Blackberry, a name that says a lot. History of BlackBerry
As a matter of fact, this is a rare case when a product gives the name of a company, and not vice versa. The current one was founded in 1984 and was called Research In Motion or RIM for almost 30 years, and only recently, in January 2013, it was renamed.
Research In Motion was founded by University of Waterloo student Mike Lazaridis and was initially focused on engineering problems. However, having not achieved significant success in this field in four years, the company became interested in working with wireless data transmission. This time, as they say, I got into the flow, because at that time paging communications were rapidly gaining popularity.
Despite the convenience of smartphones for the business segment, “ordinary” users considered the manufacturer’s devices to be very large and inconvenient. And therefore, in the same 2004, the company decides to expand its target audience by releasing a phone without a QWERTY keyboard. In addition, the diagonals and quality of displays are increasing, as well as memory, applications, camera, chat, etc. are appearing.
In 2007, it introduced a series of communicators, including the 8820, designed specifically for corporate users and having a built-in Wi-Fi module, and the 8830 World Edition, distinguished by its versatility.
However, in 2011 the situation worsened significantly. Despite the fact that bright and interesting devices continued to be released, competitors were doing their job, Android smartphones were taking over the world with their availability at an incredibly fast pace, and the iOS platform was gaining more and more loyal fans, thanks to its high performance and stability. In October 2011, the company absorbed NewBay, a company developing cloud technologies for telecom operators, but at the end of the year, due to lack of funds, it had to sell its subsidiary, Synchronoss.
In 2012, due to harsh criticism from investors, the company's founder, Mike Lazaridis, was removed from his position as chief executive officer, although in return he received the post of deputy chairman of the board of directors and also became head of the innovation committee.
2013 began for the company with global update, both in the literal and figurative sense of the word. First, RIM has finally become
Even if you are not interested in electronics, you have probably heard the name "Blackberry". This is one of the first smartphone manufacturers that gained popularity long before the appearance of Galaxy. And despite the tough competition in the market, it still has its fans.
More about the brand
"Blackberry" is a blackberry in English. What kind of “berry” is this in the electronics market?
Many compare the success of Blackberry with the popularity of another “appetizing” brand - Apple. Devices from both manufacturers at one time blew up the market and gained an army of loyal fans who refuse to buy anything else.
The history of the famous Canadian company begins in 1984. Then it was called Research In Motion and changed it to the famous name of its brainchild BlackBerry in 2013.
The unusual name of the device is explained by the similarity of the small buttons on the keyboard to blackberries.
The first BlackBerrys were just ordinary pagers. In 2002, a model appeared with the ability to make calls, but the use of a headset was mandatory, because this phone did not have a microphone or speakers. Also a key change was the ability to work with email.
Since 2003, the company began producing models with a color display, a browser and the ability to work with programs Microsoft package Office. For a long time the manufacturer focused on gadgets for businessmen and only in 2006 joined the race for customers who use the phone for personal purposes and for entertainment.
Key features of the models
Blackberry is a hybrid of a personal digital assistant and a powerful portable media player. Unlike most other smartphones, models from this manufacturer do not use someone else’s operating system, developed for other devices, but their own operating system.
The main reason why many people use BlackBerry is the ability to stay connected almost anywhere and through a variety of communication methods. The device can be used directly as a telephone, or to access email, or for instant messaging using BBM's own free service.
Also, Blackberry is one of the first smartphones that gave users the opportunity to use mobile internet and do it with convenience and ease. This won the hearts of many buyers and brought fame to the manufacturer.
A distinctive feature of the phones is the presence of a physical QWERTY keyboard. Complete with a large screen, it ensures comfortable use of the phone for any purpose.
Blackberry offers large number other features that make it very useful. There are maps and GPS navigation to ensure you don't get lost. Of course, there is a camera and a multimedia player, and other attributes necessary for a modern smartphone.
Issue price and localization
To withstand stiff competition with other electronics giants in the market, new ones are constantly emerging modern models"Blackberry." The price of the device can be either quite modest or quite impressive - from about 9 thousand rubles for the 9220 Curve White phone to 90 thousand for the powerful P’9981 Porsche Design with a stainless steel case and genuine leather elements. Brand phones can be either laconically simple or showing the status of the owner. Therefore, we can say that from a teenager to a businessman, everyone will find a suitable Blackberry.
Russia is a large market, so for the convenience of domestic users it is possible to enter Russian phones using laser engraving. Of course, the automatic transliteration function has recently become available, but it is only suitable for those who already know the arrangement of letters very well.
