What many of us wondered the moment Research In Motion announced the PlayBook’s QNX-based operating system has now transpired: the Canadian smartphone and tablet company has announced BBX, their QNX-based operating system for both smartphones and tablets – in other words, the expansion of the PlayBook operating system into smartphones.
Digging through all the news coming out of the BlackBerry DevCon 2011, one thing stood out to me: the fact that nothing stood out to me. When Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, they put up a page with all the new features neatly explained and detailed. Apple, of course, has always done the same, most recently with iOS 5 (or any other product for that matter).
No such thing from Research In Motion. It’s all a long and confusing stream of news and tidbits, without any focus, any direction. Like the several development environments supported on both the PlayBook and the new QNX smartphone platform, it’s almost a microcosm of the lack of focus and direction at the company with two CEOs. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but alas.
So, what’s coming in the new BBX, the marriage between the old BlackBerryOS and the QNX PlayBook platform? Let’s look at the supported development environments first, since that seems to be about all we know.
“Development environments supported by the BBX platform include HTML5 with BlackBerry WebWorks, Adobe AIR, Native C/C++, and the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps. Apps built today for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will also run on BBX,” a short announcement reads, “Additionally, BBX will include the new BlackBerry Cascades UI Framework for advanced graphics.”
That Cascades UI Framework is interesting, since it’s the fruits of RIM’s acquisition of The Astonishing Tribe, a user interface design company (among other things). The Cascades UI Framework is used to build advanced 3D and 2D graphics and animations for user interfaces.
“Cascades has a unique level of UI building blocks,” RIM claims, “In other UI frameworks, when stepping beyond the set of standard UI components, developers must often resort to low level OpenGLES-commands. Cascades provides higher level building blocks for many of the tricky but application-defining UI scenarios. Features like Flexible List layouts, 2D/3D transformations, mixing of 2D UI and 3D objects are all made accessible to developers.”
While the blurb sounds interesting, the actual stuff RIM shows off in the demonstration video is nothing to get excited about. iOS can already do this stuff, Android can, Windows Phone 7 certainly can – I guess Cascades’ strength will have to lie in just how easy it is to use, since feature-wise, the competition already allows for all these things.
As far as the PlayBook goes, RIM announced the final release of the PlayBook’s native SDK. “The NDK includes support for C/C++ POSIX library and compliance, device events like gesture swipes and touch screen inputs, access to code management systems using industry standard Eclipse CDT (C/C++ Development Tools) and advanced debug and analysis tools,” RIM states, “QNX Momentics Tool Suite, an Eclipse-based integrated development environment, is also included. It provides memory profiling, application debugging, and memory usage statistics to help developers debug sophisticated programs.”
So, there’s that. I’m interested in what BBX is going to look like, since RIM really needs a viable and modern smartphone platform. The more competition, the merrier!
Useless eye-candy on another short lived platform.
I dont see the use of it.. really..
I’m guessing you’ll probably get modded down for this, but I agree with you. When it comes to RIM, go ahead and stick a fork in ’em… they’re done.
Tell that to the millions of users who were (rightfully) upset when RIM had a network outage in Europe. They didn’t jump ship so fast, and it’s a reason they even still use the platform. RIM sells phones and service. The other manufacturers don’t sell a service. For example, I don’t know the uptime for the various app worlds, but I’m betting that no one would care if HTC had an app-world crash.
Edited 2011-10-18 22:04 UTC
If they had made enough of an investment in rim hardware to be upset by the outage, there is no way they could have “jumped ship”. It was a week ago. I’m guessing it would take longer than that to make such a decision that has that much of an impact on your business, and then even longer to actually implement it.
I would agree that no one would care if a hypothetical app store run by HTC crashed. Unless they were hypothetically using it. And they hypothetically were relying on the app store for business critical messaging. But I would think any hypothetical company doing as such, would have hypothetically killed itself much earlier performing a different hypothetical blunder involving hypothetical elephants and hypothetical land mines.
Consumers bought their device so they are basically stuck with it until it gets old or they have enough money to spend on another device.
Corporate users aren’t in the position to swap their BlackBerry for something else, nor will the company just throw out their BlackBerry server and install something else.
Most consumers buy a BlackBerry for the BlackBerry Messenger, because other people told them it’s like free texting. Apart from that I know no reason why anyone would want to buy a BlackBerry.
