The smartphone world is, at this point, a two-horse race. Android has the numbers, Apple’s iOS has the figures. Everything else – Symbian, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, etc. – are also-rans. Irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Even though, say, Windows Phone not making any serious headway into the market, despite boatloads of money poured into the platform, RIM still thinks it can do better with BB10. Austrian website Telekom-Presse has a pretty detailed video hands-on with a BB10 device – the Z10 – and it left me with one burning question: what is BB10’s identity?
Every mobile platform has an identity, something everybody can grab on to. A unique selling point, if you will. iOS arguably has the strongest and most defined identity of all; it has the immensely popular and strong Apple brand, it’s – rightfully so – seen as the original trendsetter, and it’s associated with ease of use and simpleness (debatable in my view, but alas). iOS’ identity is without question.
Android has its own unique identity. Google is probably just as strong a brand as Apple, and most people have positive associations with it. Android is also strong on choice; you can get whatever device you want, at whatever price point, in whatever form. It has by far the best backend services of all platforms, and even visually Google is getting its act together lately. While I don’t think Android’s identity is as well-defined as iOS’ in the minds of consumers, it is without question that it’s a strong identity.
Windows Phone leans heavily on its unique (and far superior, in my view) user interface. This was illustrated anecdotally quite well just today – my mother called me, explaining she was in the market for a new phone. She’s on an old iPhone 3GS right now, but the first thing she told me was ‘I really like those phones with the coloured squares – it looks so good’. This is clearly a more vulnerable identity, and a less-defined one at that, but it’s unquestionable. Windows Phone is unique, and that makes it stand out.
Even upstart platforms have realised the importance of a clear identity. Jolla, for instance, plays the fully-open-source-and-open-development-card at every turn, and Firefox OS and Ubuntu for Phones both build on strong positive brand identities from other fields.
As I was watching the BB10 video, I tried to find an identity. I tried to find something that set it apart from the rest, something that you can summarise in a single picture, a single sentence – and came up short. What is BB10’s unique selling point? What is its identity? The video is nearly 8 minutes long – far longer than most consumers’ attention spans. If an 8 minute video isn’t enough, what will be?
The user interface of BB10 looks chaotic, unfocused, cluttered. Things appear and disappear left, right, up, and down, and there doesn’t really seem to be a single anchor point to go back to. There’s no clear icon standard going on, and user interface elements are all different with no consistency. It feels very busy and messy, both visually and behaviourally.
In my view, the visual presentation clearly doesn’t have an identity of its own – it feels like Android before Google got its act together with Holo, but intermingled with several other styles. The word that really sticks with me here is ‘unfocused’. If you squint, even the Z10 hardware bears a slight resemblance to the iPhone 5. I have a feeling hardware isn’t going to be it, either.
What else could BB10 offer that nobody else could? The BlackBerry name comes to mind – but is that even a positive thing at this point? People around me associate it with boring business types and slow and unwieldy pre-iPhone smartphones; not exactly the image RIM is looking for.
What about BlackBerry Messenger? Does anybody even care about this anymore? RIM’s enterprise backend, perhaps? I guess I must’ve missed how enterprises cared about that, considering they’re buying iPhones and Android devices in droves. A hardware keyboard, maybe? Clearly something people care about, with all those iPhones and Android phones without hardware keyboards sitting on the shelves. A revolutionary software keyboard? What, more revolutionary than the loads of excellent keyboards available for Android?
I really hope RIM has a trick (or preferably, several) up its sleeves when it officially unveils BB10 later this month. The more platforms the merrier, but so far, I’ve seen little to inspire confidence that BB10 will be able to make a difference.
I like the Windows Phone UI as well. It’ very nice. I just don’t want it on my desktop.
I like the live tiles on the main screen. But after using my Windows Phone 8 for a month, I am not so enthusiastic about Metro in general anymore. The widgets in applications are very flat, which becomes tiring after some time, especially after a full day of work.
The widgets on iOS (I don’t really know Android) clearly demarcate functionality in the UI and provide some liveliness. After some time Windows Phone looks is like a desert where everything looks like sand.
The live tiles are still cute, but do not convey so much information, since they are quite small. The nicest thing are photo(-related) tiles, since they give a bit of a personal touch to a phone.