Popular models
Let's start getting to know them with BlackBerry Classic. Against the background of fragile modern smartphones The gadget gives an impression of solidity and reliability, which is helped by the side frame from What does this Blackberry phone look like? The photo below shows it from all sides.
As the name of the smartphone states, it follows the best traditions of the brand. Namely, it boasts a comfortable and fairly large four-row keyboard. The buttons are separated from each other and produce a clear sound when pressed, so you can type even touch-sensitively and comfortably. However, this leads to the main drawback of the model - small screen with a diagonal of 3.5 inches.
The price for this Blackberry phone ranges from 25 to 26 thousand rubles, depending on the color (white is more expensive than its classic black counterpart).
The model also boasts a powerful processor and support for Android applications. Camera - 8 megapixels, front - 2.
The Passport smartphone is also one of the latest and very popular creations of Blackberry. Let's start the review with an explanation. interesting name gadget - in shape and size it exactly matches the passport of a US citizen.
This model has an unusual shape, which made it possible to fit both a full-fledged keyboard (this time it is located on three rather than four lines) and big screen with a diagonal of 4.5 inches. But a device of this size and shape is not always convenient to hold with one hand, even for a man. This is perhaps the largest Blackberry phone. The photo below shows how it lies in the hand.
But still, the screen is the pride of the model. It is bright, with excellent color rendition. The text is clear, so reading books on it is a real pleasure.
It is also worth noting the powerful quad-core processor with a frequency of 2.2 GHz and 3 GB of RAM. Definitely, this phone is designed for productive work and embodies the professional and business philosophy of the brand.
This Blackberry has a price that is almost 10 thousand higher than the Classic series smartphones. It starts from 33 thousand rubles for a black model and reaches 39 thousand for a red phone. Well, the white case will cost 35 thousand rubles.
Buyers' opinion
Thousands of users around the world enjoy using their Blackberry (phone). Reviews from fans of the brand are mostly positive. Most often, the main advantage is a physical keyboard, which you don’t often see on a smartphone anymore. Individualists are also flattered by the fact that they have a fairly rare phone. Also among the advantages are good batteries and long term work on one charge, good sound, an intuitive operating system that rarely freezes, comfortable work with gestures. The main disadvantage is working with applications. This is a significant disadvantage of its operating system. Users who switched from other smartphones to Blackberry do not find their favorite applications, there is no support Google Play, and Android applications do not always work correctly.
Experts' opinion
Even the most avid fans of the brand cannot help but notice that their favorite is having a hard time. Apple, Samsung, LG and other new smartphone manufacturers have damaged the popularity of Blackberry. Well-known authors and editors of electronics magazines and websites, as well as business experts, often say that the company's time is numbered. Already, its turnover largely depends on repeat sales to fans of the brand, while new buyers give preference to other manufacturers.
Of course, with so many existing owners, BlackBerry will not disappear overnight. But if you are just planning to join this brand, you should weigh the pros and cons.
Future of the company
But not everything is so pessimistic. Even the President of the United States uses a BlackBerry rather than an iPhone because his security service won't let him. After all, “blackberry” has a very powerful burglary protection system.
Therefore, companies predict a future as a manufacturer of expensive smartphones for politicians and businessmen for whom safety is important
Other types of electronics
In addition to the main direction - smartphones, in the brand's product line you will also find a Blackberry tablet. The first models came out almost simultaneously with the iPad 2 and were very popular for some time.
Called the BlackBerry PlayBook, they boast a bright and clear seven-inch screen, loud speakers and a powerful dual-core processor. However, the interface, appearance of the tablet, as well as the weak battery, which takes quite a long time to charge, cause complaints from many users. The small number of applications from the manufacturer is inconvenient. Therefore, PlayBook tablets are not popular at the moment.
All major electronics brands have their ups and downs. BlackBerry Company lately is in a state of decline, which has now been somewhat slowed down and losses have been reduced, but there is no talk of profitability and former popularity yet. Most users who are somehow interested in gadgets associate BlackBerry with high-quality and reliable business-class devices. The company has always been famous for a lot of its own developments in terms of secure exchange of mail and messages with the corresponding proprietary infrastructure for encrypting the data of its users. These features have repeatedly become a problem for distribution in some countries and have been criticized. BlackBerry products were most popular in North America and Western Europe, mainly among corporate users. In our latitudes there have always been problems with the full implementation of BlackBerry services, and simply with the availability of the devices themselves. Nowadays, buying a BlackBerry smartphone is absolutely not a problem, but the specificity makes the product quite niche.