I went back to BlackBerry as my main phone not for the BBM app but for the battery life, the stability of the OS, the ability to have Push support for all of my email (as opposed to only one account on Android)…
I could keep going, but suffice to say that the two areas where BlackBerry devices really excel is as an actual phone and as a robust email device. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the Android operating system and on a tablet like the Nook Color I think it’s superb. But even the flagship phone I had for a while (MyTouch 4G) was woefully unreliable as a telephone. The battery lasted barely a full work day even if I never turned the screen on. The touchscreen, while gorgeous and easy to use, was constantly coming on during calls and causing problems. As I mentioned before (and this is the OS not the hardware) I require Push support for three email addresses and with Android I could only have Push on one at a time.
All that said, with a boost to battery life the MyTouch would have been like having a small tablet. I think that form factor is where the OS truly shines. Granted I haven’t played with the hybrid tablet/phone version yet, but unless they fix the email inadequacies and start taking advantage of huge phone bodies to fit bigger batteries (Moto Droid series I’m looking at you) I just don’t see myself going back to the platform.
I also went to Blackberry after “jumping ship” from HP. Palm stopped producing Treo’s and thus left a void in the power user smartphone market. The Androids and iPhones of the wold are more “eye candy” to me than power user’s tools. And for this reason, you see a couple of Pro this or that being made (Galaxy Pro, Droid Pro) but those are still just Android under the hood.
However, I, unlike old time BB users, do not link my personal account to the BB datacenter. I use a third party email client that allows connecting to IMAPS and SMTPS directly called Logicmail. It’s one reason that I was not personally bothered by the datacenter problems that RIM had.
What version of Android prevented you from access more than one e-mail account? And what e-mail app?
Android 2.3.3 (the first version I’ve played with) supports Exchange ActiveSync for as many accounts as you want to add (not sure exactly if it’s push, poll, or IMAP IDLE or something else).
And the Moxier Pro app that came with this phone includes “Direct Push” (as in, notification of each message as it arrives on the server) for as many accounts as you want to add, along with a couple of other notification options.
Sounds like you’re lambasting Android for an issue that HTC created with their SenseUI and included apps. Get a better (non-HTC) phone, get a better Android experience.
That’s like someone picking up a BB Storm (that’s the first touchscreen device, right?) and then complaining the all BBs suck.
Hardly a fair comparison considering how poorly the Storm’s screen worked, how slow the hardware was, how crappy everything about it was.
The e-mail inadequacies do not exist. At least, not on my Xperia Pro running Android 2.3.3, using either the default e-mail app, or the included Moxier Pro. (Connecting via ActiveSync to a Zimbra groupware server.)
I never said I only had access to one email account under Android. I said I only had Push support for one account (the main Google account). The rest are polling accounts. This fact is well known in the Android community, and in the past when I only worked one job it wasn’t as big a deal. But with two regular jobs and contract work, I simply need something more versatile. To answer your question, I started with 1.6 on the Moto Cliq, tried the official update to 2.1, then rooted it and put on a de-Blurred Moto ROM and later Cyanogen 7. The other phone was an HTC MyTouch 4G, first with 2.2 then the official 2.3 update.
Exchange is not a solution for me, as none of my email accounts are Exchange-based. Exchange works similar to Push from my understanding; it delivers the message the moment it hits the server, much like an SMS message.
I’m curious to know what phone that is.
While I would never consider purchasing an app just to do what the phone should do by default, it would be nice if all Android based devices came with such an app for free.
I’ve had two Android phones, the MyTouch and a Motorola Cliq, which I still have and it is now rooted with a Cyanogen build. The screen issues are also present with the Cliq, and they persist no matter what software is on the device. This is one of those specific areas where Apple’s iPhone hardware beats many (not all) Android phones. My solution for the screen issues was not to get a better Android phone, but to go back to a non-touch screen phone.
I had one of the original Storms (yes it was the first touch based BlackBerry), unlocked and on AT&T. For the most part it was a great phone, especially after the last software upgrade. I’ve also played with a Storm 2, and it was even better. I have a feeling the Torch may be in my future, if I can find out for sure there are no major issues with the touch screen or the new OS.
I’m sorry but they do indeed exist for me. You have a backend that works with a phone that you chose, therefore your phone works for you, and that’s great. My needs happen to be met better by a BlackBerry than by an Android based device, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not sure why you are arguing otherwise.
