
A new company promises a 5G keyboarded BlackBerry in 2021 - HaGoijer
https://www.pcmag.com/news/new-blackberry-with-keyboard-coming-in-2021
======
wffurr
No actual device announced, just a licensing agreement for the Blackberry
brand to a Foxconn subsidiary "to deliver a new 5G BlackBerry Android
smartphone with physical keyboard, in the first half of 2021 in North America
and Europe".

Bad title, the original is "OnwardMobility Announces Agreements with
BlackBerry and Foxconn Subsidiary FIH Mobile to Bring BlackBerry 5G
Smartphones to Market" which I might summarize as "Foxconn Subsidiary Licenses
Blackberry Brand".

~~~
dang
OK, we've replaced the submitted title ("New BlackBerry with physical keyboard
announced") with a substring of the article title.

This thread is pretty good though. Sometimes a lame article generates good
comments.

~~~
walterbell
This article includes a bit of history and context ("Who Are These People?")
about the new team, [https://www.pcmag.com/news/new-blackberry-with-keyboard-
comi...](https://www.pcmag.com/news/new-blackberry-with-keyboard-coming-
in-2021)

 _> The maker of super-tough phones largely sells them to large business and
industrial customers, but it also has products at all three major US carriers.
_

~~~
dang
Ok let's change to that from
[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200819005202/en/Onw...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200819005202/en/OnwardMobility-
Announces-Agreements-BlackBerry-Foxconn-Subsidiary-FIH). Thanks!

------
xt00
Is there a name for the formula that blackberry and others follow?

1) successful consumer business

2) lose in the market so pivot to b2b

3) slow long decline

4) sell brand / assets to somebody else

5) new money results in a “hey we are going back to our roots” and launch
products they originally were known for

6) finally go out of business for real, or sell remaining IP to a troll

~~~
mothsonasloth
I don't know if there is a such a term or concept but I would put these
companies or products in the same category:

Motorola, IBM Thinkpad, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Fujitsu computers

~~~
OlderWhiskey
Lenovo has done a decent job with ThinkPad. I'm running an X1 Carbon and love
it.

~~~
as1mov
Eh, they've butchered the T and X series. Aping the Macbooks will be their
downfall.

~~~
gburdell3
What did they do to butcher them in your opinion? I just recently picked up a
new X390 and it's a great machine for the price, with better specs in just
about every area than a Macbook for half the price. Only thing I would improve
is the screen, 1080p doesn't cut it these days.

~~~
as1mov
I've used the older T420/30/X220/30 series laptops, and they are generally
regarded to be well built modular machines that can last for a long time and
can be upgraded with minimal fuss. They had 2 non-soldered RAM slots,
removable storage, easily swappable batteries. If anyone is looking for cheap
refurbished laptops, these are usually the go to suggestions for them.

I think the among the newer Thinkpads, only T480 has these capabilities,
except the swappable batteries.

------
arch-ninja
God I wish BB10 was open sourced. Today the biggest problem with phones is
their bloated runtimes, android being the largest offender. I want something
with the form factor of the q10 running a QNX-based os I can ssh to and use
rsync to copy music, contacts, and a calendar to.

~~~
walterbell
BB10 had the opportunity to support security and the open web, instead of
chasing the app store quagmire. WebOS is now open-source and based on
OpenEmbedded, which can be minimized. Blackberry has already ported some of
their special sauce to Android, they could do the same for WebOS, extracting
suitable components from both BB10 and QNX/automotive.

Instead of worrying about apps (previous war), they could invest in a Rust-
based browser and WebAssembly for mobile devices, building on their security
strengths. Allow the 'mobile' device to dock with USB-C to a desktop display
and keyboard, and you've got a WFH story for security-sensitive apps/data.
They have enough proprietary security software to sell on top of WebOS.

Convert Blackberry Messenger to IETF MLS (open-standard E2E encrypted group
messaging) and enable interop with Matrix and other apps/platforms that
embrace MLS, while (re)creating a business identity network. By focusing on
open standards and honoring their heritage in email/chat and physical UX, they
could provide a usable alternative for high-end users who favor productivity
and security without lock-in. Yes, BB was once the king of carrier gardens,
but Apple is now a garden to be escaped, not emulated.

There may be Firefox browser engineers recently on the market, who can hit the
ground running with variations of the above strategy. LG, lead developer of
OSS WebOS, does not compete with QNX or Blackberry. QNX remains an undervalued
gem. A hybrid OSS+proprietary model can bridge BB past & future, but it
requires vision from Blackberry, not only a new brand licensee.

