BlackBerry To Release More Android Phones In 2016, But No New BB10 Devices

LichtSpektren writes: BlackBerry Ltd. launched its first Android smartphone in October 2015, the BlackBerry Priv. CEO John Chen has commented "so far, so good" on the Priv's sales, two months in. Also in the same month, the BlackBerry developers' blog posted that there are no plans to make enhancements to BlackBerry OS 10 except for privacy and security updates. Now CNET is reporting that BlackBerry will release "one or two" new Android phones in 2016, but nothing with BB10.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have died out about 5 years ago. RIM could have made a mint then by implementing Android into the phones.

I think Research In Motion could have capitalized on this when Android device popularity really took off. The hardware aspect of the phones were great, but the software was always lackluster in functionality.

Re:

[Octorian]

BlackBerry OS basically did die when BlackBerry 10 was launched (though it was only 3 years ago).
However, they made a lot of marketing mistakes during the launch of BB10. One of these was not trying hard enough (or at all) to actually tell people that BB10 was not BBOS. As a result, many of the valid criticisms against ancient BBOS were frequently flung like poo into any discussion of modern BB10.

Re:

[bloodhawk]

The BIGGEST mistake was how buggy BB10 was combined with the bucket of SHIT that was BES, any poor bastard admin that had to maintain one of those I pity you. Basically they put the final death blow on an already sick patient. After that nothing they could do could save it.

Re:

[davester666]

There was that whole "this is a tablet for business, not like that iPad toy" thing... It was something like a year after it was released that the email client could reliably send and receive email without crashing.

Re:

[LinuxIsGarbage]

However, they made a lot of marketing mistakes during the launch of BB10. One of these was not trying hard enough (or at all) to actually tell people that BB10 was not BBOS. As a result, many of the valid criticisms against ancient BBOS were frequently flung like poo into any discussion of modern BB10.

They were also delayed, and late to the market with BB10. That was the biggest marketing mistake. Kind of like how they released iPhone and Android BBM clients long after they were relevant.

I don't understand the groupthink "Why does BB10/Windows Phone exist? They should just use Android"

Having an iOS and Android only ecosystem is bad for the consumer. Choice is good, and modern iterations of Windows Phone and BB10 are solid OSes. BB10 was good in having an Android compatibility layer of any nature.

Sad news indeed

[dgarciam]

BB10 is superior to android in many forms. In part due because they had to build into the OS many features that other have via 3rd parties that no one ever made for them. I own a z10 and i've tried Nexus 5X to try to sub it, but it just doesn't have the same versatility (of course, you can upgrade your experience via 3rd party apps), and to be honest the android emulator on bb10 works fairly good. That being said, i can't imagine a better way to embrace the new paradigms of android world than holding hands with blackberry. I know the gods of smartphones dont smile to them as of lately, but i guess when my phone brakes of, that is the way to go. I just hope for all that is sacred that this works. I don't see the appeal to an iphone device.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Just about everything is better than Android. Let's be honest about that.

Re:

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Well, it's not a platform that most devs that want to make a living are going to bother with at this point, so it was probably the right decision. Emulation is a great crutch, but it's not going to be ideal for the kinds of apps that people use day to day, because emulation carries a tremendous processing overhead that translates to battery utilization.

And I never saw the appeal of iOS either, but I hate walled gardens.

Re:

[GNious]

Curious...

Isn't Android a (modified) Java Runtime Environment running on top of Linux? Why would have a JRE on QNX have a tremendously higher processing overhead, compared to a JRE on Linux?

Re:

[evilviper]

emulation carries a tremendous processing overhead that translates to battery utilization.

Blackberry's Android compatibility isn't emulation at all. Why would it be, when they're running on ARMv7 CPUs just like Android? Emulation is unfortunately just a convenient name people call it. WINE has the same issue with such labels...

And if you look at Intel's Android emulation for Android... It doesn't come with any performance penalty either, because they do a simple translation once at install time. No ongoin

Re:

[AchilleTalon]

Yep, really sad. I was expecting at least one new BB10 smart phone from BB in 2016. It seems I will have to contemplate their Android powered smart phones instead.

Re:

[greenfruitsalad]

why? they are the only phone manufacturer who openly admits to helping law enforcement agencies read the contents of YOUR phone. i.e. only one admitting they sell backdoored phones.