Edited 2011-10-20 05:35 UTC
all the problem in android phone you mentioned is in my HTC sensation and I am quite annoyed about them. though I like the phone and the OS but as phone these issues are irritating gives headache. I just accept a call and they become missed call and regularly I can’t hear people calling and I have to call back.
Never use android phone for calling !!!!!!!!!!!
lol, wut?
In case you hadn’t noticed people’s brand loyalty in the smartphone segment is kind of nonexistent. Every year people upgrade from their “obsolete” hardware to something else. If RIM has something special consumers want to buy in their next product cycle then they are far from “done.” And for better or worse, “eyecandy” is what alot of people choose to make their purchasing decisions on not call quality, battery life, sustainability or actual instead of perceived functionality they will use.
RIM has lots of options. They could for example, adopt an actual corporate strategy instead of just cutting costs and layoffs that involves scaling back sales expectations and instead target key segments and offering solutions that work well just for those segments and cede the high-end consumer market which they seem to falter in. That will probably involve a leadership change which in many opionions is long overdue.
They have lots of options none of which involves them having a fork stuck in them.
Such brainwashed/braindead comments on OSAlert really don’t do the site a service.
Mod parent up. If BB delivers, there’s no reason to think they don’t have a chance. The market is still young. Don’t forget, the iPhone entered the scene and everyone laughed at them and said they had no chance against Symbian. Look at them now.
Never underestimate the power of a little persistence and deep pockets. I think Microsoft and Apple have both demonstrated this very well over the years. It could equally well apply to BlackBerry.
And by the way, Thom–“nothing exciting” in those videos?? Are you serious??? That was some pretty awesome eye candy if you ask me, and I’ve seen nothing like it on Android.
Edited 2011-10-19 04:42 UTC
RIM is missing a couple things that apple had:
– strong leadership at the top, that had a vision of where they wanted to go, and the balls to move the entire company in that direction
– the developers to make the vision a reality without getting sidetracked into 16 different ways of doing the same thing (do they really need all those runtimes?)
– the engineers to develop, and optimise, hardware to run that software
RIM needs someone to stand up and say “this is what we want; this is where we want to go; this is how we are going to get there”, and then actually DO IT!
They have all the pieces needed. But they are going off in so many different directions (touchscreen, slider, keyboard; BBOS6, BBOS7, PlayBook OS, BBX; all the different runtimes and dev environments; BIS, BES, BESx; phones, tablets; consumer, business; etc) releasing so many half-baked devices, that they are floundering. It’s like having a square boat with people paddling on all four sides, in different directions, next to a whirlpool: they’re going nowhere fast, and going to be sucked down and wrecked.
It’s sad to see another Canadian juggernaut crumble.
Here’s hoping a visionary rises up and topples the current board/CEOs.
I think you’re exaggerating things just a bit, no? The PlayBook was half-baked, it’s true, but they are remedying that with new E-mail, Calendar, etc. clients and now it’s shaping up to be quite a nice device. As for the multitude of form factors, I don’t hear anyone complaining about other manufacturers doing this. You are basically asking them to become Apple, with “one model” is that it? This is just blind to the fact that BlackBerry in particular is popular *precisely because* of the form factors they offer (god knows it’s not the modernity of the OS).
As for OS 7, they’ve already said it’s the last version. From here on out all development efforts are going towards BBX.
As for consumer/business, the whole industry is moving towards the idea of “one device”. Nothing wrong with following the trend.
As for the runtimes, keep in mind that the effort needed for the Android and AIR runtimes is basically nothing, because neither one is developed in-house. AIR was important because it was there from the get-go as a stop-gap solution that let them come to market with the PlayBook more rapidly than anyone thought possible. In terms of actual in-house development, it’s WebWorks and Native–and if you watch the presentation, you’ll see that they are really starting to emphasize those two and deemphasize everything else.
Keep in mind that Android also has 4 runtimes, if you count Adobe AIR and Google Web Toolkit.
Really, I don’t see how throwing out the board and CEO is going to help things. Haven’t we learned anything from the similar actions that recently took place at Nokia and HP? Mike Lazaridis lacks charisma, true, but he still seems to be the heart and soul of the company–take him away and the ship will sink much quicker, I guarantee it.
It actually seems clearer than ever to me that they know what they’re doing for once, and the last thing they need is some boardroom politics to #&$@ everything up, like what happened to Nokia and HP.
