I greatly appreciate all the concerns and well-wishes from friends and colleagues fretting about my well-being after reading about BlackBerry's demise, but it's time to explain the full story
I know I am late to the party here but hey better late than never (wish BlackBerry would say this!) - "this sprint to proclaim BlackBerrys deceased makes especially little sense in these times when we all do so much more texting, Slacking and DM-ing than actual face-to-face talking. Physical keyboards, when you think about it like that, should have more value than ever." --wow sagely indeed! Anyone who uses a mobile for work writing can pretty intuitively understand the need for a Qwerty, which in itself is one of the most asinine defenses us PKB people have had to make - I mean really ask PC user how pleased they would be if they were 'blessed' with removal of their physical keyboard and got the pleasure of using a giant virtual keyboard instead? --lol, I believe the current accepted error rate for virtual keyboards is 1 in 5 typing errors; it makes no sense.
As a business owner who built the company on the ergonomic workflow efficiencies of original BlackBerry, there is really is no other. The gaping hole that is a effective mobile typing in a world dominated by ubiquitous smartphones, just brings the question of who benefits by having us all be terrible typers? Virtual keyboard smartphones reap more eyeballs & time, plain and simple, monetizable commodities. It sounds like conspiracist b.s., but money apparently has more gravity than efficiency. Why else would the staple of physical keyboards & mouse (don't forget about the trackpad for God's sake), both essential parts of computing since the 1960's, not be equally ubiquitous as the screen that accompanied it?
-So depressing, I know but perhaps when the BlackBerry patents that sold to Catapult Innovations last year, and/or ones that they still hold today expire, someone is sitting by and waiting to take the world by storm again, of course they would have to have the resources and maybe more importantly defenses against the powers that be that clearly infiltrated and assassinated Research in Motion, a company in place for 30+ years w/ cumulative knowledge and power most of us can barely comprehend.
One final note, about how many people have been in your writing shoes, When RIM announced original BlackBerry EOL in 2012 (after being best selling phone in the world in 2010, 2 years after android and iPhone had arrived), there were 80M+ users on Bold and other iterations (and all paying month Secure Access Fees via both carriers and email hosting, a highly coveted subscription-based service and end goal of so many services today) - how long do you think they stuck around w/ pending EOL? They left at the eerie rate of 1M per month for years! RIM was making over $100M per year on these people in 2018, $75M in 2019... after doing absolute zero nothing for years. Least of all putting out another generation of BBOS the best selling phone in the world to a set of 80M people (bb10 was Linux-based and not Java-based, and of course never sold like the best selling Java phones because it was a totally different platform that was never proven to be successful or desired by anyone; why not produce a single other java-based success even if to just test the waters? Even if it pleased only the existing customer base?)....
Our company has completed over 50,000 services and only w/ the power of original BlackBerry; we had to finally switch from BBOS in September of 2021, and what a mess it has been since them having to use iPhone and Android, a continual workflow and typing nightmare in comparison, like talking w/ a toothbrush in your mouth. --Farewell to true and clear competitive advantage and technical beauty in motion, Blackberry Bold 9900 -- the money we would've paid and would still pay for a legitimate input device....
I also had a few people check on me with the BlackBerry "news". Typing this on my Key2 as I hold out on an upgrade until the OnwardMobility model (hopefully) arrives. Fortunately in Canada they are still supporting the 3Gs for the foreseeable future - as far as I know.
So can the old BlackBerrys do ANYTHING in Canada if the 3G towers still work? In Dallas, even my 4G BlackBerry Android was bumped off AT&T's towers, so I had to switch to T-Mobile.
I know I am late to the party here but hey better late than never (wish BlackBerry would say this!) - "this sprint to proclaim BlackBerrys deceased makes especially little sense in these times when we all do so much more texting, Slacking and DM-ing than actual face-to-face talking. Physical keyboards, when you think about it like that, should have more value than ever." --wow sagely indeed! Anyone who uses a mobile for work writing can pretty intuitively understand the need for a Qwerty, which in itself is one of the most asinine defenses us PKB people have had to make - I mean really ask PC user how pleased they would be if they were 'blessed' with removal of their physical keyboard and got the pleasure of using a giant virtual keyboard instead? --lol, I believe the current accepted error rate for virtual keyboards is 1 in 5 typing errors; it makes no sense.
As a business owner who built the company on the ergonomic workflow efficiencies of original BlackBerry, there is really is no other. The gaping hole that is a effective mobile typing in a world dominated by ubiquitous smartphones, just brings the question of who benefits by having us all be terrible typers? Virtual keyboard smartphones reap more eyeballs & time, plain and simple, monetizable commodities. It sounds like conspiracist b.s., but money apparently has more gravity than efficiency. Why else would the staple of physical keyboards & mouse (don't forget about the trackpad for God's sake), both essential parts of computing since the 1960's, not be equally ubiquitous as the screen that accompanied it?
-So depressing, I know but perhaps when the BlackBerry patents that sold to Catapult Innovations last year, and/or ones that they still hold today expire, someone is sitting by and waiting to take the world by storm again, of course they would have to have the resources and maybe more importantly defenses against the powers that be that clearly infiltrated and assassinated Research in Motion, a company in place for 30+ years w/ cumulative knowledge and power most of us can barely comprehend.
One final note, about how many people have been in your writing shoes, When RIM announced original BlackBerry EOL in 2012 (after being best selling phone in the world in 2010, 2 years after android and iPhone had arrived), there were 80M+ users on Bold and other iterations (and all paying month Secure Access Fees via both carriers and email hosting, a highly coveted subscription-based service and end goal of so many services today) - how long do you think they stuck around w/ pending EOL? They left at the eerie rate of 1M per month for years! RIM was making over $100M per year on these people in 2018, $75M in 2019... after doing absolute zero nothing for years. Least of all putting out another generation of BBOS the best selling phone in the world to a set of 80M people (bb10 was Linux-based and not Java-based, and of course never sold like the best selling Java phones because it was a totally different platform that was never proven to be successful or desired by anyone; why not produce a single other java-based success even if to just test the waters? Even if it pleased only the existing customer base?)....
Our company has completed over 50,000 services and only w/ the power of original BlackBerry; we had to finally switch from BBOS in September of 2021, and what a mess it has been since them having to use iPhone and Android, a continual workflow and typing nightmare in comparison, like talking w/ a toothbrush in your mouth. --Farewell to true and clear competitive advantage and technical beauty in motion, Blackberry Bold 9900 -- the money we would've paid and would still pay for a legitimate input device....
I miss my Blackberry :( Had to turn in at work back in 2017.
Offices are mean.
I posted several memes about this
I also had a few people check on me with the BlackBerry "news". Typing this on my Key2 as I hold out on an upgrade until the OnwardMobility model (hopefully) arrives. Fortunately in Canada they are still supporting the 3Gs for the foreseeable future - as far as I know.
So can the old BlackBerrys do ANYTHING in Canada if the 3G towers still work? In Dallas, even my 4G BlackBerry Android was bumped off AT&T's towers, so I had to switch to T-Mobile.