A while back, I picked up a refurb Playbook to mess with – hoping eventually that someone would port Android to them.
Sadly, rooting it is a royal PITA given how they locked it down, and nobody seems to give a rat’s ass about running Android on it. All the forums that revolve around this device (and other Blackberry devices) are rife with zealots who bash non-blackberry fans with a vengeance.
To this day, my Playbook sits here on the shelf collecting dust, until something more interesting comes along. The app store from RIM is pretty sorry – compared to my Touchpad running ICS (CM9), there’s nothing of interest there for me.
The only thing I somewhat like about BB OS is that it takes some UI cues from WebOS – but even that was done in a much inferior way (I still love the WebOS card metaphor and their implementation of it).
At least it seems I’ll be able to throw BB10 on the Playbook eventually – that will breathe new life into the device for a day or two
Same experience here. I picked one up when they reached the CAD $140 mark a few months back – I’d used one when they were first released and I’m also using a Pre2, so I figured I’d get some use out of it just because of the UI being familiar/comfortable.
But in practice, I’ve found that it’s *just* different enough to cause an “uncanny valley” effect – E.g. webOS reacts to much shorter swipes from the top/bottom than PlaybookOS does (though it could just be perception, due to the different screen sizes). That (IME) makes the UI feel less responsive. Though I will say that the bundled EMail client (once RIM finally released one) beats the pants off anything I’ve tried for Android tablets – seriously, when did auto/self-BCC become some kind of exotic/premium feature?
A QNX based real-time OS based on gestures is pretty much the ultimate OS but it gets nothing but bashed on an OS website. Makes sense.
Edited 2013-01-16 18:32 UTC
Yeah, except it’s a closed system, which is a huge strike against it compared to Android (and hopefully WebOS).
I was even excited about the possibility of running android apps on my playbook (which I thought was a pretty awesome feature for RIM to include) – only to find they’ve really made it a PITA to do so now.
My opinion of BB OS is less about the technology, and more about the company that owns it – they’re pretty pitiful these days.
On paper and in theory I agree with you. They have a very interesting technological core. A QNX core with a choice of Qt or HTML 5 app development and the possibility to easily port Android apps with the Android run time.
That being said I kind of have to agree with Thom, it doesn’t matter how awesome your technology is if you use it build a mediocre product. There are many many ways they can screw it up, and based on what I’ve seen and read chances are they probably will.
That being said I again, I really hope I’m wrong and that it will be awesome, and if that’s the case I’ll happily leave Android behind and my next phone will quite possibly be running BB10.
Edited 2013-01-18 13:50 UTC
You are harping on a supposed lack of brand identity (which is in any case really country-dependent and not universal) while seemingly completely missing the interaction plus points…
-Real multitasking(!) with actually live previews of the apps (not like Android’s pretending to multitask with fake previews)
-Integration of social networks directly into the OS (not available on iOS, on Android only via third-party hacks)
-Well-organized, comprehensive notifications center that’s always a swipe away
-Keyboard *other than Swype* that actually innovates
-Indeed, very soon a hardware keyboard…
Things appearing from different sides have very clear functions. I might point out that a similar approach was taken with MeeGo on the N9 and everyone (including you, if I recall) had only praise for that. As for no single anchor point to go back to, there is the task manager and app drawers, which you can easily swipe between–how is that not a “home screen”??
As far as the icons go, they look like, well, modernized BlackBerry icons. If you had every used a BlackBerry before you would recognize this. Android took a cue from them, not the other way around….
For me the identity of BB10 is extremely clear: a modern OS that focuses on communication and business use cases first and foremost. iOS is *far* far from this, Android is almost there but for the lack of services integration and inconsistencies/slowdowns that still make the user experience herky-jerky at times. The only OS that even tried to do this in recent memory is webOS.
I can understand that you let your dislike of certain aesthetics ruin any joy you might get out of such a purely functional approach to a mobile OS. But no need to ruin it for the rest of us.
Edited 2013-01-16 00:22 UTC
This article is about identity. Something to make it stand out. Not a single consumer cares about real multitasking. ‘Social integration’ isn’t working for Windows Phone and webOS either – people prefer applications. Notification center – uh, Android?