Edited 2011-10-21 03:37 UTC
One aspect of your comment I don’t necessarily agree on is the suggestion that RIM needs a change of leadership. Yes, Mike Lazaridis is not what you’d call charismatic, but at least he is not backing down and giving in to the pressure to adopt Android or WP7. And despite what Thom implies, there’s nothing wrong with BlackBerry’s marketing, at least from what I’ve seen in the U.S.
Meanwhile, just look how well the changes of leadership worked out at Nokia and HP. You really want a repeat of that? Really?
Well in effect he has. If you read closely you will see that Playbook and the next gen of RIM smartphones are completely abandoning the blackberry platform and API for an Android “app player” as a preferred method of application development with adobe AIR, a web runtime and a native C/C++ SDK as options.
It’s kind of spitting in the current blackberry developer’s faces who have supported your platform for years tbh that it’s a priority to get an Android compatibility layer first before (or apparently ever) a bb compatibility layer. They are now looking at massive rewrites of existing apps for the next generation of phones. It is effectively giving CIO and CTO everywhere the chance / forcing the issue to decide whether to abandon Blackberry for Android, iOS and I’m pretty sure alot will. To keep your exisiting apps running on the next gen smartphones will mean deploying via the native SDK your own jvm, and an implementation of whatever j2me/bb api your app uses for each and every app bloating code size dramatically, or rewriting it for “Android”
I don’t begrudge a (co-)CEO the chance to make choices and display leadership. They have made some great accquisitions recently for example. But they have to be accountable for their choices. The Blackberry brand has suffered under current leadership. It is seen as “old” and “slow” and now “untrustworthy.” They ignored key markets for too long and just assumed the enterprise would never go anywhere else so they stopped innovating. WP7.5 has basically caught up to blackberry in terms of API completeness in 2 iterations and a couple of years.
Their hardware team got stuck cranking out models based on the same MSM platform with miniscule clock bumps while other manufacturers were upgrading to more performant platforms. It’s with only the latest os that they have a decent OpenGLES implementation for example. Their only radical departure from was the Storm and we all know how well that went.
Those kind of strategic failures a CEO has to be accountable for in my book.
I agree they are far from “over” And this essentially represents a reboot of the blackberry line. They just better have some really great hardware to go with it or people will not follow them for the ride. Very little brand loyalty anymore.
HP and Nokia Boards of Directors are clearly incompetent but I don’t see how their failures reflect on RIM’s Board.
Hmm, I guess we see things differently. To my mind it’s smart of them to abandon backwards compatibility with their old phone OS apps.
First of all, from an end-user perspective, from what I hear, Android apps tend to be a whole lot slicker, more polished, and better supported than their BlackBerry counterparts. It’s like the difference between Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Phone 7–I think it’s safe to say that WP7 end-users are collectively breathing a sigh of relief that those old Windows Forms apps are a thing of the past–and the story is bound to be similar for BBX.
As for the developers–how many BlackBerry-only (as opposed to BB and Android) developers are there really? And of those, how many of the apps they put out are truly innovative and not just making up for some deficiency of the BlackBerry OS? Really I’d estimate that the number of developers actually getting burned as you say is pretty low. And this, combined with the poor end-user story, means it makes sense that RIM didn’t waste effort on backwards compatibility.
RIM may deserve the bashing, but QNX doesn’t
This wasn^A't meant to bash at all. Its just so sad that they wont come up with anything useful lately. Seriously, what do they think? As stated in the main article, most other platforms have this kind of eyecandy (even 3rd party). Its wasted effort to compete with the same every other platform has. I really miss the innovation there. QNX is quite a powerful platform and RIM has experience in the market. They had their moments with the BlackBerry. And just to use this potential to make another Tablet to fool around (where HP also failed with their webOS) seems just stupid. I neither see a new level of entertainment or productivity.
I dunno how you guys feel but im crying out for a change. Since the switch from CLI to GUI there hasnt been anything different except it got more colourful and woohoo.. 3D.
It’s not only that. It also gets an Android App player.
It is a major upgrade.
The Android runtime afaik lacks any hardware support. If your dalvik/harmony app hits location or camera it won’t work without a rewrite. Also missing is the IPC layer, so using 3rd party intents is also not an option.
What is disappointing is the lack of a “bb” app player to enable all the existing bb v4-7 apps and library code.
