Sometimes It Feels Like BlackBerry’s Developers Never Used BlackBerry 7…

BlackBerry 10 keyboard

There has been something nagging me since I first started using BlackBerry 10. Sometimes when using BlackBerry 10 it feels like the developers at BlackBerry have never used a legacy BlackBerry 7 device. I just get so frustrated when my old BlackBerry 7 device is more efficient at certain communication tasks than my top of the line OS 10.2 BlackBerry Q10. The epitome of my frustration is best seen in the ridiculous animation blackberry has when you move in the hub between a newer and older email. Even on the Q10 with its keyboard when you hit the N or P button it plays this annoying TAT slide out and slide in animation. WTF? Since when does BlackBerry put eye candy before efficiency? I like where they went with the gesture to go between newer and older emails but even that goes through this annoying animation along with it not working when you hit the end of a conversation. Am I the only one who is frustrated by this partial de-evolution? Can we at least turn it off?

I know that when BlackBerry 10 was being first developed most of the core developers were outsiders from QNX, TAT, etc focused on touchscreens while the main BlackBerry developers were still fleshing out BlackBerry 7 and 7.1. Now that we are well over a year since the end of BlackBerry 7 I have to wonder why we do not see more of BlackBerry 7’s efficiency in the latest OS builds… I brought this up when it came to resizing images before you email them like you can on BlackBerry 7. This would take BlackBerry all of 10 minutes to code since the API for resizing images is already in the OS!

Don’t get me wrong I really think BlackBerry OS 10 is constantly improving but I think they need to bring in some efficiency advocates who are familiar with what BlackBerry 7 users (especially keyboard users) expect. For example, I want to see my keyboard shortcuts back on the Q10 for instantly finding sent mail, unread mail, and more. Better yet I want to be able to hold down the Q button to toggle my notification profiles and the A button to lock my screen. Or how about making selecting multiple emails faster (multitouch?) and deleting them actually happen instantly and sync back to the server instantly? When I reply to an email I should be able to immediately start typing the reply instead of having to scroll down and click on the email body. The list sadly goes on…

BlackBerry is making some great headway especially with OS 10.2.1 but I really hope they have some consumer advocacy going on to get this right ASAP. BlackBerry 10 users should feel more efficient and empowered than they were on BlackBerry 7. When BlackBerry shipped the original OS 10 they at least could say that they delivered the core and the fine tuning would come later. Now in the OS 10.2.1 leaks we are quite a few major release versions in and we are still missing the basics and critical features like Headless apps are still a few months away.

In short my message to BlackBerry is a simple one that I reiterated in my CNN Op-Ed. We love the new functionality you have brought us in BlackBerry 10 but don’t forget about the attention to detail and efficiency that made BlackBerry the top communications platform.

What do you think?

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