

BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says - gadgetgurudude
http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/22/blackberry-10-is-a-failure-that-wont-be-able-to-compete-company-source-says/

======
nailer
As a Playbook owner running OS 2, and a software developer, I agree that there
isn't room for a fourth ecosystem of 'native' apps written especially for BB
devices.

__Blackberry should stop running to where the ball is, and start running to
where it's going to be__

What I would like is the ability to run web apps as proper apps. Ie: make
Playbook the best way to consume web apps out there.

\- Apple's trying to push native apps that are iOS exclusive.

\- Android is from Google, a Java shop.

Both require web developers to shoehorn apps onto them via Titanium or
PhoneGap.

\- Awesome HTML5 support. PB OS 2 currently has (308 in html5test as of last
night)

\- Left/right gestures swapping web app windows like PB OS 2 currently swaps
between desktop-style apps. No desktop-style tabs.

\- Use the high resolution icons on my site, rather than snapshots of the UI.

\- Focus on webworks as the primary SDK, ditch Air & Java/Android completely.

If you wrapped up the mobile gmail this way, it'd be as seamless as a 'native'
app and a better experience than competing tablets.

~~~
icefox
Any other specific things that would make web application better or
specifically what would you use if it was there?

One thing I am proud of is the addition of inspector built in. Turning on
inspector, browsing to my web apps on the device and on my desktop having the
full webkit inspector is very handy for debugging stuff you can't debug on the
desktop such as touch events. One of those features that as soon as you have
you can never go back. [http://www.berryreview.com/2011/04/15/hot-webkit-web-
inspect...](http://www.berryreview.com/2011/04/15/hot-webkit-web-inspector-on-
the-blackberry-playbook-for-web-developers/)

~~~
Maciek416
We got some advice from RIM on how to run this inspector, and it's been quite
useful to improve our compatibility with the Playbook and especially the 2.0
OS.

That said, there are drawbacks to the Playbook that are hard to ignore and
make it hard to recommend as a development target from the viewpoint of a
"webkit developer" (oddball term, but there you have it.. :) ).

They feel quite a bit more sluggish than even the iPad1, which is fairly old
hardware now. It would be encouraging if at least one non-Apple Webkit
hardware+OS implementation out there actually managed to do CSS3 animations
even half as smooth as the iPad2. I'm optimistic this is going to happen, but
I don't think the Playbook has it right now. One thing I've liked about the
Playbook and WebKit implementation is that we're mostly seeing what we
interpret as "correct" behavior (aside from some Touch events interpretation,
but we just received some help with RIM on that with the touch-mode setting).
In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Tab exhibits crazy smearing and other
rendering errors when performing -webkit-transform. Our reference for
correctness is Mobile Safari, though it has quite a few fun rendering bugs as
well (iOS 5 actually introduced a couple new ones).

I'm not trying to be funny, but one thing that seriously inhibits productive
web development on the Playbook is its power button and battery
characteristics. Sometimes we literally cannot figure out how to get our
Playbook to turn on -- the power button on these things has to be seen and
felt to be believed. Sometimes you'll press the power button and it won't come
on, and will suddenly spring to life 7 to 10 minutes later while sitting
abandoned on your desk. Weird stuff...

------
alex_c
_Bad products, horrible software_

That seems strongly overstated. I don't use a BlackBerry, but nothing about
RIM's products strikes me as bad or horrible. They are, at worst, uninspired
products in a market with much stronger competitors.

I get the strong feeling that many in tech _want_ RIM to crash and burn as
spectacularly as possible - I can swear there's a lot of schadenfreude in all
these articles, and I can't figure out why there's so much anger towards RIM.
It seems counterproductive, I would much rather see them sticking around and
becoming a strong competitor.

~~~
mattdown
You said it yourself you don't use a blackberry, so your comment doesn't
exactly reflect on reality. I use a blackberry and I can confirm it's the
worse phone I have ever had. It's missing features that my other 5 year old
phone has, almost pathetic. To tap this, their prices are over the top.
Personally, I don't think that article exaggerates anything.

I don't know why people want RIM to fail but I bet they will fail if they
won't make a drastic change.

~~~
jrockway
I have a Blackberry for work. It's fine. It receives emails. It makes phone
calls. It makes a noise when I have a meeting.

An amazing work of art it is not, but it does work well enough. So I agree
with the OP, it's uninspired but it's not horrible. It's a minimum viable
product.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
_It's a minimum viable product._

I'm not sure that is true today. The enterprise fortress is crumbling around
RIM, and BES was the anchor giving RIM some stability. As more companies allow
people to bring their own device in, being a very weak competitor to iOS,
Android, and Windows very likely will be too much to overcome.

I expect Microsoft to buy RIM in 2012 in order to integrate BES with Windows
Phone. Blackberry's OS will be shuttered then.

------
rpeden
I used to be very ambivalent about BB devices, until I spent some time
recently using a BlackBerry 9900.

I'd read about the BlackBerry OS being behind the times, and outdated, but as
I used the 9900, I just wasn't seeing it. The touchscreen looks and works
extremely well, the OS is smooth and responsive, and looks great too. And the
web browser rendered every mobile site I loaded perfectly.