How it all began
Manufacturing company BlackBerry smartphones, which until 2013 was called Research in Motion (RIM) , was founded in 1984 student at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) Mike Lazaridis of Turkish origin. Initially the company was engaged engineering activities in the field of devices for wireless transmission data, and in the early 1990s began collaborating with Ericsson and RAM Mobile Data, which provide wireless text transmission technologies in paging networks. It is not surprising that the company's first device was a pager. Inter@ctive pager 900 (Bullfrog) with a QWERTY keyboard and the ability to send messages in 1996:
It was followed by a more compact Inter@ctive pager 950 (Leapfrog):
RIM released the first device under the BlackBerry brand in 1997 at the instigation of Lexicon Branding, which launched the Pentium and Zune brands. The keyboard of those RIM devices was associated with Lexicon Branding with blackberries, that’s what they called it. The first smartphone was BlackBerry 957 Proton, it was equipped with a QWERTY keyboard, a black and white display and supported calls only with a headset connected. Worked on the first version of Blackberry OS:
The evolutionary development was the BlackBerry 5810. It was released in 2002 and supported all functions mobile phone, text input, web surfing, push e-mail and so on. It already worked on BlackBerry OS 3.x with Java support:
Further development
The year 2004 was marked by several events in BlackBerry history: new version released BlackBerry OS 4.x, which supported color screens, acquired more convenient browser, Gallery application and many other innovations. It was used until 2008 and received several significant updates during this period. The same year was marked by increased popularity, the first million devices sold, experiments in producing devices without a QWERTY keyboard, and the first color smartphone BlackBerry 7210:
Here it is worth mentioning the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 model, released in 2006. BlackBerry went to the masses: it used a simplified keyboard, a trackball, a built-in camera and a music player:
And the BlackBerry Curve 8300, released in 2007, which used a trackball and a QWERTY keyboard, which is considered one of the most convenient:
In 2008, BlackBerry OS 5.x was released, and the company began its most successful years of existence. New version The OS brought support for touch screens, and its own file manager, wireless synchronization of contacts, BlackBerry Maps, support for Gmail, GPS navigation and a lot of other innovations. Then a very successful model BlackBerry Bold 9000 came out:
And the company's first touch model - BlackBerry Storm 9500:
In 2009 RIM sold more than 50 million smartphones worldwide and was second only to Nokia in terms of this indicator, and in terms of financial growth, it overtook all competitors and in 2010 crossed the mark of 100 million mobile terminals sold. The same year, the BlackBerry World mobile app store opened.
In 2010, BlackBerry OS 6.x was released, in which the interface was once again updated, browser and integrated search and native app for Youtube. Starting with this version, integration with social services Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerry Messenger, LinkedIn. The company is experimenting with form factors, in particular the BlackBerry Torch 9800 QWERTY slider with a touch screen appears:
And the QWERTY clamshell BlackBerry Style 9670:
BlackBerry OS 7.x released in 2011 and did not bring any radical changes, support appeared in it creating Wi-Fi access points, NFC modules and radio plus other small changes. A number of models were released on it, in particular the BlackBerry Bold 9930:
Dramatic changes and the beginning of a dark streak
With the growing popularity of devices running Android and iOS, as well as a relatively new class of devices in the form of tablets, the company decided that something radically needed to change. Back in 2010, RIM bought the QNX real-time OS , on the basis of which they made BlackBerry Tablet OS. Used it the first and only tablet BlackBerry Playbook:
It was equipped with a 7-inch IPS screen 1024x600, dual-core processor TI OMAP4430 with clock frequency 1 GHz and 1 GB RAM. It was not particularly popular: the number of native applications was very small, and emulation Android applications did not work adequately. RIM shares fell five times over the year, which the board of directors was not at all happy about, the company's founder and CEO Mike Lazaridis left his post, and his place was taken by COO Torsten Heyns, who previously worked at Siemens.
