd" is probably the best course of action at that point, but it's still usually futile.
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Re:It's Like (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if you're being paid to run a McDonald's and are just flailing - trying to find any revenue stream at all to keep the store open another week or two... you'll try burritos.
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Actually, McDonald's already tried burritos. The Mac Snack Wrap.
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McDonald's does make burritos. [mcdonalds.com]
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This is more like when MickeyD's stopped using styrofoam containers for their burgers and instead went with paper containers... still the same crap inside, just a different package on the outside.
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it's more like "same package, different crap. still crap."
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There's a big sign on the McDonald's on Prospect Ave that says they now sell something called a "Lobster Roll". Draw your own conclusions.
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We have our first confirmed case of the rare disease, Slashdot Tourettes.
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Rare? More like endemic.
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They cant do their own OS, it was too expensive and was damaging the company. When they can get the enormous android ecosystem for basically free, its a no brainer for them to join the android ecosystem. If they had done this years ago when everyone else did, they wouldnt be in the fix they are in. IT was the blackberry OS that was really doing in the company.
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Is there a potential market for a palmtop phone for sysadmins? I mean should I be starting something on kickstarter/indiegogo?
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I had a terminal program on android that did these things. I forget the name.
I've since become beappled and I don't have a terminal program on iOS that comes close.
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In this instance it had a bunch of screen buttons for esc, meta, ctrl-d, |, ~, arrow keys etc.
I haven't seen it again. If I charged my old android phone I could find the name.
I don't dispute that these things might exist in iOS. I failed to find them once, but it's not a day to day thing for me. I have a laptop most of the time.
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With a full unix compatible qwerty physical keyboard and android and selling it to nerds, devs, and sysadmins who need a remote computing device with a proper physical keyboard (even if we have to use function keys to get the full range of keys on their text message oriented keyboard?
It is called the BlackBerry Priv running BlackBerry Android. It has a slider physical keyboard although the ESCape key is missing which is annoying. Fortunately there are text editors (vi/vim) and secure shell clients available as apps for BlackBerry Android so it is still possible and enjoyable to use the BlackBerry Priv for *nix related tasks. I use it daily.
We (me & my wife) missed the old BB keyboards. We tried the priv keyboard in the store. It was not the same. It was not as good. We didn't buy it.
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with my android bar-phone
What's a bar phone? I use my usual phone at the bar. I hadn't considered getting a separate one just for the bar.
Simple way out (Score:1)
Just sell the business to Microsoft and increase their market share tenfold. Everybody should be happy :)
Re: Simple way out (Score:1)
Microsoft already ruined Nokia they may as well ruin what's left of Blackberry.
Microsoft kinda has the opposite of a Midas touch with mobile phone devices.
Shame really as despite Nokia having an increasingly untidy ux with Symbian, it was better in many ways than anything we have now. Certainly it multitasked extremely well and things like Nokia Beta Labs had cool stuff like the sleeping screen which was just very intelligent use of technology.
I don't think Blackberry was innovating in the way Nokia was up
Rename it (Score:2)
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Lack of vision; disturbing and costly (Score:1)
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Just give me a taller Bold with a move-pad, four Blackberry Buttons, and a real keyboard. I'll gladly pay a few hundred for it.
So... you'd gladly pay less that it costs to make?
It's a "what year is it?" design. (Score:4, Interesting)
Looking at the Classic, I can see clearly why it failed. It's like something from a decade ago. Sure, it's good to have a keyboard, but not at the expense of the screen! They got it right with the Priv and its sliding keyboard, that one is something I'd consider if I were thinking of buying a smartphone now.
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I thought they meant the Classic phone for right-handed users only. I never got into the Blackberry crazy to begin with as the phone's ergonomics as a left-handed person was awful. Stupid thumb wheel.
After I experienced that stupid design I never, ever looked at Blackberry phones again. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
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No thumbwheel on the Classic. If more people knew this Blackberry would be booming.
