Blackberry

What do you do when your premiere product isn't selling as well as expected? First you try to market it as hard as you can, utilizing all resources and channels as your budget allows. And when that fails, you perhaps have very little choice but to cut your losses and cut the product's price to encourage more sales. That might be the process, more or less, that BlackBerry went through with the Priv smartphones. Under the guise of making it more accessible to more people, the company has implemented a permanent price cut for the smartphone in the US, UK, and Europe.

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600,000 units. That's how many Priv smartphones BlackBerry was able to sell in the fourth fiscal quarter, ending September last year. Considering CEO John Chen's usual coy answer was to hint that things were "so far, so good", the lower than projected total doesn't inspire much hope in the company's future as a hardware maker. Always the optimist, however, Chen tries to mitigate the impression by relating how to company was able to slash its operating losses by half thanks to the sales of its smartphones.

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BlackBerry users with devices other than the Android-powered Priv are used to bad news when it comes to their platform of choice, but they were hit extra hard earlier this month when Facebook announced it was dropping support for its native app on the BlackBerry 10 OS, pulling its WhatsApp messaging service as well. What with Facebook being the most important website to hundreds of millions of people, it's easy to understand why BlackBerry users would be upset.

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Considering its commitment to security, it is sort of expected that BlackBerry would stick to its promised regular monthly security updates for its so far only Android smartphone, the BlackBerry Priv. Other than that, however, the company has been rather silent when it comes to other major Android updates. Yes, we're talking about the update to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. With the still unnamed Android N due to rear its head in the next few months, users are perhaps wondering when they'll get the latest Android, if at all. If this video is any indication, it will be "really soon now".

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This week Facebook and WhatsApp have effectively pulled support from BlackBerry as a platform. Ironically many would not have gotten this news (outside of those that use the apps on the platform) would it not have been for an update from BlackBerry assuring developers that they continue to offer their support for the future. In response to the decisions made by Facebook and WhatsApp, BlackBerry is asking BlackBerry 10 users to Tweet the tag #ILoveBB10Apps to ask that the social networks stay.

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The BlackBerry Priv has been made available by Verizon this afternoon, and with it, a very unique proposal. A device that runs Android, but looks and feels like a BlackBerry smartphone. That's what this device is. Instead of running a Google-centric experience, you still get the Google Play app store but you're clearly being steered toward BlackBerry's apps. They want you to be secure. They want you to be a BlackBerry user.

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One ruling is released in Apple's battle with the government over given access to encrypted iPhones in court cases throughout the United States. As we pour over what Magistrate Judge James Orenstein's 50-page memorandum and order means for Apple, we can also fairly easily interpret what it'll mean for all smart devices, including those running Google's Android. And Windows Phone. And Blackberry, if you wish. The whole lot.

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Verizon BlackBerry fans that have been waiting for the Priv Android-powered device to land might not have much longer to wait. Word is that pre-orders for the device might kick off March 3 with the smartphone being available in stores on March 11. This hasn’t been officially confirmed with any announcement from BlackBerry, so at this time it's still a rumor.

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Popular messaging platform WhatsApp has seen almost non-stop growth since its Facebook acquisition a few years ago, even reaching one billion active users earlier this month. The app has been around for seven years now, but with that age and growth the company has decided to discontinue support for WhatsApp on several older mobile operating systems. The good news is that there's a fairly small chance the device you have will be affected, unless of course you're a big BlackBerry or Nokia user. Likewise if you rely on an ancient Android phone.

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It's admittedly hard to keep a serious and credible face when one of your own broke ranks to basically negate what you officially said earlier. That might be the sentiment that BlackBerry is going through right now when its senior director for APAC product management Damian Tay mentioned the company's eventual transition to an Android-only platform. Although it already said so last month, BlackBerry feels the need to emphasize again its commitment to its own BlackBerry 10 OS, at least for the near future.

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Many have already seen the writing on the wall for the BlackBerry 10 OS, but official confirmation has always been withheld. Granted, these latest comments don't really come from the highest BlackBerry authority, but this is as official as it gets. Damian Tay, BlackBerry's senior director for product management for the APAC region has confirmed what BB10 fans probably dread to hear out in the open: BlackBerry is in the process of transitioning to a single platform ecosystem, and that will all revolve around Android.

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The release of the iOS version of The Oatmeal artist's "Exploding Kittens" card game is followed soon by an Android app. The iOS version of this game for iPhone and iPad has gone to the top of the iOS App Store - in just under a day. This, as per usual, has the rest of the mobile universe (mostly Android) asking where their version is. The team behind the development of the Exploding Kitten app for iOS have made clear: the Android version is well on its way.

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