On January 30, 2013, BlackBerry OS 10 was announced, which was a modified version BlackBerry Tablet OS, and RIM was renamed BlackBerry. It released the BlackBerry Q10 with a QWERTY keyboard and the first fully touchscreen Z10:
Despite quite attractive smartphones and a number of interesting ideas in the new OS, the company’s financial indicators were rapidly falling, and the number of current models was declining. In the summer of 2013, attempts were made to sell the company, and by the fourth quarter, options were being considered to move exclusively into the corporate segment. In November Thorsten Heyns is stepping down from his post and is being replaced by John Chen, a former company executive. Sybase, a software company. He stated that the company does not intend to abandon production and that radical changes in strategy will be made. Under his leadership, the company released the BlackBerry Z3, a budget device aimed at developing countries:
And the exotic BlackBerry Passport with a square display and a QWERTY keyboard, which also doubles as a touchpad:
In the future, the company plans to release custom smartphones annually. Meanwhile, the tenth version of the OS receives periodic updates, and the increasingly seamless operation of Android applications plays into its favor. At the moment, almost all applications up to Android 4.3 are supported. The company managed to reduce its losses, but it is too early to talk about the future fate of the company.
First, let's clarify the following point: the connection between BlackBerry 10 and previous versions BlackBerry OS, used in devices of the Bold, Torch, Storm, Curve, etc. series. BlackBerry 10 is a completely new OS, it has nothing in common with BlackBerry OS 7.x and older versions. This means that applications for older OSes will not work on the new OS. There is no direct compatibility with BlackBerry PlayBook OS; moreover, even the BlackBerry 10 interface is significantly different from PlayBook OS (although there are similarities). Thus, BlackBerry, in fact, crossed out its entire past and tried to start with clean slate. Let's see how successful she was.
Interface
The main application menu looks quite original and at the same time familiar. This is a set of icons, each of which is located on a translucent rectangular background.
The desktop personalization options are similar to iOS: you can't add widgets or any other elements, but you can change the location of icons and organize them into folders (you can see icon folders in the screenshots below). And, of course, you can change your desktop wallpaper.
It is worth admitting that home screen It looks nice and makes a good impression, although in terms of functionality it is a copy of iOS. The only difference is that in BlackBerry 10 there is a system search button on the bottom panel (for iOS it is placed on a separate screen).
Search allows you to find a contact, but it does not search by letters, messages, etc. In this way, it is much inferior to a similar search in iOS, where a list of activities related to the searched contact is immediately displayed. On the other hand, in BlackBerry 10, in order to see a list of a contact’s recent activities, just click on the contact card, and it will all be there.
But let's return to the main menu. It should be noted that the animation was very well done when switching between desktops, as well as when unlocking the device. In the first case, it looks as if the new desktop is flowing onto the previous one, and in the second, it looks as if you are erasing a veil hiding the desktop.
As for the lock screen, it displays the time, date, as well as notification icons for new emails, messages, calls, etc. Unfortunately, you can't go directly from the lock screen to the desired notification. This is a strange decision.
In addition, the transition to the camera is very awkward. On the lock screen, there is a camera icon in the lower left corner. But in order to launch it, you need to touch this icon and hold your finger for two seconds. The camera does not respond to any other actions (swipes, regular touches), only an animation appears showing how to unlock the screen (see screenshot below on the right). Whereas in iOS you simply swipe up from the camera icon and go straight to the corresponding app.
But BlackBerry 10 is very pleased with the ability to unlock the screen with one swipe of a finger across the screen, without pressing the Power button first. Simply put, on iPhone and Android you need to make two movements: first press the Power or Home button (on iOS), and then swipe the touch screen to unlock. And in BlackBerry 10, just one swipe is enough: just swipe across the black screen and you’ll immediately see the desktop.
Open applications are displayed as thumbnails. Four thumbnails fit on one screen, and up to eight application thumbnails can be open simultaneously. If you open more, the older ones will automatically close.
To close the thumbnail yourself, you need to click on the cross in the corner. Swiping up doesn't work. This is in contrast to BlackBerry PlayBook OS, where the thumbnail was closed not only by clicking on the cross, but also by simply swiping up (by the way, the same thing was done in another gesture-oriented OS - WebOS).
Regarding removal installed applications, then everything here is again the same as in iOS: long press on the icon, then click on the trash can icon that appears in the corner of the icon (see screenshot at the top right).
Settings
Some settings are available in the menu, which opens if you swipe your finger down from the top frame of the screen. There we see icons for turning Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on/off, as well as Alarm Clock, Notifications (here, however, you can only turn the signal on or off for them) and Settings.
By clicking on this icon, we are taken to the full settings menu, which, as usual with BlackBerry, is quite rich.
