I'm Back!
 

Hello All! I haven't posted in what seems like a couple years, maybe many. But I'm back and hopefully, I'll find the correct area or forum to post in, but I just bought a NEW Blackberry.

I bought the Torch 9800 soon as it came out, how long ago was that, I can't even remember. I still have it, and it still works flawlessly. I had three batteries, now down to two, one just got too old. But I have an external charger so I was never without a fully charged Battery.

I always thought the Torch was the best idea Blackberry ever cam up with for phone design, too bad the Browser on it sucks so bad or I'd still be using it. That's the only reason I bought a new phone. They have recently updated a few websites I frequent, (weather.com for one), such that I couldn't even open them any more.

So now, I am the proud owner of a Blackberry Priv. (Okay, go ahead and laugh). But it is awesome and the very same physical design as the Torch so I love that already. And the fact that it is an Android instead of a Blackberry OS, well, that's what brings me here.

I understand it comes with free 24 hour tech support for a year. What I can't figure out is how I'm suppose to talk on the ting and work on it at the same time. My carrier is AT&T and with the Torch, I was able to talk on it and perform other functions as well at the same time. Don't know about the Priv yet. Just downloaded the PDF last night and started reading. Already learned a lot but have much reading to do.

I hope somebody here has one and a little experience. So far, the biggest issue I have is that I'm not really a Google fan. In fact, my default search on my lappys is "Ixquick.com". So I'm not real thrilled about my contacts all of a sudden being 'online' instead of only on my phone and completely inaccessible to the Internet. Same with my calendar. I have tons of appointments and birthdays and personal information on so many people and short of going through it one by one and retyping all that into a Google calendar, I was wondering if there was an Android app that would place a local, (phone only) calendar on my Priv that would be secure and unavailable to any other apps that try to look at your data.

I kept a lot of sensitive information on my Torch because it was locked and I felt secure. So a small text file in the MemoPad with a number of frequently used passwords wasn't an issue. I am WAY too scared to do that on this Priv. So I am learning to use that Password Keeper. But that still leaves me with retyping a lot of information in order to transfer it over. Seems there is no easy way to do that from the AT&T people I've talked to so far.

I started out hating this new phone for the first couple days but I knew that was temporary and I will soon love it. Like anything, change is necessary sometimes and change can be good.

Soon as I have a specific question, I will look for the right forum. Until then, any suggestions for apps that may be more local or what I mean by that, inaccessible to Google, I would love to know about them.

Thank you all for reading this far.

Sincerely, David

Re: I'm Back!
 

PRIV

that has a lot of action, this place is pretty dead now

Re: I'm Back!
 

I've always been a Blackberry user. And I will never submit to Apple. But I figured the Android market was the way of the future and I was happy to see Blackberry go this route. I still believe in the quality hardware and support. So I believe it's going to be a wonderful experience, soon as I can figure out how to use the damn thing!

I'm almost half way through the 129 page PDF user manual I downloaded. That does explain a lot. But I still have 'issues' like getting all three of my email addresses to show up in one inbox. They offer what's called "Blackberry Hub" that is supposed to do exactly that. Getting it to work still evades me. And I'm still concerned about calling Blackberry free phone support because I would be afraid I can't do anything with my phone while I'm talking on it. I'll have to see if they have some kind of email support.

I appreciate your response....

Re: I'm Back!
 

Sadly, many of us that said you could pry our beloved BlackBerrys from our cold dead fingers have done the unthinkable and gone to iPhones. For me, as a Mac user and 10+ year BlackBerry users there were just things the iPhone did for me that the BlackBerry wouldn't. And when the rest of your family goes iPhone it gets harder and harder to hold out. I knuckled under. The Passport might have kept me in the BlackBerry camp but it doesn't work on Verizon. I may give the Priv a look when it hits Verizon (reportedly) in a couple weeks, but I've been iPhone for a while now and it's tough to make the move. ESPECIALLY going Apple to Android.

Re: I'm Back!
 

Apple does have a huge following but the Android phones from various manufactures is gaining and in a lot of sectors exceed Apple. People seem to have forgot security and somehow think using a cell is not the same as a computer. Blackberry is moving in the wrong direction and it's all due to the unrealistic direction the executives are heading.
If you look at various company's that become stagnant you will see the same common problem, the CEO has no clue and is bouncing around constantly giving the wrong message to both employees and customers. Verizon and ATT are dropping all services except cell service thinking the future is in cell only. Once the cheap smart phones start being delivered by China or other low cost company's you will see the big company's scramble to lower costs. Think about the cost of a IPhone 6. the people in china earn pennies ( $1.50 to $ 2.20 per hour) but Apple still charges $750 for the phone 6 plus that cost $220 to build and package and market. It's only a matter of time before knockoff's hit them.