So far, there’s nothing that makes it stand out from what’s already available. If there’s anything that BeOS has taught me, it’s that you need a large enough userbase to survive. I’ve see nothing so far that will pry said users away from iOS or Android.
You may think the visual stuff doesn’t matter – but out there, in the real world of sales and consumers? It does.
Edited 2013-01-16 00:23 UTC
So I guess I’m not a “real” consumer?
You don’t need to get rid of the applications. But the integration of notifications and contacts is the difference. Anyone who used webOS with Facebook for any length of time back in the day knows what I am talking about and would be able to recognize how deficient other platforms still are.
A list of notifications in no particular order (so no relying on visual memory), each of which requires you to open up a different app with completely incongruous interfaces just to see the contents, is not even close.
Of course it matters. Especially to “consumers”. But thing is, this actually matches BlackBerry’s existing brand identity. You may not like it or think it’s “cool”, but then again neither was the aesthetic of MS Windows or Word compared to Mac, and yet due to its usefulness it has still managed to maintain a stronghold in the business world…
You’re not a “real” consumer that Blackberry would be targeting, no.
How many of the thousands upon thousands of iOS and Android users do you think know or even care what multitasking is, or care that their previews are “fake” as you put it?
And even for those that do, how many do you think would say:
“Hmm, I could have this iPhone/Android with all of the features of this BB, plus a massive thriving user base, and thousands of apps. But instead, I’ll take this BB which gives me none of those things, but does give me real previews.”
The point of the article was that if you’re going to compete at this stage of the game, you can’t just be a me-too player. You’ve got to have a hook, and a bloody good one. I agree with the article in that BB just doesn’t.
Additionally the Windows/Mac thing kind of proves the articles point really. It was Microsoft that was entrenched and popular due to some shady deals with IBM, not Apple. And it was Apple that was trying to get a foothold and couldn’t even though they were way better. They never did, and today almost all desktops are still Windows, not Mac.
To get ahead, Apple had to change the battleground, and did so.
Additionally – better only for a time, more in the DOS era. Windows quickly caught up, largely as the result of its scales & popularity & being entrenched, too.
Edited 2013-01-22 13:21 UTC
Fair enough, but then you are basing your critique on a single video of a yet to be released product, so until you’ve held and used one I’m not going to let your obvious negative bias cloud my own conclusions. I’d love to see a followup article if you do get your hands on a real device.
Come on now, you know better than to make a grossly generalized statement like that! We’re all consumers here, no matter that we use our phones and other devices for both business and leisure. Multitasking is one of those functions that benefit everyone whether they know it or not.
Actually it’s one of the best things about both of those platforms and is one of the reasons they have loyal followings despite huge issues with each platform. Instead of having a bunch of wildly different apps with poor performance and no integration, you get all of your social streams under one integrated and streamlined interface. And if you don’t like that paradigm, the individual apps are still available in their antiquated and clunky original formats.
You’re right, there isn’t much more you can do with that concept. RIM’s implementation fits in well with the rest of the interface though.
Maybe we haven’t been watching the same videos, but I’ve seen a hell of a lot that makes me excited to try one out live. My daily frustration with Android as a phone OS continues to grow. I’m still enjoying it as a tablet OS on a device that I pick up occasionally, but depending on it for a 24/7 communication device is nearly painful at times.
I’m highly visually oriented and I absolutely love the interface! It’s designed to stay out of the way when it needs to, and it looks great doing so. I’m eager to give it a whirl when Sprint picks up the new BB line this summer.
Not a single consumer cares about real multitasking.
Just because Android, iOS and WP are bad at multitasking doesn’t mean that users don’t care about it. They just don’t know any better (given what’s most commonly available). Hopefully mobile Linux releases like Sailfish and Ubuntu Phone will break the trend. So BB10 while having decent multitasking since it’s based on QNX won’t be unique in this aspect to make it an identity.
Edited 2013-01-16 07:06 UTC
QNX being a true RT os could make a difference wrt multitasking, eating the cake (100% 60 fps gui no matter what’s in the background), and having the cake (true background apps).
Of course that’s only possible if the design of the whole stack is right.
“real time” is one of the most misunderstood names in computer science, it does not mean what most people think it does.
Among it’s users BB already has a identity separate from the intricacies of a UI.