In addition to the obvious things, the settings also contain many important functions that you don’t expect there at first. For example, by default, access to the smartphone’s memory is disabled when connected via USB, that is, the smartphone does not appear as a USB drive when connected to a PC. To fix this, you need to enable this feature in the settings. In addition, in the settings you should check the volume of sounds for different events (calls, notifications, alarm clock) and the presence of additional indicators (vibration, LED signal). Finally, you can add accounts through the settings menu.
The touch keyboard settings deserve special attention. But first you need to study the keyboard itself, since it is one of the most interesting parts of BlackBerry 10.
Keyboard
BlackBerry smartphones have long been famous for their physical QWERTY keyboard with a special design. The very name of the company (translated into Russian as “blackberry”) comes from the fact that the small, unusually shaped keys of a QWERTY keyboard evoke an association with blackberry seeds. So, even after the advent of the iPhone, BlackBerry (then called Research in Motion) persistently made smartphones with a physical keyboard. True, there was also a short-term experiment with fully sensory devices (Storm line), but it, according to general opinion, turned out to be not very successful. And now, having announced BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry is releasing not a QWERTY smartphone as a pioneer, but a touchscreen device. However, as if to compensate those who love BlackBerry specifically for its keyboards, the company provides a completely special touch keyboard that differs from its competitors. Its main feature is the appearance of pop-up words during typing, which begin with the syllables and letters you have already typed.
Moreover, these words are arranged in such a way that the most likely word is closest to the bottom of the keyboard (that is, closer to you), and the less likely ones are higher. To select the right word, you just need to swipe up in the area where this word appears.
In the demonstration it looks very beautiful and impressive (the animation of the words that pop up is really very beautiful!), but in reality it was very difficult for me to get used to it, because the words that popped up were usually not the ones I needed. And the place where they appeared was different all the time, so I had to look for the right word with my eyes.
It is expected that the keyboard will gradually learn and adapt to you, and after some time of use, the system will be much more likely to guess which word you started writing, which will greatly speed up your typing speed. But at the first stage it didn’t seem to me that my typing speed became any faster than on any other touch keyboard and, even more so, than on the physical keyboard of the BlackBerry Torch 9800. Moreover, the behavior of the keyboard (for example, annoying auto-correction) even bothered me, but this can be adjusted in the Settings menu.
Another inconvenience is changing the layout. In iOS this is done with one click, but here you need to touch the globe icon (on the left near the spacebar) and, holding it, drag your finger to the language we need in the menu that opens. Not only is it unintuitive, it also takes too long.
Note that the Russian language is present in the OS initially, there are no problems with this. Overall, the on-screen keyboard is one of the biggest innovations in BlackBerry 10, but before you can really use it effectively, you'll have to spend some time exploring the settings and teaching the keyboard itself your vocabulary.
BlackBerry Hub and Contacts
One more key feature BlackBerry 10 is an attempt to erase the boundaries between different applications, containing any user activities. This is, firstly, BlackBerry Hub, which collects all notifications, letters, messages (including from social networks), and secondly, the Contacts application, which displays not only pre-entered information about a person, but also all his current activities and interactions with the owner of the smartphone.
The BlackBerry Hub is located in such a way that you can always get to it very quickly. It doesn't matter what application you're in. Just move your finger from the bottom frame of the screen to the right frame and you will open the BlackBerry Hub.
Simply put, if the system is represented as a set of cards lying one on top of the other, the BlackBerry Hub will always be at the very bottom.
As for contacts, there are three tabs on each contact’s card: information (in fact, all information, including that loaded from the contact’s account on social networks), updates (the contact’s latest posts on social networks) and activities (last interactions with the owner smartphone - calls, messages, etc.).
Thus, BlackBerry 10 offers perhaps the deepest (compared to other OS) integration of social networks. And that in itself is quite good. But the main drawback, in my opinion, is the limited range of social networks. For example, in Russia VKontakte and Odnoklassniki would be much more relevant than Facebook and LinkedIn. But they are not even in the BlackBerry World application store, to say nothing of integration into the OS! I wonder if BlackBerry will take any steps to work with national social networks? After all, not only in Russia are local social networks more popular than Facebook, but also in China and a number of other countries the situation is similar.
Applications
Now let's see how things are with applications on BlackBerry 10. There is the following set of pre-installed applications: Contacts, Browser, Calendar, BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), Text messages(SMS), BlackBerry World (application store), Remember (an analogue of Evernote, which also allows you to display information from Evernote), Calculator, File Manager, Docs To Go, Images, Music, Video, Story Maker (an application that allows you to create amateur clips from photos and videos), Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Twitter, Games (a service for accessing online games), Maps, YouTube, Kiosk, Voice control, Weather, Clock, Compass, Box (Box cloud storage client), Connect to Dropbox (cloud client) Dropbox storage), Smart Tags (application for scanning QR codes and NFC tags), Adobe Reader, Camera, Help.
