Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Back to BlackBerry or how anyone uses Android as a phone is beyond me

I gave up my BlackBerry Q10 a few months ago. The keyboard started double typing, producing multiple letters for certain keystrokes. I replaced the keyboard myself and was very proud of the mixed black and white look I created by installing a white keyboard. But then the headset jack starting failing periodically and I shoved the device in a drawer and picked up a Moto X.

How anyone uses the Moto X or any Android phone in business is beyond me.

The address book is slow. Once you've found the contact, clicking the correct part of the screen to initiate a phone call isn't a sure thing. And conference calls! The operating system simply can't handle extensions. If you have to dial into a conference call you have to toggle back and forth between your calendar item and the phone dialer, an exercise in extreme frustration. I resort to either looking at my computer or writing down the extension. I tried the app MobileDay which is supposed to fix this. I doesn't. It never leaves enough time for Free Conference, which connects very slowly, before it auto dials the extension and messes everything up. The idea that you have to get an app to make conference calls when BlackBerry has had this built-in for a decade is beyond me. And I continue to click the Android screen in the hopes it will recognize a string of characters that looks like and is a phone number, just as BlackBerry has for a decade. Nope. Doesn't work.

I pulled my Q10 out of the drawer last night, fiddled with the headset jack, and perhaps it's working now. I sure hope BlackBerry can get their build quality together for either Classic or Windemere in the fall. I'll use my Moto X as a nice little pocket computer because that's what it really is.

PS: I sure will miss the Moto X feature that knows when I'm driving and will read my texts to me, and allow me to answer them flawlessly by voice.

Addendum: iOS does have the feature that allows one to seamlessly dial extensions with a second click. An iPhone will properly recognize a number in a calendar item such as (123) 456-7890 x12345. That Android does not is bizarre but as far as I can ascertain, it does not. So, I'll wait for the new iPhone.