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Except that a smartphone hides much of that screen space when it pops up a touch sensitive keyboard. The blackberry classic actually looks like it has the same amount of screen space that my phone has when sending email. Basically I can't send email on my phone since it lacks a competent textual input device, a reasonable amount of screen space, find control over cursor placement, and so forth. At least with the Blackberry there's actual tactile feed back that you're on the right key so that you're not rel
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There are Android phones with physical keyboards just like the Blackberry. So the choice is not between having a physical keyboard and not having one. The choice is actually between having a phone with many apps on it and having a phone with very few.
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To me number of apps is irrelevant. Apple may have millions of apps but there are only a handful worth getting (even the free ones). There's the business phone, the productivity phone, but everyone's buying the social networking phone.
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There's the business phone, the productivity phone, but everyone's buying the social networking phone.
Why distinguish? I've made a good living with my iPhone as my business and productivity phone, and my social networking phone for the commute home.
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A pop out physical keyboard wont make the screen smaller, it pops out from the side of the phone.
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Many phones had a HUGE screen with a pop out keyboard on the side. This was one of the smartest things id seen.
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Looking at the Classic, I can see clearly why it failed. It's like something from a decade ago. Sure, it's good to have a keyboard, but not at the expense of the screen! They got it right with the Priv and its sliding keyboard, that one is something I'd consider if I were thinking of buying a smartphone now.
My experience of the priv keyboard was that the keys didn't work right. I remember the BB keys being convex and it was easy for your fingers to glom onto the center of the key. The priv keys felt convex and didn't give the right feedback.
Way to become irrelevant (Score:4, Insightful)
So, no blackberry OS, no blackberry keyboard, the same rectangle screen as everyone else, the same OS as everyone else. So what's left? The pretty logo? Congrats. Another messaging app? Watch me care. Secure? Bullshit of course. So much for pride. Ready for the fall.
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Tryinbg to do their own OS was killing the company. This was a major reason that they were getting nowhere. They cant benefit from the google app ecosystem. Too much inertia behind Android than to try to compete with it. When they can go android for free, it makes no sense to do their own OS. They could if they want do their own UI on android. A popout key board is a great idea which is what they should do, wont reduce the area for the screen since the keyboard pops out from the side.
BB10 (Score:2)
It's the best mobile OS that no one is using. Sad. 100% gesture based - no buttons needed.
I love my Z10, but I'll probably be moving to the Priv soon.
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Don't really care (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, I suppose, as someone who really likes physical keyboards, it's technically sad that we just lost another one, but I don't care that much, on grounds of a. Blackberry OS rather than Android, and b. keyboards should slide out in landscape mode, not portrait mode. So I would never personally buy one of those anyway.
But when I can no longer find any Android phones with proper slider keyboards to replace my current one when it dies... I will be pretty pissed at that point.
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I feel your pain. I just had to upgrade from my aging Droid 4 (with a pretty nice hardware keyboard.) I ended up going with a bluetooth keyboard/case for a Note 5. Not quite the same, but apparently the only viable option for hardware keyboard junkies who also like modern phones.
Should have gone android years ago (Score:2)
Its unbelievable that they didnt move to Android years ago given they get app compatability with the enormous android ecosystem, for free. Trying to develop their own OS was insane. The company would be in better shape had it done this years ago. I think the min keyboard idea is also good, after using on screen keyboards, i cannot believe there is no demand for a physical one.
My sister wanted one so badly (Score:2)
So she contacted BB and managed to get a fairly senior person who pretty much told her that their priority relationship was with the telcos not the consumer.
S
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You'd think the sister of the Emperor of Canada would get better treatment from a Canadian company.
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> But best of all is that they let the telcos and the "enterprise" users turn off any features that made the phone enjoyable at all
That misses the point of BB10. Sure, they can turn those features off when the user is on their "business account", but they can (or should be able to) still use them when using their personal account. And they can switch back and forth easily.
I thought it was a great idea. Still do. Implementation? Not so much. But a dual-SIM iPhone or Android with such a system? Still seems