~~~
protomyth
There developer story was way too confusing. Adobe Air just wasn't a good
idea. Blackberry had been Java, and I wonder what made that a pain. The
Runtime for Android was a good idea, but they really needed to pick something.

QNX is doing fine in cars, shame it never really got a chance. The 2 screen
Doom and rebooting drivers over the network showed some amazing stuff.

~~~
mightyscouse
It wasn't so much that it was Java (albeit ME without generics) it was more
you didn't get an awful lot out the box.

You had to hand roll all your UI with drawing routines that scaled across
various devices and handle all the touch/tracker button events yourself.

Networking was a minefield. Depending on your connection (bis/bes/tcp/WiFi)
you'd have to pass various undocumented params. Think we had a modified
version of some networking code a RIM employee has given us, God knows how
you'd have figured it out as an indie dev.

The support and open source ecosystem wasn't really there at the time either.
Just a couple of devs who were super prolific and knowledgeable on the dev
forums (thanks Peter Strange, if you're about HN)

------
philips
Relatedly I find it amazing that Planet Computers has found a niche and
developed multiple cell phones with tiny qwerty keyboards.

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-
slide-5g-transforme...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-
slide-5g-transformer#/)

[https://store.planetcom.co.uk/](https://store.planetcom.co.uk/)

~~~
zevv
I just "finished" my first Gemini after using the hell out of it for two years
straight until it finally gave up on me - it had missing keycaps, the
obligatory cracked screen, dents & scratches for the last few months of its
life, but still would not give up on me - until it finally went out few weeks
ago.

I tried to do without a keyboard for two days, but I just can't do it, and got
myself a new unit from Planet.

I guess I'm an old-skool kind of user, my primary app is termux + openssh for
doing my mail and irc remotely, but the keyboard is good enough to do the
occasional sysadmin and coding work - and that's not something you'd typically
do on a blackberry.

I highly recommend this device. It has its flaws, but it's unike any other
device available at this time.

~~~
crims0n
How usable do you find the keyboard with a terminal? I had not heard about
these before today but I am curious now.

Both the Gemini and the Cosmo look _almost_ perfect as a portable terminal -
the only thing I can see missing is usb-c power delivery for docking.

~~~
zevv
It takes a day or two to get used to the small form factor, my left hand types
with 4 fingers, right usually one or two. I was never a 10-finger-type of
touchtyper anyway. Because of the limited key count somey characters are in
strange places with a fn-combo, but these you just learn over time.

I find the keyboard good enough to take my phone out and write a proper
business email, caps, punctuation, lingo and all. I find the keyboard good
enough to reply to threads like this while waiting for the kids in the park. I
find it good enough to fix a small bug in software, do basic git bookkeeping.
I use it for IRC all day long.

I do _not_ find the keyboard good enough to sit down and write proper
documentation, or do real coding sessions.

------
sharkmerry
As someone currently with a Key1 and have stubbornly held onto physical
keyboards, I am hopeful this pans out. But other phone with physical keyboards
have been promised and never come to fruition

~~~
otabdeveloper4
I have a Unihertz Titan and it feels like a better Blackberry than Blackberry
ever was. (I only ever used Blackberries since BB10 and later.)

~~~
SuperPaintMan
A Key2 is my daily, but there's a backup unlocked Titan running Lineage ready
to take over if it dies. Now the question is, once this hardware becomes
available will I still need it or will the Key2 power though.