It’s a whole confluence of factors.
Edited 2013-01-16 13:48 UTC
Does being able to view your GPS or look up something on the Internet while making a Skype call qualify as “real multitasking”? If so, then there exist consumers who care about real multitasking.
Nothing for makes it stand out for you. So maybe this could be a hint that you are not the target demographic.
Of course the visual stuff matters, or else large high-resolution touchscreens wouldn’t be so popular. 1080p is going to be the main selling point for 2013 smartphones. However, the UI behind this could be BB10’s UI, Sense, TouchWiz or plain Android – consumers have demonstrated that they don’t care a lot.
Don’t agree. Here are some points that will make BB10 devices stand out. Some points are classical BB, others are new:
One-hand use:
BBs are known for that! If you are a busy guy travelling around, luggage in one hand, BB on the other will do. RIM thought really hard about that for the new touchscreen phone. For right-handed people the gesture to peek/go into the hub is killer and perfectly done with your thumb while still having a rock solid grip on the device. The same thing is true for the back button, which is consequently positioned at the bottom left, again easily accessed with your thumb. Compare that to iOS especially on the iPhone 5. Ouch!
The Hub:
While the concept of having one central place for all of your communication isn’t new, I have to say the hub in combination with easy access to it could be killer for communication heavy users. Plus, it seems to support pretty much everything you could think of, SMS/MMS, Email (IMAP, POP3, Exchange Active Sync), CardDAV, CalDAV, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and more.
Keyboard:
BlackBerries have always been known for the best hardware keyboards in business. They will be able to defend this position and maybe gain many users who care about ‘real keys’. But on top of that, they may now have the best default software keyboard of any full touch smartphone in the world. I obviously have to check it out for myself once they hit the stores, but from the videos I’ve seen the sw keyboard is just amazing.
BlackBerry Balance:
While this is for enterprises, it’s still a cool feature that every enterprise customer gets.
So, my conclusion would be: BB10 is for you if you value productivity, communication (I have no doubt BB10 phones will have top-notch call/reception quality) and getting things done over style. Like previous BBs, it will be a super efficient communication tool right out of the box. But with a modern OS platform that is super fluid and even has modern Apps and all kinds of media stuff.
As for Android’s identity: 4.x has one I really like, but all to often this remains invisible to many customers, because they get to see childish TouchWiz, Sense and all that. That still hasn’t hurt Android. WP undoubtly has a unique/memorable look, but doesn’t seem to be widely accepted. IMHO it’s too alien.
Edited 2013-01-16 00:22 UTC
Nice one in that for me only the keyboard-point is in my list of notable pro-arguments. I have some more like Qt-support, WebWorks, Android-compatibility, posix-compatibility, security and the devices are usually rather sexy. I have a few negative points too some named already by others. Pros and cons.
All the comments and my personal experience result in: There is indeed something like an identity pushed by marketing to get customers on. But my personal receive and judgement isn’t very much inline with them.
I doubt I am alone with that. Just look how Nokia stresses PureView at there newest Lumia wave. Nice but my take on that is that No, the camera isn’t much better, its no argumeny and Yes, the OS is not ready yet. What Tom identified as Lumia’s identity is NOT what marketing did. Its Tom’s interpretation, take, left impression but its not what Nokia used as standout-argument. Not even close to. It would also not make sense since its not Nokia’s unique selling point cause every WP has that.
What I conclude is that there is a huge difference in what a company may define as unique selling points for marketing and hows its received by any of us. What really matters is the later cause that is what will end in reviews, what friends will talk about, what we REALLY demand, liked, disliked and base our decision on to buy or not buy in.
Edited 2013-01-17 07:15 UTC
“Jolla, for instance, plays the fully-open-source-and-open-development-card”
Fully open UI? Citation needed. More like Nokia-Meego IMO
I know what you mean, and it leaves me totally confused about the open source / software freedom / open development / “root control” of mobile operating systems.
I asked this question recently on the maemo.org forums in regards to Jolla:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1296914#post1296914
…but the answers left me pretty much just as confused.