Re:

[Faust6]

Man, I should really pick up the Classic. I'm still carrying a 9320 Curve. For a long time now I've dismissed smartphones as useless noise, bloat and ugliness but I'm starting to see the value in a few of the apps (e.g. Uber) and (now finally) a better web browsing experience.

Re:

[xystren]

I agree with that. I find it nice that I don't need to get into bed with google or apple - On a BB Q10 and absolutely love it, incuding the OS (although I do dislike the light color scheme that Chen decided to go to. This was one of my fears when I heard they were bringing out an Android device is that the QNX/BB10OS would be left behind. *sigh*

Re:

[DigiAngel69]

"BB10 is superior to android in many forms." Your opinion, which I respect. My experience was a broken implementation of DAV extensions (bug report filed, never fixed) and a ghastly "app store" with apps that are gutted compared to their IOS and Android counterparts. I was GIVEN a Z10 and it just wasn't as useful as an iPhone or Android phone.

Hope they do not abandon BB10

[xra]

That would be sad because BB10 is by far a superior os to android.

Re:

[dgarciam]

The demand for bb10 OS phone has nothing to do with it's quality. It has to do with the lack of (or late) support of mainstream applications to it's ecosystem. It was a catch-22 situation where they need the support of the apps developers to gain the customer base, but need the customer base to gain the support of the apps developers. BB10OS is a wonderful child born a few years too late, where all the milk and food was mainly divided into Android and IOS

Re:

[evilviper]

BB10OS is a wonderful child born a few years too late, where all the milk and food was mainly divided into Android and IOS

Except when Android showed-up, Apple had the smartphone market fully monopolized for a few years, and Android still managed to win its fight from a greatly disadvantaged position. Competition is no excuse for your product failing... It just means you failed to find any way to make your product significantly more compelling than your competitors.

Re:

[Faust6]

Samsung was hot on its tail, and didn't have to develop an OS. They've adjusted much, much faster than RIM did. Remember, BB10 was initially released in 2013. Prior to this it was all Curves and Bolds which are awesome but far behind in the "smartphone" touch-screen-app-and-web-entertainment sense. Add the smartphone "market" that Apple monopolized was still in its inception - they had no real competition until the other big electronics players followed suit with Android phones.

Re:

[dejitaru]

a lot of times demand does not necessarily determine the better product, as lot of it depends on marketing. Example being that a lot of people thought Betamax was far superior to VHS, but in the end, VHS won. Numerous people believe that OS X or some linux distro is a better OS than windows, but demand is much higher for Windows as sales show.

Re: Hope they do not abandon BB10

[mattack2]

Example being that a lot of people thought Betamax was far superior to VHS, but in the end, VHS won.

You have to be more specific. People thought Betamax was far superior in picture quality to VHS.

But picture quality wasn't the only important issue. The oft cited examples given for VHS's dominance are initial longer recording time and availability of porn.

As for the former, that's still an issue nowadays. Even with a huge drive in my Tivo, I still record _some_ things in SD (mostly nowadays non-prime time shows, I have finally moved most of them to HD recordings)... just to be able to record more stuff (and yes, I *have* gone back and watched years old stuff and caught up).

Re:

[DogDude]

Hey, dipshit! Demand is great for McDonald's and Wal-Mart. They must be the best, by your brilliant AC logic, right?

Re:

[rockout]

Depends what you mean by the best. They're the best at giving people unhealthy fast food and plastic junk made in China at the lowest price possible. That's why demand is so high. So while you could argue with his premise, your comeback is actually not that logical.

Re:

[Octorian]

Unfortunately, they've discontinued enough forward-looking development and laid off enough people that it would probably be very difficult to get BB10 going again. Also, their ability to have a useful Android runtime (a necessary compatibility crutch) continues to become more and more difficult as Google (necessarily) retakes control of Android from the AOSP.

Re:

[dgarciam]

That is true. Doesnt help you much to have android runtime that works more than not, if all the new apps coming out have as a dependency Google Play. Even if I don't like the new direction, i can completely understand why they did it

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

I'd be interested to know if there are architectural benefits of sticking with QNX

i.e.they've modernized it to support a smartphone stack and may have a point of difference in basing their Android runtime on a linux-free env.

Another one bites the dust

[dejitaru]

It's kind of a shame to see it die off following Firefox OS (though I guess it will still live on in their car version?). Everyone that has owned a BB10 device seemed to just love the OS. Not sure if this is because they only used blackberry or because they actually think it's better by comparison. This kind of goes the same with WP. Still, I am glad they are moving to Android, I personally would love to have a phone with a physical keyboard again.