I mean it would involved licensing costs of their current jvm and some work to retain and motivate current platform developers. But instead they decided to dedicate those same resources to “attracting” a set of developers who don’t really have any interest in your new platform anyway.
Seems backwards thinking to me seeing as you have the expertise at hand in your existing API, but I hope it works out. Seems like they are on the road to becoming another android OEM (plus all this stuff no one else has!) which has a debatable value in the market. At least that was the thinking at Nokia before they got Elop’ed.
Android App player reminds me of OS/2’s windows 3 compatibility. Noone bothered making native apps as they could build one supporting both platforms! Trouble was it supported one better than the other as it was native…
Agreed.
My NetBSD system can run Windows (through hypervisor and through WINE). It can run Linux binaries (provide the libraries) and even some freeBSD binaries.
Firefox and OOo build on the platform, but you don’t see the NetBSD platform directly supported as a target by the upstream vendors. They don’t feel they have to because NetBSD users have a workaround.
There is nothing like that eye-candy available on Android, except if you count games. Even WP7, for all its elegance, doesn’t pack that kind of bling.
Somehow I get the sense that we watched different videos. To my eyes, that demo suggests we are entering a new world of fluid, animated interactions unprecedented in current computing platforms. And all you guys can see is “been there, done that”?
@Moochman:
You have good points there and partly convinced me that this thing might not be that useless after all.
It^A's just that this thing doesn^A't get my blood boiling like BareMetal OS or Reactos does (for different reasons).
I love new user interfaces and experiences but stylish end user tablets are nothing i consider the invention of the century.
Maybe im expecting the future today and in the end it has sometimes to be done in small steps but sorry, i dont see a milestone there.
Edited 2011-10-19 08:54 UTC
So, they should release QNX for x86 PCs also.
Or, maybe you should Google / Wiki such, next time…
http://www.qnx.com/download/group.html?programid=20905
And the legendary QNX floppy:
http://www.openqnx.com/node/259
http://qnx.projektas.lt/qnxdemo/qnx_demo_disk.htm
Well, just few moments ago I could see new Ice Cream Sandwich announced on Samsung phone. Well – it is either typical Samsung UI crap, or Android goes the wrong way imo.
Some time ago, as a former amiga user, I welcomed arrival of full screen apps, which removed surrounding clutter. I barely tolerated so called Widgets. So – what we have got is resizable widgets – cool, but – plainly wrong.
If Android really goes that route, I expect developers releasing regular apps windowed, not full screen. That will lead to not so clean UI interfaces. Those ppl forgot, that 10 years ago, tablets failed, because they contained UI not adapted to tablet usage.
So – I would not be so quick judging RIM here, because Android 4.x has yet to prove itself too …
I just glanced over one Nokia N9 review ( http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n9-review-659.php ) – and, like suspected, its Meego indeed seems decent (here’s hoping its refinement really will be what lives on in, recently ~confirmed, Nokia post-S40 Linux “feature phone” OS); quite elegant, clean, uncluttered, no widgets.
And most crucially here, your “Some time ago, as a former amiga user, I welcomed arrival of full screen apps” reminded me about how screens in AmigaOS could be dragged to reveal, also partly, another screen/application – and it made me realize that N9 Meego essentially reimplements this as a major UI paradigm, in swipes.
Hm, maybe it even sort of continues the Amiga spirit in more ways – it’s apparently quite light, snappy, nicely multitasking on a not-stellar hardware. Also, well, dead and pricey – yup, uncanny resemblance to Amiga (in its state for a decade+) / you might like it?
Well, Android has that feature too – draggable top screen, although that serves as a settings-notification centre, and not to reveal screen of running app
If they make a Bold-like phone with a front-facing keyboard, I’ll buy one.
Well, I will if they don’t still cost $250 ON contract…
Now that Nokia has abandoned its front-facing phones, Blackberry is the only hope for us dinosaurs.
Edited 2011-10-18 22:11 UTC
What do you mean by “front-facing keyboard”?
There are lots of Android and WP7 phones out there with keyboards. Some are horizontal sliders, some are vertical sliders, and some are candybar (shaped like an old-school BB).
I never liked the term candybar. When you think of it, I think of a non-flat snickers shape and that would most likely be a featurephone.
If the BB/Treo platform are “candybar”, slab needs to be renamed to popsicle.