I know it is popular to cast BB devices as horribly outdated, but after using
the 9900, I found myself seriously considering purchasing one and selling my
iPhone 4. I love my iPhone, but the BlackBerry really impressed me.

This is anecdotal, I know...but perhaps we're all writing RIM off too soon?

~~~
fabiandesimone
I'm on the same boat. I feel the new 9900 is a great device. BBM is a great
service and managing email on a BB is fantastic.

I'm seriously considering getting one (again. I'm on an Iphone4 now) as I see
the Blackberry as a productivity tool and my Iphone as an entertaiment center
(I'm actually considering dropping the Iphone for an Android, but that's
another story)

------
rpeden
It seems to me that RIM needs strong, decisive leadership. The BlackBerry
brand is still formidable.

I see RIM as being in a position similar to where Apple was prior to the
return of Steve Jobs: Too many products, with the company's focus split in too
many directions.

It's not too late for a renaissance, however. Perhaps even dividing BlackBerry
products into four segments could work: consumer and professional, with a
touch screen and keyboard device for each of the two groups.

BlackBerries already seem disproportionately popular among teens and young
adults due to BBM. Deep integration of things like Facebook and Twitter into
the OS could help strengthen the popularity of BB devices among this
demographic.

Another big problem is lack of buy-in among the front line sales staff who are
actually selling mobile devices. I've been shopping around for smartphones
lately, and the bias of most salespeople I have encountered toward Android
devices has been shocking. Don't get me wrong, there are many Android phones I
love, but I've seen far too much bias among salespeople that is flat-out
unprofessional; there's nothing wrong with sales staff having preferences, but
I've often been told that BlackBerries are terrible, and iPhones are
overpriced, so Android is the way to go. I'm knowledgeable enough to know
better, but the vast majority of consumers aren't. If possible, RIM should
work with its channel partners to try to stop this. Negotiating prominent
placement in stores wouldn't be bad, either. It's hard to stand out in a sea
of Android devices.

I'm an iPhone user, and I don't have a BlackBerry yet. But I like what they
offer, and would hate to see RIM drift off into oblivion.

------
16s
Really amazing how quickly they slid after Android and iOS took off. I would
not have believed it had I not witnessed it. It's really a lesson to all
established technologies... you can fall faster than you ever realized.

------
harryf
It will be a shame if they fail because OS 2 has the potential to be amazing,
making "real time" really work on mobile, thanks to it's multi kernel
architecture. Some detail here - [http://forums.crackberry.com/blackberry-
playbook-f222/qnx-mi...](http://forums.crackberry.com/blackberry-
playbook-f222/qnx-microkernel-strucksures-ability-626911/)

Can imagine UIs that adapt to your current location and environment as you
move around.

------
Matt_Rose
When they came out with the original timeline for integrating QNX onto the BB,
I was excited. It was ambitious, but not impossible, and QNX is a fantastic OS
that never found a niche. I was hoping RIM could revive it and give it the
presence that I always felt it deserved. It looks like they may instead put
the final nail in it's coffin instead.

The original timeline might have worked, it might have caught them up. Now
that chance is way less

------
kennystone
Seems like a decent executive would have started a division running Android
with Blackberry customizations a while back.

~~~
jrockway
It's a risky proposition. Blackberry is software. Buying other people's
software and reselling it makes you an easy-to-eliminate middleman.

HTC and Samsung like Android because they hate writing software (although not
enough to stop doing it) and Android is much better than anything they could
dream of making themselves. RIM, on the other hand, has already made pretty
decent software. So it would be weird to throw all that away and start making
low-margin hardware that competes with 100 other low-margin phones and
tablets.

~~~
kennystone
RIM has pretty deep enterprise integration compared to everyone else.
Presumably they could leverage a lot of their existing software (on the
backend - push, mail, messaging, etc) plus some great Android apps?

------
zmanji
Can anyone shed some light on how this can happen? Don't managers use the
product and ensure that it is better than the previous versions? How can they
release Playbook OS 2.0 without BBM, email, etc?

~~~
nailer
> How can they release Playbook OS 2.0 without BBM, email, etc?

There's multiple Youtube videos of people running native email on Playbook OS
2. I think the article or the anonymous source is calling into question
whether email is better on a BB10/Playbook OS 2 or the existing BB devices.

------
recoiledsnake
Maybe WebOS running on QNX might have been a good move. WebOS has been
universally appreciated for the UI and UX (whereas OSes from RIM are not
particularly well known for UX).

The SDK is also very friendly to web developers because Enyo is mostly HTML +
JS, that will allow it to compete in the app space while being the 4th
ecosystem. I do know that WebOS came on sale too late for RIM to use it on the
Playbook.

Improving the horrible dev experience will go a long way towards the success
of the platform. The dev tools are just atrocious by today's standards.

A must read letter to the management from an employee

[http://www.bgr.com/2011/06/30/open-letter-to-blackberry-
boss...](http://www.bgr.com/2011/06/30/open-letter-to-blackberry-bosses-
senior-rim-exec-tells-all-as-company-crumbles-around-him/)

Pretty prescient.

~~~
wavephorm

      WebOS running on QNX
    

You can't run one operating system inside another without a virtual machine,
which isn't feasible with today's mobile hardware.

It's also probably too late for RIM to purchase WebOS, at this rate RIM will
be out of business by next year.