The Sailfish UI is QML. The core is open source (Mer), the middleware is (Nemo), the Sailfish QML components are or will be but the QML, the icons and artwork, so the whole design, may not. Would expect there will be more then only the default Sailfish design anyways. QML makes such kind of theming easy. Since the plan seems to be to have other vendors in doing devices too it could also mean that vendors going to differ with each other using own themes. But all that theming is my guess since we not know much details about that right now.
Edited 2013-01-17 07:23 UTC
Jolla stays ambiguous about the UI, and they didn’t officially state yet how it will be released. But they seem to lean to make it open.
I work in IT at a fairly large company, so… (from the article)
You have to ask yourself WHY they are buying iPhones and Android devices in droves… No doubt they are (at least we are), but why? It definitely isn’t because they are easier to manage, they are _immensely_ more difficult.
BB Enterprise Server was a pita, but it was a well define pita that dotted its I’s and crossed ts T’s so to speak. End to end encryption? No problem. Control? Lots of granular control. Integration with corporate email? Name your server, they had you covered (even Lotus Notes). It had is warts, but once you got it up and running it was cake. It was purpose built, it did things the way businesses want to do things – all in one place.
Apple and Android? Managing them requires a hodge podge of 3rd party tools and the learning curve is very steep. Even then, it isn’t quite the same thing, there are a lot of gaps in the feature sets when compared to BB when it comes to management. In short corporate management of BBs was bliss compared to the new world order…
The single solitary reason BB is losing in the enterprise is because the higher ups hated BBs because… well because they sucked.
IT didn’t embrace iPhones and Android, they were simply forced to deal with them. No amount of bullshit could convince a CEO that his BB 9900 was good enough compared to an iPhone…
Point being that the identity of BB10 is (at least initially I hope) “good enough to stop the bleeding”, i.e. it isn’t embarrassingly bad, its actually good enough that your CEO won’t mind using it.
Granted, it’s probably too late for that now at a lot of companies (like mine). If you already started down the road of BYOD and are managing iPhones and Androids (as painful as that is) then BB is dead to you – they f*cking took too long. You can’t unpop the bubble. But it might be enough to stop the bleeding at some of they companies that have managed to hold out this long.
Given a few years, if the user experience is good enough and you start hearing wonderful stories about how much easier the BB shops have it then everyone else… You never know, you could see a resurgence. But the absolutely best they can hope for, imo, is to just stop the bleeding…
ps. That is purely an enterprise viewpoint. BB doesn’t have a prayer in the consumer space unless they take a seriously large amount of market share back in the enterprise space. That is the only reason they were ever even moderately popular to begin with – because consumers wanted what the big boys used. For BB, enterprise adoption drives consumer sales, not the other way around.
I don’t agree, I think this looks phone looks very good for its target audience. Take a peek at your messages or notifications from within _any_ app with just ONE gesture. Yes please. 2 GB of RAM for speed.
This should be good.
Oh … BB = BlackBerry… I forgot about those guys
Well its your blog and you have an opinion and clearly you are not impressed with bb 10. Stay with iOS or Android or whatever else you can identify with.
But don’t speak for others please. I watched the same video and in my opinion it clearly to demonstrated that it has the best user experience from all the current mobile operating systems by a long shot. I represent the business executive sector as CTO of my multi-national company. The BB 10 platform has a clear identity for me. It is a platform for people who want to “get things done”. That is also a moniker being touted by all the RIM execs across the board. That is it in a nutshell.
I love the single finger up gesture (and no I am not making a subliminal reference
) to manage multiple apps rather than having to hold down the home button or any other button for that matter. Then up and to the right to peak at my consolidated messages and read them if I want all in one place. The pull down notification bar I currently have on my galaxy s3 is just list of some notifications. I still have to click through to the actual individual application to get the details. That is not very efficient to say the least. The consolidated bb hub is a lot more than that and clearly demonstrated in the video. How was is confusing?
I would agree that this is a product that will appeal to a certain niche sector, but what is wrong with that?Does everyone drive around in a Mercedes or BMW? It annoys me when so many expert analysts write about how smart-phones have to be all things to all people.