We will not describe every application, but we will pay attention to those moments that, in our opinion, are either the most revealing and important, or the most unexpected.
First of all, the Maps app in Russia does not yet display Russian maps. It is clear that by the time the smartphone goes on official sale in Russia, Russian cards will probably appear, but for now the situation is deplorable. In addition, there are no Spanish maps, for example. As for the maps that exist, they are completely unusable: even in the center of New York, house numbers are not displayed (only streets), and the search results are incorrect in most cases.
I remember that Apple was not criticized only by the lazy for their maps in iOS 6. But here the situation is many times worse. But previous BlackBerry smartphones have cards, including Russian ones!
Next, YouTube app is in fact not an application, but just a bookmark that opens mobile version YouTube in the browser. But everything would be fine if it worked. However, we were never able to watch a single video from YouTube. An error appeared all the time (we tried in different networks Wi-Fi and various videos).
This is another epic fail that you don’t even know how to explain.
The Facebook application, at first glance, seems normal, but as soon as you try to actively use it, it immediately becomes clear that in many cases it also works as a browser bookmark, opening the mobile version of Facebook.
Another application that is actually useless so far is Kiosk. It displays magazines that seem to be even available for purchase (and prices are shown in rubles). But when you try to make a purchase, you see an inscription informing you that purchases cannot be made in rubles. Apparently, this is a regional restriction that cannot be circumvented. And, naturally, there are no Russian magazines there yet.
Docs To Go lets you create, edit, and view Word files and Excel, as well as view and edit PowerPoint files. That is, this is a fully functional, and not a trial version of the popular office suite. However, the functionality of the application is the most primitive: in particular, it is impossible to display and create footnotes in DOC files, and all formatting is immediately destroyed.
There are claims even to such seemingly simple applications, like Images and Music. In Images, you can't combine photos into albums (at least we haven't found how to do this), and in Music, for some reason, songs in an album are duplicated, and covers are not always displayed (even if they are embedded in a track). But Images has a built-in photo editor with filters.
In general, as we see, the situation with pre-installed applications is not the best. At first glance, the most necessary things are there, but once you start using it, one problem after another emerges. As a fly in the ointment worth adding to this ointment, let’s mention the successful integration of Dropbox into the OS. In addition to having a separate client application (quite decent), Dropbox can be accessed both from Images and from the File Manager, where it is displayed along with the internal memory and microSD card.
BlackBerry World Store
Third-party apps are installed on BlackBerry 10 from the BlackBerry World app store. It is not yet clear whether it will be possible to distribute and install applications bypassing World, but most likely not. At the same time, BlackBerry is making a huge effort to convince developers to write apps for the Store. Firstly, conferences for BlackBerry Jam developers were held all over the world (including, last summer, such an event took place in Moscow, and secondly, at these conferences a huge number of BlackBerry Dev Alpha developer smartphones were distributed, which, after meeting the minimum conditions ( publication of the application in the Store) the company will exchange for new smartphones on BlackBerry 10, thirdly, developers of the most successful applications can receive cash incentives from BlackBerry. In general, the company fully realized its mistake with the PlayBook tablet, which entered the market with virtually no applications. in the Store, and decided to fix the situation with BlackBerry 10.
Indeed, at the time of the OS launch, the company reported that there were already more than 50,000 applications in the Store. However, as it turns out, not everything is so smooth here. The first thing to note is that many of these apps are ports from Android (supported by the BlackBerry 10 SDK) and are not optimized for the BlackBerry Z10. In addition, despite the apparently quite large number, BlackBerry World does not yet have basic things like the same VKontakte client, for example. And, as you might guess, there are still very few serious games that take advantage of the potential of the BlackBerry Z10 hardware platform.
As a matter of fact, of these games we found only N.O.V.A. 3 and Asphalt 7. Both of them run very well on the BlackBerry Z10, and this should brighten up new users of the device from waiting for other projects of a similar level. But, of course, there is no such freedom as on iOS and Android, and if there is, it will not be soon.
As for the organization of the Store itself and the process of purchasing applications, everything is standard here, no surprises. For free applications All you need is a BlackBerry ID (you can use the same one you had on older BlackBerry smartphones), you will need to enter payment information to purchase applications. Russian debit and credit cards accepted without problems.
