It's unfortunate, as someone who just purchased a Q10 (switched from Android), I think they've finally got their act together and released something excellent.
The Q10's battery life is great, the hardware keyboard is solid and travels well. The Paratek antenna gets the best reception and data connection of any device I've ever used. The BB10 software isn't great, but it's decent. (It's certainly far better than where WebOS / iOS / Android was when they launched. Even today, BB10.2 is significantly better / more powerful than Windows Phone 8, even if the UI is less well defined).
Their story, to me, seems almost down to timing. They're executing pretty well right now, it's just two to three years too late.
It will be sad to watch all that hardware die. In a year or two, there probably won't be any devices available that have a large battery, solid hardware keyboard, and decent cellular data reception.
This is frustrating - I agree that they've finally gotten their act together, particularly with 10.2. The writing has been on the wall for a while - I stopped building apps for them earlier this year.
I've tried Android and iPhone and don't particularly want to return to either one. The former because of too many apps that want all the permissions under the sun while the OS offers a complete lack of fine-grained controls of them[1], and a subpar UI experience (subjective, I know). The latter due to lack of control without rooting it. My windows 8 desktop experience has spoiled that OS for me on a phone, fairly or otherwise.
But it begins to look like I will have no choice very soon. I hope they manage to pull out of this - they're still releasing a new flagship, and have other irons in the fire - but it's not looking good.
[1] as in 'yes, let the app get to GPS, but no do not let it get to my personal data or phone info'. Something BBOS legacy offered, and BB10 only slightly less - when you make an app you were expected to plan for the user to deny functionality and degrade nicely.
I completely agree, especially around the permissions.
I'm also worried that this is the end. Every previous company thats built decent 'prosumer' or 'power-user' phones appears to be dead or dying.
I loved my Palm Pre (WebOS), it was my first smartphone. They're dead now.
I upgraded to an HTC Arrive (Windows Phone 7), but HTC's slowly dying off, and no one makes (or Microsoft blocks?) hardware keyboards for that platform now. Windows Phone also didn't support any notifications or push notifications at the time (and 'live tiles' aren't solid enough to replace them).
I upgraded to a Motorola Photon Q. Software's ok, and there's no terrible skin. But the battery life and reception are both terrible (and the battery is sealed in, so every day it gets worse...). I knew the sealed battery was a mistake, I tried it anyway and got burned. Won't be making that mistake again.
The Q10 was my last refuge. When BlackBerry goes away, I suspect there will be literally nothing left for me to turn to.
Of course, the chances are that no small number of apps you might be tempted to restrict will promptly crash since they'll assume that having asked for the permission up front means they'll get whatever data they want when they ask for it.
That's an interesting kneejerk response that one hears variations of whenever anybody brings up any smartphone OS that is not their One True OS. Do you have particular things that it doesn't do that iOS of six years ago did?
The point is not about wether it is better or worse than iOS from 6 years ago, that parent probably believes it is better than that, but the problem is that the choice today is about BB10 or iOS 7. It's competing against todays phones, so how much better or worse it is than the iPhone was at launch is mostly irrelevant to the current market of smartphone buyers.
Possibly; that's not how I read that response, because it that and variations upon it really are common responses when speaking of a Phone Other Than My Favorite, and your interpretation seems to be seldom how it's intended. (It's also not something you typically see as much of here, so it stood out a bit.)
To your point, though - aside from some gee-whiz features like fingerprint capture, it offers similar features and functionality as iOS. More in some ways, less in others.
The only thing it actually doesn't offer is the range apps - most importantly apps that everyone puts out by default for android and iphone. (And consequently provides additional free advertising for those platforms) Their legacy OS left a bad taste and so they never captured mindshare of mobile developers. Combine that with a complete failure of marketing, and it never had a chance at large-scale uptake.
That's a subjective remark and one I completely disagree with. The BlackBerry OS is cleverly designed and the finger gestures make using it addictive even.
Seems to me the best thing that could happen to them would be a bankruptcy followed by either a sell-off, or a split-off, of their design division (and all associated hardware contracts.) Then you'd have the equivalent of a fresh start-up making these phones, with no debts. They'd probably do pretty well.
Agreed. The Q10 is a great phone, and the OS is the best I've used on any smartphone (iphone, lumia). The touchscreen / physical keyboard combo is awesome and unique to BlackBerry. They have a winning product here.
I can't wait for the Z30. That should bring more people to the fold.
The Q10's battery life is great, the hardware keyboard is solid and travels well. The Paratek antenna gets the best reception and data connection of any device I've ever used. The BB10 software isn't great, but it's decent. (It's certainly far better than where WebOS / iOS / Android was when they launched. Even today, BB10.2 is significantly better / more powerful than Windows Phone 8, even if the UI is less well defined).
Their story, to me, seems almost down to timing. They're executing pretty well right now, it's just two to three years too late.
It will be sad to watch all that hardware die. In a year or two, there probably won't be any devices available that have a large battery, solid hardware keyboard, and decent cellular data reception.