Now on the topic of usability. Well, maybe you have different standards. For someone who wants to talk about the merits of a mobile interface, why don’t you look in your own back yard? (I could not resist this either
) I found this blog on my Galaxy and was taken to the mobile version of this site. After reading it, it took me some time to find the comments section because I just had to comment on this article. It turned out to be just a number with a link on it with some meaningless icons next to it. When I clicked on it, it did a full page refresh and I had to scroll back down all over again to see the comments. To comment I had to register. I am ok with that. However, guess what? I couldn’t resister. It told me I have to register on a desktop. I could not register till I went to the office. If you are going to slam a mobile OS for usability, get you own mobile user experience up to some level beyond kindergarten level. Wait that’s my opinion I may be out in left field. You may indeed just like it that way, if you think the bb 10 experience is poor and confusing.
I will speak for myself and that is I cannot wait to get peak, flow and hub in February so I can “get things done”.
Edited 2013-01-16 05:39 UTC
Identity is not the same as GUI interaction.
In all his most recent speeches Thorsten Heins has referred to “Blackberry People Do”. The new OS is optimised for productivity over and above everything else.
The BlackBerry platform has always been about work. It may lack in media applications and games but the included applications along with the keyboard shortcuts that allow you to jump around from a[application to application quickly and with ease were always very efficient.
The OS is showing its age now and that’s why it’s being completely refreshed.
As far as BBM goes I think it’s a hidden gem in their crown. It’s hugely popular amongst the kids here in the UK but it;s also a powerful mobile project planning tool. You can create groups of contacts with a shared task list and shared calendar. Members can assign tasks to one another as well as the group chat ability that’s popular.
Here’s a better hands-on video in English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqxaQpe1xog
I think the GUI is pretty well thought out, fluid, the gestures make sense and they’re not too hard to pick up. Also, it looks pretty nice and the multitasking seems better than Android’s or iOS’s. As for identity, it comes across as a device made for work (although toggling between Personal and Work mode is pretty sweet).
I believe this is the first time I’ve seen that concept done the right way, keeping the “personal” and “work” data completely separate, instead of just two different home screens with access to the same pool of data as on some Android devices.
Now if only they’d bring out a dual-SIM phone, or allow you somehow attach two separate cellular accounts to the phone; one for Work and one for Personal. Separate phone numbers, separate data plans, heck even separate BES/BIS plans (or even get rid of BIS entirely and make it a true Internet access device).
If there aren’t separate phone numbers/data plans for Work vs Personal, then it’s not really all that useful.
I’ve had a blackberry for work since about early 2005. At first they were exciting and lately they’ve been not too exciting. I bought an Android, and I’ve played around with the wife’s ipad and several friends’ iphones. None of those interfaces seems to have a monopoly on perfection, if you ask me. There’s room for RIM to come in with a winner, and I’m eager to see what they do. I’m sorry they wasted so much time, but the hub, the SW keyboard, and the innovative gestures all interest me. And BB’s hardware keyboard is still awesome. So it’s tempting to write BB off with a “boring, has been.” But it’s not the case for me.
I’d say the window of opportunity in the smartphone bloodbath is right around the corner for enterprise.
First: IPhones are getting old and losing the standout advantage in most areas (including user experience)
Second: Google hasn’t developed good enough enterprise integration within Android core and that’s truly limiting the platform spread out potential.
I believe both Blackberry and MS really have a shot at regaining some corporate turf at the moment (with BB being more respected in the area).
I’m generally bullish on most emerging mobile platforms because I feel the market is far from set in stone. This is an industry which has had many Kings over the years, and I don’t think the current ones are a definitive lock to maintain their dominance.
There is a large opportunity for any new entry (BB10, WP8, Ubuntu OS, Firefox OS, Jolla, Tizen) if they can get their execution down.
What I’ve seen from RIM, especially their new CEO, can only be seen as positive. He’s taken a company that was in disarray and put a floor under them in many respects. They’re not out of the woods by a long shot, but I don’t immediately count them out either.
RIM needs a foot in the door. A future. They need to make a bigger splash than webOS did, but don’t necessarily need to take the world by storm over night to be a success either.
Just enough to sustain themselves, iterate, and release more incarnations of BB. The soul searching can come later.
I do think RIM is top notch when it comes to developer outreach which might be their ace in the hole. They use similar tooling to other platforms iirc (QML+Qt) but the difference being in how they can push the platform.
RIM is willing to make developers financial guarantees in exchange for their time (Much like Microsoft did during WP7) which will fuel growth for their platform.