BlackBerry ecosystem: transferring data from your old smartphone and interacting with the BlackBerry PlayBook
In 2011, BlackBerry released the BlackBerry Protect application for OS 4.6 and higher. And this application is currently perhaps the most convenient tool for backing up non-multimedia information from a smartphone. The essence of the application is this: once in a while (you can configure it as you wish), the program makes a backup of letters, messages, contacts, calendar, notes, etc. from your smartphone to the BlackBerry server. If you switch to another smartphone or lose data on your existing device, simply install this application, log in with your BlackBerry ID and select the date of the backup from which the information will be copied. Very convenient! In addition, BlackBerry Protect allows you to track your smartphone's location (like Find My iPhone). So, in the BlackBerry Z10, location tracking functionality is built into the system itself (the BlackBerry Protect item is in Settings), but you cannot make a backup to the cloud or transfer information from an existing backup. That is, if you used a smartphone on BlackBerry OS 6 or 7 and made backups in BlackBerry Protect, then you will not be able to use them in your new BlackBerry Z10. Instead, you are asked to transfer contacts from social networks or Gmail. The only supported synchronization tool is the BlackBerry Link computer program (there are versions for Windows 7/8 and OS X), an analogue of BlackBerry Desktop Software, only for BlackBerry 10. And, frankly speaking, it greatly disappointed us. Cumbersome, with an inconvenient interface, for some reason requiring reboot Windows 7 after installing the program, in addition to this, it is unstable...
Thank God you can transfer files from your smartphone to your computer and back without using BlackBerry Link. You can write the necessary files onto a microSD memory card, then insert it into your smartphone and use the pre-installed File Manager to transfer data from the memory card to internal memory. Accordingly, the return path can be used to transfer data from the device. In addition to this, there is also Dropbox, which is built into the OS and is available in the File Manager (we wrote about this above). However, this does not solve the problem with backing up letters, SMS and other personal information. It's a shame that BlackBerry hasn't yet released a full-fledged Protect application for the new OS.
Another question that probably worries BlackBerry fans is the interaction of the smartphone with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The fact is that collaboration with a smartphone running BlackBerry OS is one of the main advantages of the tablet. With the BlackBerry Bridge app, you can connect your smartphone and tablet via Bluetooth and display the email, contacts, calendars, notes, and tasks you have on your smartphone on your tablet. In addition, you can access the Internet from your tablet without turning on Wi-Fi: traffic comes from your smartphone via Bluetooth. Here's what the BlackBerry Bridge folder looks like on a PlayBook when connected to a BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone.
But with the BlackBerry Z10, alas, everything is not so rosy. Yes, BlackBerry Bridge is also available on the BlackBerry Z10, and the smartphone can be connected to the tablet just as easily. But their interaction is limited, in fact, to only three things: distributing the Internet from a smartphone (almost every Android smartphone can do this today), accessing smartphone files from a tablet, and the ability to use a smartphone as a touchpad for a tablet. Letters and other things are not displayed on the tablet. Below is a screenshot of the BlackBerry Bridge folder on the PlayBook when connected to a BlackBerry Z10 smartphone.
Thus, as soon as you replace your classic BlackBerry with the Z10, your smartphone's wonderful companion - the PlayBook - will turn into a very ordinary tablet, in no way superior to its Android and iOS counterparts.
Conclusions
The BlackBerry 10 operating system looks very promising, but at the moment I would call it not even a beta, but an alpha version. Lots of bugs in pre-installed applications(the main thing is, of course, Maps and YouTube), poor interaction with the BlackBerry ecosystem (limited functionality of BlackBerry Bridge and BlackBerry Protect), a mediocre BlackBerry Link program for synchronizing with a PC... In general, it still has to work and work. In BlacKBerry World there is also no abundance of good and useful applications, so in this regard BlackBerry 10 is many steps behind its two main competitors and, perhaps, significantly behind even Windows Phone.
BlackBerry 10 is based on some very interesting ideas. But it feels like they were invented by a person completely far from BlackBerry. Because how else can you explain the fact that the smartphone does not work normally with the PlayBook, nor does the backup from old smartphones BlackBerry cannot receive, nor does it even support the BIS service (this, however, is discussed in the article about the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone)? And most importantly: when will all these ideas be so embodied that you can fully use your smartphone without longingly remembering Android and iOS?
