BlackBerry inks deal with Amazon to get Android apps on its mobes BlackBerry is shaking up its code store options in a bid to win new apps and content for its widely shunned BlackBerry 10 smartphones. Most notably, the Canadian firm announced on Wednesday that it has reached a licensing agreement with Amazon to allow BlackBerry users access to the Amazon Appstore. Amazon's store won't …
No wonder you chose to be anonymous after that statement.
To the sheeple, and the wannabe-sheeple, BlackBerry is dead. You're right about that. My girlfriend has had a BlackBerry over the last 4 years and she now wants to go to iPhone. Not because she's unimpressed with my Z10, but because of peer pressure. All her friends have iPhones, and she must have one. It's the fashion, you can't blame her.
However, I used my BlackBerry Z10 for Internet, messaging, calls and emails. And my Z10 does all of these fantastically well. Because of a problem with my SIM card, 2 weeks ago I had to use an Android phone for a week. This is the first time in 2 years since owning a Samsung Galaxy S2 that I've had an Android phone. And in those 2 years Android hasn't improved it's email capability. It's still bloody awful. It took a good 2/3 minutes to sync with my two email accounts even over WiFi, and took a further 5/10 seconds to actually load a selected email. My Z10 however, loads the emails nearly instantly.
BlackBerry do business handsets brilliantly well, and they will continue to do so. So while the users of Android and iPhone think it's dead, it will not be dead in the areas of business where their phones are simply inadequate for the job.
That would be a smart move from BB if while getting out of media sales they would simultaneously introduce the best flat-fee premium services aka Amazon Prime services (at least in NA, where Amazon just added Prime Music to its unlimited streaming portfolio) - Amazon would love the extra sales and they don't need much, just make sure their Android clients work on BB10 just fine...
Err, hate to be the one to break it to you as long as you have Flash it already works on any Android device...
BTW if that'd be true their phone would flop immediately. :)
My point was more about Prime Music, to be honest, see simultaneous unlimited music streaming announcement from T-Mobile.
BB 10s aren't so bad really, but they pale in comparison to good Android devices and the fruity stuff. The hstory books will probably spare a paragraph or two about them, with the story being "first to provide good email on mobile that was easy to use, wiped out when decent competition emerged with that functionality and lots of other good stuff"
While I really don't like Blackberry's way of working, the recent hardware's about right.
I dislike things like (apparently) having to wipe the phone if you change the SIM. Or the SIM being linked to Blackberry rather than your telco so data capacity paid for can't simply be transferred to another phone. I dislike the (to me unnecessary) corporate level security stuff which just hampers normal use.
Though I normally use a BB 9800, I recently gained a friend's cheap Android (thanks to T Mobile not fixing it with the required OS reload) and realised how unusable on-screen keyboard is on a small phone if you have adult male fingers.
Though the issue is partly resolved on bigger Androids like the HTC One, I find myself looking at Blackberry Q10 for its reasonably sized screen and large-ish physical keyboard. This addresses my issues with a previous Nokia E71 (screen too small but keyboard brilliant) and present BB 9800 (screen bigger but keyboard too small).
I have a personal Q10 and a work iPhone and any form of typing is so much simpler on the Q10 because of that very 'fat finger' issue. I know that eventually the iPhone will (mostly) work out what I am trying to type since I always hit P when I meant O or whatever but it just annoys me each time I try to use it.
I am probably not a 'target audience' smartphone user as 90%+ of what I do is phone/text/email and having just checked there are 9 downloaded apps on the Q10 of which I really only use 4 since the latest OS update activated the in-built radio capability. What I can say though is that it may not have mass-appeal but it does the core things very well indeed.
> having to wipe the phone if you change the SIM.
I have swapped mine around a few times. Never had this issue. (BB 4, 5, 6 and 10). I know some phones offer this as an optional security feature. (I haven't *noticed* it in the BB options, though.)
> the SIM being linked to Blackberry rather than your telco so data capacity paid for can't simply be transferred to another phone.
Do you mean the requirement for BlackBerry services rather than standard internet? That is just a service the telco provides. True, it can't be used by a normal phone, but it also can't be used by a BB10 device, which needs standard internet. It used to be an advantage for domestic use, because it was cheaper, now there is no difference (t-mobile in the UK) There was a disadvantage in that the phone became almost useless on wifi abroad, (which sent me back to Nokia, reversed later by Microsoft.)
> I dislike the (to me unnecessary) corporate level security stuff which just hampers normal use
I'm totally at a loss to understand this, unless your phone is a company one.
Re the coroporate security stuff -- what peed me off was simply trying to dowload an app from Blackberry World was a faff via the phone (can't remember why) so I started all over again via PC/wireless link/router and it took an age updating stuff on the PC and rebooting the phone a couple of times (at 3.5 minutes per reboot). Quite apart from the lousy selection in BB World, I've avoided going that route again.
I appreciate that BB10 loses some of the annoyances -- such as over moving the SIMM to another phone -- but I quickly lose goodwill with firms that have forced me to do things their way without any obvious benefit to me.
I have never heard about having to wipe the phone if you change the sim.
The sim being linked to blackberry is probably part of the services offered under BB7 but BB10 just uses normal data allowance.
I am a consumer and the enterprise stuff is buried if you don't want to use it.
The keyboard is very good. The multiple language support was a big selling point for me as well.
Since a few days after Android support arrived.
Just a case of a search, download, allow it and it works.
Of course it does mean that there is something subject to the Patriot act on the phone. (But then simply having Skype or an American mail service or chat installed would do the NSA almost as well).
It would be nice for it to be official, and presumably Amazon would be allowed as a second trusted source, without opening up the phone completely.
It would be even nicer if Amazon had a service to auto convert apps to BlackBerry format, so they would work on the Playbook, but that's probably far too much to hope for.
Probably a really good move. The BB10 OS is really nice along with the Android app layer improvements are very nice.
I was really paranoid when I read the title in my email and thought it read that they were putting Android onto the BlackBerry hardware. This was something I always wanted to happen, but then I actually went from a Bold 9900 to an Android phone (S4) and still regret it to this day.
BIS is great on Tesco - I travelled for 3 months and didn't pay any roaming data fees as you get 10mb a day free which is plenty for the odd email and FB nosey. Miss that now on BB10.
Cheap price of the Z10 convinced me at the time to go down the BB10 route but I'm still considering going back to a proper keyboard and 3-5 day battery life.
200,000 apps on Amazon, 1,300,000 on Play.
A while back, I submitted the Android port of my games to both Amazon and Play. The former took a few days to go through QA, the latter just "went public".
Popularity? Or quality over quantity? How much is due to the Amazon market being seen as having fewer opportunities, and how many of those extra million plus on Play are half-hacked fart apps and flappy clones that don't work properly?
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