RIM’s only real angle (enterprise) may be a dying breed as BYOD takes hold, but we’ll see. However they also have a strong history of carrier relations which should get them an appreciable retail channel push.
We’ll see.
This is really one of the worst articles I’ve ever read on this site. If this is the quality of reporting then I’ll go somewhere else. An OS website talking about the nonsensical concept of identity. Really?
Edited 2013-01-16 18:36 UTC
So you created an account today just to announce your departure? That’s a very odd and narcissistic thing to do.
As for the article, while I disagree with Thom’s assessment (as I am wont to do) there’s nothing inherently wrong with how the article is written. Saying someone’s writing ability sucks because you happen to disagree with the slant of the article is childish.
Good riddance.
I’ve been reading this site probably back to about 2003 or so. I even had an account but haven’t used it in forever under an old email account. I commented because this was just a rambling opinion piece that reads like it should be on cnet.
And if he can call out the quality of a product then I can call out the quality of his article. That’s fair play.
Edited 2013-01-16 20:52 UTC
Thanks for offering detailed counter points like so many others have done in the comments here. You saying “bah I disagree with the article so it’s crap!” is the high point of this comment thread, and you have totally and utterly convinced me of the errors of my ways.
I will proceed to preorder a BB10 straight away. Thanks!
What do you want me to say? I’m not going to argue with you on every point you tried to make because most of it is incoherent.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/blackberry-10-hands-on-awesome/
http://gizmodo.com/5974362/the-complete-blackberry-10-video-walkthr…
Need more?
Edited 2013-01-16 21:40 UTC
What is incoherent about it? Can you give some examples? I think the article is overly coherent, as I specifically focussed on just one flaw (no identity) and then proceeded to give several reasons as to why I believe it to be so. There’s nothing incoherent about it – as evidenced by the fact that people seem to understand the article just fine.
Now, you may *disagree* with the points I made – that’s fine, that’s why we have comments. Several readers have already posted excellent comments with different perspectives, and I’ve learned a great deal already. I disagree with said commenters that the features they name are defining/will save the platform, but that’s a different matter altogether. I respect them, and they me, because we are having an open discussion for all to see.
However, throwing personal insults around is not going to get you any goodwill, and it certainly won’t give anybody here any new insights. I suggest you either try to contribute in a meaningful way, or not at all.
The whole searching for an identity part. That’s just a phrase you made up in your head. But if you want to go with that then it’s identity is the hub. No bouncing in and out of apps or back to the home screen as in the current OS’s and no a notification center does not compare.
You said it’s chaotic with panes appearing to the left and right from gestures but they also have icons at the bottom of apps that bring them up just as well. The only real gesture that needs to be learned is the swipe up to minimize which a 5 year old is capable of.
Also how is the Windows Phone user-interface far superior? It’s just shortcuts to apps with live info. BB10 has active frames which is the same concept. Instead they are minimized apps with live info but you say Windows Phone is far superior. That makes no sense at all.
Edited 2013-01-16 22:48 UTC
An elderly man at a super market service desk, saying he’s lost and can’t find his parents.
Unfortunately identity and brand are important in the modern marketplace. Iphones don’t sell because they are good phones but because the brand is “cool”. Apple has (rightly or wrongly) a great identity.
It shouldn’t be that way but it is. From what I can see on the various videos this new BB looks excellent and if I was able to afford one, I’d be very interested in having one. That’s what it should sell on, competency, features, reliability, etc., not a nebulous thing such as identity.
These days brand and identity is treated as a feature, not competency and reliability. Sad but true.
I should also have said that I really like what I see. I think it looks really good. Big thumbs up from me :-).
Sure, but if the phones weren’t good they wouldn’t have been able to build that “cool” brand and identity. If Apple starts shipping crap they’ll quickly lose any value their brand has.
Agreed, but due to image, identity and brand loyalty it would have to be spectacularly bad to not still sell in significant numbers.
Remember the antenna issue with one model? For other manufacturers this would have been a big problem. For Apple it made very little real difference.
Apple only need to make ‘good’ phones and the brand identity will do the rest.
Btw, I’m not being down on Apple, they just happen to be a great example.
“These days” …don’t make it out as if the past was really better.