BlackBerry 10 is very beautiful, the effects are amazing, the BlackBerry Hub is very convenient, and we really want to see this system continue to evolve and become a serious competitor to iOS and Android (which seem to be feeling too free). But for now, this is more likely a product for enthusiasts and lovers of everything new, rather than for those who really want a full-fledged working tool. And I can’t even say that this is a product for BlackBerry fans, since in BlackBerry 10 they will not find much of what they are used to on their seemingly outdated BlackBerry OS 6 and 7. And yet, we believe in you ,BlackBerry! Try not to miss the last chance!
We are used to separating work and personal life. We try not to let our personal experiences interfere with our work and “don’t take work home.” But sometimes it’s impossible to separate the two sides of life.
I remembered a case when, at work, I had to send my boss a photo of a layout for one project from a smartphone (then an iPhone 4s). The day was terrible and stressful, I sent photos on the go, as I was in a hurry to go to evening driving school. And in a hurry instead the desired photo layout, I sent the next photo in the gallery from the weekend, where I am sitting in the pool at a friend’s dacha, wrapped in a towel, like a Roman patrician. Everything would not have been so terrible if my boss had not been a woman over 40... It was terribly embarrassing, but in the end everything ended well.
No one is immune from such situations. It could be worse: what if you accidentally send a confidential work document to the wrong person? Carrying two phones – work and personal – is not particularly convenient. But now this is not necessary. BlackBerry Balance service for corporate clients divides two spaces of one phone into personal and work. How? Read on...
Who is BlackBerry Balance for?
BlackBerry has always taken one of its most valuable customers seriously: the business sector. If this client never complained about data security, then in terms of the convenience of the services provided, various wishes were received. And with the release of the BlackBerry 10 operating system and several of its updates, the BlackBerry Balance split-screen service became available to the corporate sector. Connecting to the service allows you to switch between two “profiles” with personal and work information.
This is a case where convenience adds to safety. corporate communications. After all, the main function of BlackBerry Balance is to prevent leaks. The service is activated by IT managers for devices already connected to corporate system BES.
How does BlackBerry Balance work?
BlackBerry Balance operates on the “split screen” principle. Although in fact it is better to call it “space sharing”. This is somewhat similar to creating two user profiles on a computer in Windows system. But if profiles can separate shared files and have access to the same information, then Balance does not allow this. Therefore, it is better to compare the principle of operation of the service with two operating systems on one computer. Everything that happens in one space is in no way connected with another. Essentially, it's like having two identical BlackBerrys - one for work and one for yourself.
It's not just the files that don't get mixed up. The smartphone will have two phone books and two sets of applications. Even text selected and copied in the workspace cannot be pasted in the personal space. In the work “account” it will be possible to install only those applications that are authorized by the company’s IT manager, and it will be possible to download those that are required for all users of the company’s BES. Some applications will be duplicated, but work as separate ones, and will need to be configured separately. We are talking primarily about Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Thus, in your personal space you can use your personal Twitter account, and in the work area you can write short messages from your work or official account.
Of course it’s worth mentioning calendars and mail. They also do not depend on each other. Calendar and BlackBerry Hub will be one in two spaces. In Hub, you will see from your personal screen that a letter has been sent to your work email, but you can open it only after switching to work mode. This is also very convenient with event planning: if there were two calendars, there would be a risk of scheduling a personal and business meeting on the same day and at the same time. But with BlackBerry Balance, you can see that certain hours are already taken, and it's impossible to schedule something for the same time. As you may have guessed, to find out what exactly is planned there, you need to switch to another mode.
The browser in each space stores a separate history and bookmarks. Transferring any contacts from your work area to your personal area will require confirmation.
As for customization, some companies prefer to send mandatory settings parameters to BES-connected BlackBerrys along with the required enterprise applications. Such settings will affect only the workspace; on the personal “half” of the smartphone, all freedom in setting belongs to the owner.
What's the result?
BlackBerry has found an elegant and functional solution for the corporate sector. BlackBerry Balance is not only convenient in terms of information management, but also secure. Due to the fact that the two spaces do not intersect in any way - data leakage and the appearance of malicious software comes down to zero.
Finally, I would like to say that it would be great to see a “popular”, even if simplified, version of BlackBerry Balance for all users. That is, without connecting to BES. I don't think I'll be the first to express this idea. And the Canadians at BlackBerry often listen to their customers (just remember the Classic!), and it is quite possible that in the future one of the large-scale updates to the BlackBerry 10 OS will bring us the ability to divide the smartphone into two parts.