Although being able to load GSIs on the Titan feels amazing!

~~~
borgel
Woah, I had no idea there was a Lineage build for the Titan! Is it available
through the Lineage site?

------
honkycat
I would be super into a phone with a physical keyboard, but I am on Google Fi
and I am hesitant to switch.

I've given up on swipe typing. I have been using it for almost a decade and I
still cannot type effectively with it. I am ready to go back to physical keys.

~~~
beerandt
I'm amazed no company seems to be interested in filling the market niche for
physical keyboards.

I swear swype typing seems to have gotten progressively worse since it's early
days, I suspect as machine learning from public data is relied on more than
personal mechanics.

And also as the pool of users became more diverse, especially older (fat
finger users like my parents) and less tech knowledgeable (ie don't use
shortcuts or "hidden" features like swiping the spacebar, etc).

I used to be able to rely on muscle memory to swipe, but now that just seems
to beg for the wrong result.

I know I'd pay a premium for a blackberry or htc tilt-2 style physical
keyboard.

At this point, I'd almost go back to pocket typing with a physical dialpad and
T3, circa 2000 style.

~~~
Normille
The weird thing about swype typing for me is how it can swing from hugely
impressive to beyond lunatic in the space of a couple of sentences.

One minute, I'm amazed when I've swyped a sentence using some of my favourite
slang words [or even made up words / nicknames etc] and found it's been
transcribed perfectly. The next, I'm staring in disbelief as it inserts some
completely off the wall term like 'albatross' or 'dar es salaam' for a really
everyday word.

------
908B64B197
I remember a few years ago Samsung selling a keyboard case for one of it's
phones [0]. If I recall the phone would detect it and scale the UI so that the
keyboard wouldn't cover any important part of the screen.

Sounds like the ideal tradeoff. I've never seen one in real life however, so
that tells me how big the demand for a physical keyboard is.

[0] [https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-keyboard-cover-for-
gal...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-keyboard-cover-for-
galaxy-s8-plus-a-physical-keyboard-when-you-need-it/)

~~~
derekp7
I've actually been planning on getting one of those mini Bluetooth keyboards,
take it out of the case, and design a custom cell phone case where the top
hinges up similar to how a tackle box opens up. Still working out the details
and measurements though.

~~~
Normille
Those mini BT keyboards are great for the money. I got a no-brand copy of a
Rii one for £8 off eBay to replace the Apple keyboard I use to control my
media server and which was gradually dying one key t a time.

I was really impressed at how the mini BT keyboard 'just worked' on my odd
setup of Ubuntu running on Apple hardware. It's pretty tolerable to type on
--at least for shortish stuff like web searches and naming files, etc. and it
goes for a week or two on a charge.

------
627467
Been using BB10 Passport for past year as a daily driver. I wished a next gen
device _with BB10_ would be available in the same format.

~~~
Tsarbomb
Can I ask what kind of apps and functionality you use on it. I have a BB
Passport in my drawer and occasionally turn it on.

------
supernova87a
How is it possible that the key announcement of this development includes
absolutely no photo of the purported keyboard?

------
VectorLock
What percentage of the market for phones come with physical keyboards? I know
some cling to the idea but I think the technology has progressed far enough to
mostly eclipse it in every practical way, certain holdouts not withstanding,
and the market reflects that.

~~~
HarryHirsch
Do people really _like_ these huge breakable touchscreens that you leave oily
fingerprints on, or do they merely tolerate them? It's a damn shame that
phones with smaller screens and optical touchpad don't exist any longer.

~~~
VectorLock
Glass and screens on modern phones are amazingly durable now. I don't even
bother with screen protectors now since under normal usage they're virtually
unscratchable.

~~~
Normille
It's not the scratching that's the problem. It's the shattering.

I'll take, any day, a hard plastic screen which will survive being kicked
round the streets with only a bit of scuffing to show for it over a scratch-
proof glass one which turns into a mosaic if it drops off my desk.

------
Tepix
Coming before that: A Psion Series 5-inspired keyboard for PinePhone.

------
627467
Wondering if this is Nokia/HMD or more like previous BB/TCL.