It seems to me that if they were willing to lose some sales from their own market (whatever it is called, I’ve never been a blackberry user) and allow Amazon App Store, or ship with the Market, this platform could actually do well enough.
Edit: sorry for replying to the wrong thread, clearly I need more sleep these days.
Edited 2011-10-18 22:49 UTC
Sorry, I meant ‘candybar’ hardware keyboard. I had no idea there were Android or Win Phone 7 phones like this.
Samsung, Sony, and HTC have released phones with the keyboard right underneath the screen, just like a Blackberry.
Samsung Galaxy Pro:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/03/07/samsung-announces-android-p…
Sony Ericsson Txt:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/mobilephones/overview/txt?…
HTC ChaCha:
http://pocketnow.com/android/htc-chacha-review
There are probably others.
Droid Pro
http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Servic…
All the ex BB users on using it in my area.
Thanks friends!
I was expecting more from RIM.
It’s a shame for them and a shame for the industry. The more competition the better.
iOS and Andoid are doing quite well and the future is bright for both platforms.
Windows 7 is a very pleasant surprise, definitely not in the same league as the others though. And at some point they should start expanding a bit more in the market, for the sakes of both MS and Nokia.
Edited 2011-10-18 22:19 UTC
Well, MS makes some pretty nice money off Android. It really does not matter Windows Phone 7 does at least financially.
Uh wasnt this about a Tablet and NOT a smartphone?
Okay:
We have a nifty nice tablet from RIM which has just awesome hardware, quality and support and a steel stable QNX based OS. On top of that OS, is a 3D/2D GUI that will let you cry sugar.
So, are you buying it or ain^A't you regardless of what smartphone you may posses?
Edited 2011-10-18 23:28 UTC
How many of those that have commented use and Android based device but would never run a Linux client at home.
QNX has not been a consumer level system until now. It’s been tried and proven as a platform for power plant operations. It’s been in development for almost 30 years. I wouldn’t dismiss it so quickly.
I wonder how many jelly beans it would take to fill the Atlantic ocean.
BB ( a company that is quickly losing its revenue stream ) has tried to use QNX to make a consumer level system ( the playbook ) with poor results. I am not expecting much from them.
Sure, it’s true that BlackBerry is late to the game here, but judging by the PlayBook there’s a lot to like about this OS in terms of the user experience–it’s basically the closest you can get to WebOS when it comes to multi-tasking, actually, which is a *Very Good Thing*. The PlayBook’s main problems as I recall weren’t anything inherent to the platform but rather the lack of a “native” e-mail client (i.e., one that allows for client-side IMAP/POP access rather than relying on BlackBerry’s servers) and the rushed-out feel of some apps. If BlackBerry fixes these problems, which they must have had enough time to do by now, they may have a very compelling platform on their hands, based on the speed and fluidity of interaction alone.
Aside from that, the developer story is actually what I would call “solid”, and even (maybe ironically) “open”. By supporting Android apps they’re ensuring there’s a wealth of existing cross-platform apps ready from the get-go, and they’re providing all kinds of different developers from all different backgrounds (web, Flash/Flex, native) ways to develop new apps–what’s wrong with that? Sounds like the dream platform to me.
Just because they’re late to the party with their next-gen platform doesn’t mean people need to diss them at every turn. Yes, we’ve all got bitter tastes in our mouths since WebOS and MeeGo were kicked to the curb by their parents, but here’s a case where a company is actually trying to see things through and to actually support a new OS, which might, just might, have some really cool stuff going for it. They’re not content to settle for just re-skinning Android when they just might have a chance to do things better. And believe me, as a recent WebOS-to-Android switcher, I see *plenty* of room for improvement.
Not to mention that BlackBerry hardware tends to be very well-made, and they are the only ones putting out phones in my favorite form factor–portrait slider–now that the Palm Pre is dead.
This is OSAlert, remember? We like geeking out about alternative OSes and exotic devices. We like to appreciate the wide variety of and diverse approaches to OSes and devices that are out there. If anyone should be cheering on BlackBerry for not backing down, you’d think it would be us.
Edited 2011-10-19 04:26 UTC
How come you don’t mention the SDK includes Qt? This means applications developed for Symbian, MeeGo and Android can be ported with just a compilation.
Actually I think BB should look at building their services on top of Android. Maybe using something like the Divide app.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/The-Divide-app-for-Android-separates…
They could do that and still make their own native hardware too.