Blackberry Priiv -Android phone of the year!

[hguorbray]

Surprisingly, or not, BB seems to have made one of the best Android phones to come out so far:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/06/blackberry_priv_review/

Admittedly, there is a lot of junk at the Android low end, but I spent a fair amount on an LG Volt a few years ago and it has it's share of crappy design and performance.

If the BB is available in the states I will probably make it my next phone based on this review.

-I'm just sayin'

Re:

[dinfinity]

I have the Priv and the phone is hardware-wise indeed very good, with the exception of the front-cam (and in some devices [maybe just the first batch due to production issues?] physical gaps due to sloppy margins)

Firmware-wise they have kept to their promise of monthly updates, which does feel secure. Pretty much all the (minor) firmware additions to Android are good and well executed (picture password is a great feature, as is operation with the flip case and double tap to wake). I don't care that much for

One last round

[DarkOx]

If you like BB hardware here is your chance. The next phase is no doubt to license the name and logo to some third tier Chinese or Korean manufacturer churning out utter crap that will try and ware the logo as a air of legitimacy.

passport is a damn good phone

[PineGreen]

I use BB10 on passport (which was my first blackberry phone ever). I bought it on a whim, more for the freshness factor, and I love it, I find it way better than android in terms of workflow and apps that work, work very well. I just love this phone. Check out amazon reviews and you'll see a lot of people love it.
But I guess, for most people it was too little too late. I'd be sorry if they abandoned it completely...

So far, so good.

[110010001000]

We sold three of them!

overseas Sales

[aduxorth]

Now if only they would start selling them overseas.

BB8 was better

[istartedi]

These allegedly later versions sound like a huge step backwards.

Re: BB8 was better

[tylersoze]

Yeah it as cool how they got the head to stay upright while it rolled around

sticking with my BB10 device - better multitasking

[Necroloth]

I saw the release of the Priv and was excited... then I started digging into it to ensure it has the same BB10 keyboard as well as the Hub but the kicker for me was that Android doesn't seem to do multitasking like BB10, much to my shock and surprise. So let me give you an example - I can have a playlist on Youtube running (there's no app for it, it's just via the browser) and I can go to another browser tab or reply back to messages or even turn off the screen - and the playlist will continue running. From what I've been seeing on all Android and Apple phones, this is not possible - you have to have Youtube as the main focused app and have to have the screen running. So will be sticking with my Z10 (or maybe get the Z30).

Re:

[mlw4428]

It's more of a pay-for feature in the normal Google Youtube apps. If you have Youtube Red (part of a Google Music account) you get these features. I would very much like to see a Passport with a better camera come to Verizon Wireless. I'd like a Priv, but I've heard the Hub on BB10 is a lot better because it doesn't require you to load multiple apps to reply to messages. Blackberry seems to favor a "native experience" which I think is stupid.

Re:

[vikingpower]

Thumbs up !! I have been using a Q 10 for two and a half years now, and am convinced BB 10 ( recently upgraded to 10.3 ) ist the best and most cleverly-designed mobile OS on the market. With the standard set of apps I can do all my daily "productivity" things: manage contacts, appointments, take notes, browse etc. etc. I only added Skype (which runs very well). And yes, indeed - you can run any amount of tasks simultaneously, as long as your cpu is not fully saturated. Ask for that on Android and iOS !

Re:

[Necroloth]

The funny thing is, the Z10 came out 3 years ago... and Android/iOS still haven't been able to do multitasking like this! And the set of apps available on BB10 is pretty good for normal situations - but I guess for those who like playing a lot on their mobile, it's not appropriate. You can load Android apps onto BB10 but I've found that it tends to run slower and causes system issues :s

Looks like I'm in the minority here, but ...

[therealkevinkretz]

The *only* thing making BB/BES attractive to the only audience it has left - enterprise business - is its more finely-grained device management. BB10+BES allows a device to be much more tightly controlled and locked-down than an IOS / Android/ Windows Mobile device. Without that, there's no reason to limit yourself to the Blackberry device or BES's MDM.

Sad news

[acoustix]

I love the BB10 platform and the hardware. It's fast, reliable and secure. Yeah, I know there aren't many BB10 apps, but I can load pretty much any Android app I need on my Z10. The BB Hub is a great feature that I use for all of my accounts.

Plus, using my Z10 with my company's BES12 service is freaking awesome. Work and personal information is completely separate.