Stick a Fork in Blackberry, They're Done

wELL had too change this for legal reasons.

I remember rotary dial with some fondness. Hell, sometimes I'll call up the operator and try to get her to place a local call for me using the old style exchange names just to fuck with her. But when it comes to physical keyboards on smartphones, I guess I just don't see the advantage -- you still have to look to see which key you're about to press, and you still get your view of the key blocked by your thumb when you go to press it. Maybe you've got smaller hands/fingers than I do, but that's my experience, anyway.

I got a big kick out of what you wrote about those old Black phones.

Yes, some of us do. On my phone the individual keys actually even feel different. I acknowledge it's not a feature for most people. But there are millions of us who prefer the tactile keyboard. It should be easy enough for manufacturers to offer them (although plenty just phone it in with shit keyboards.). BlackBerry (and Palm before they died) set the standard for well designed keyboards that can be used for thumb based touch typing.

I'm not sure how one would even pick up that trick. I can touch type pretty well, but I need all 8 fingers and both thumbs for it. Even when I owned a Blackberry, touch typing with thumbs was just not in the picture. Admittedly, though, that was an 8100 that used T9 predictive input rather than a full QWERTY setup with tiny little micro-chiclet keys.

My boss is still using one but we all make fun of him because of it.

Well Guys, when you make errors in your younger years in this computer age No Data Bass forgets, No body forgets. No body ever notices the good that you may have done. This group is a Non Judgmental bunch of people. I like this bunch. But my Freedoms were taken from me on June 15th, 2004. I guess who ever did that AP lie on my Death, well I just as well be deceased. G'Day Mates.

I know a few people that still swear by it and even own some shares , they will all be buried together .

I don't know that I'd buy shares, but I do find the platform to be just what I want.

Meh. Not a surprise. I admit I didn't think much about touchscreens after the Sony Xperia I bought in Japan three years ago, when the technology was still pretty new...but the Note II I own kicks ass, and I've yet to fat-finger any of the keys after nearly nine months of use. Now, I really don't need or want a tactile keyboard anymore.

BlackBerry is mostly about all touch screen devices these days. Of the 5 phones in the current line-up, only 2 have physical keyboards. I know that's not what most people want, but it's nice that they still offer it for those of us who do. And BlackBerry makes the only good tactile keyboard, so people who care about such things stick with what's best.

The nice thing about a physical keyboard was the fact that I didn't have to look to type, even if it was a small board where letters were tripled up. I only had a full board for about a year, but that was nice.

However I don't miss that much. I have to pick more where my attention goes.

Some heads are gonna roll!

A lot of the touch screens do seem to start having problems after 6 months to a year. I guess they only design these things to last for one year tops.

Hit 2 twice for B and three times for C. You may also have an option called something like "T9Word," which is probably the fastest way to type on a numeric phone keypad. (Hit each number once then choose from options as you get closer to the end and it presents you with all of the things that, say,"533782" can spell.)

I have an Android with Swype, and while Swype is by far the fastest way for me to type, I'm still glad I have the slide-out physical keypad.

1. Sometimes, especially when dealing with text-entry fields on websites not designed for mobile, I need the full screen real estate in order to do anything, not the much smaller real estate you get when the touch keypad is enabled.

2. Again on websites with bad mobile interfaces, sometimes having access to physical arrow keys becomes important for navigation (vs. swiping the screen).

3. Software issues can crop up that cause the touch keypad to stop working and the phone to not recognize input.

T-Mobile sez: Hey, we're offering deals on the iPhone 5s, this is a great offer for Blackberry users!

T-Mobile is eating crow:

I'm thinking this will cause a lot of BlackBerry users to upgrade to one of the BB10 models instead of jumping ship.

We'll see. It all might even be a clever marketing ploy on T-Mobile's part to get rid of BB stock. (Best Buy is rumored to be slashing iPhone prices in the next couple of days, leading many to think that Apple's going to bring out the iPhone 6 soon.)

I actually like the direction BB is going these days. Focusing on the enterprise and getting rid of stupid crap that was bringing them down. I see them really making some strong growth over the next 2 years. Buy in now bitches!

Agreed -- focus on the area that has always been their undisputed strength. Plus, the new phones are really good.

Yep. New phones are great. New OS is great. Damn things just work, and work well. Can't go wrong with that.

Funny how non-flashy stuff is going to be their way out when it happened to be the original reason for their downfall.

6% of Blackberry owners agree!

So the people who traded in their phones are the entire universe of BlackBerry owners?

They are on T-Mobile. And I seem to recall someone saying:

You are either reporting the information wrong or making an invalid interpretation.

Your statement is that 100% of T-Mobile BlackBerry users turned in their phones? Really?

You can click the link to see that I've not quoted the piece out of context. If you'll notice, it said that they had 15X the normal rate of people upgrading their Blackberry phones in response to the offer and 96% of them opted for a non-Blackberry phone. Contrast this with what you said about T-Mobile's Blackberry users seeing it as an opportunity to get a newer Blackberry. As far as Blackberry on T-Mobile goes, this doesn't bode well. Perhaps things will be different on other US carriers, but I haven't seen those numbers.

So more than usual means all? Because you said that only 6% of blackberry users like the new device, but you provided data only regarding a self-selecting subset of BlackBerry users. Not going to get in a pissing match about this, but I believe my criticism of your statement is valid.

I read a convincing paper by an analyst the other day saying that best buy stock is undervalued 25%.

You're splitting hairs to distract from the fact that you expected the folks upgrading to pick another Blackberry, but they didn't. For some reason, you've fallen into the trap of treating OS' like a religion and that any objections to them must be treated the same as criticizing Gawd. Whatever the merits of Blackberry's OS are (I don't know, I haven't used the new phones), if a similar pattern repeats on other carriers, then the company is most likely doomed.