Hello forum,
I recently bought a used BlackBerry Passport to use as a secondary phone. The previous owner mentioned, that he is logged in on the device with his BBID, as it is no longer possible to log out. Is it possible to factory reset the phone and delete the account to use it as a new phone? Do you recommend it?

My second question is, what is the best way I can get the latest possible apps on it? I've scrolled through this forum and saw people do sideloading, but I am still kind of confused of how to do it. I'd like to install a YouTube app, or Reddit, if it would still work.

Thanks in advance for your help

I would just leave the device alone as far as resetting it. But you can check here https://www.youtube.com/@projectberry10 for ways to use Reddit and YouTube.

For apps, you have very limited options.

You can sideload native BB10 apps, but none of them have been updated in years.

Or, directly install Android apps that, 1 - don't need Google Play, and 2 - can still run on Android 4.3 or lower.

Since BlackBerry World (BBW) has been shut down for over 2 years now, the only way to install native BB10 apps is by sideloading using a program through a PC called Darcy's BlackBerry Tool, or DBBT, and connecting your phone to the PC with a USB cable. You also need the BB10 USB drivers loaded on the PC. There are tutorials on how to do that around here somewhere.

The only native apps available to us to sideload are the few that were made available by the developers of those apps and can be found on these forums. Look for Conite's Native App Archive, plus a couple other posts of apps, although most are the same group of apps.

The problem is that what is available today is a tiny fraction of what was in BBW. There were only a handful of developers still active when BBW shut down. Many apps that were in BBW were basically abandoned in place

And, no, before you ask, apps already loaded on a BB10 phone cannot be extracted and copied to another phone. This isn't Android.

Back when BBW was about to be shut down, several members here contacted as many of the developers as they could to see if they would share their .bar files (the install files needed to load an app onto a BB10 phone) with the CB community, and some of the remaining developers did that. Of course, some did not want to share at all, and many developers just didn't exist anymore. Of the ones we did get, mostly it was the apps that were already free. But I know at least one developer still charged for their app, however, they had a way to go through their website or email to activate the app after a trial period.

For Android apps, the install .apk files can be copied into or downloaded to the phone, then look for the .apk file in the File Manager and tap it to install directly. But, the app must be compatible with Android 4.3, because that's the version of the runtime built into the BB10 OS. That can't be changed either. It's also just a runtime - a sandboxed section of the main OS that emulates the Android environment to run those apps in. So don't bother asking about rooting because the initial boot section of Android that rooting usually exploits just isn't there in the BB10 OS.

Then there is the whole Google Play problem. By the time of around 2014, pretty much every major Android app would required Google Services to run.

Long ago, there was a member here that developed a patched Google Log-in and Services stack that could be installed on BB10, and a patched Google Play Store app that let us install Android apps directly from the Google Play Store. This was great while it lasted. But Google soon updated the Services and Play Store to the point that the he could no longer patch it properly, and soon had to drop the endeavor. I think we got a good 2 years from it. Maybe from around 2014 to late 2016... something like that. Seems so long ago now. But even at the time, the android version limitation was becoming a problem as a lot of Android apps were moving their minimum version requirements up. After all, we had Android 7 by 2016, and a lot of then-current apps were moving to require minimum Android 5 to even run.

And that's pretty much where that still stands today. Still can't run any Android apps that requires a newer Android OS version than 4.3 - now 12 versions old. Even if it is 4.3 compatible, if it needs Google Services, it's still a problem - especially now that even Google Services dropped support for anything below Android 5.

YouTube still works in the browser. Just checked on my Z10 that I keep around for these kinds of things. Not sure about Reddit. The browser is all messed up. Doubt there's an apk that would still work, but someone else would need to chime in on that.

There's also the issue of which carriers would even register that thing if you plan to use it as a phone. It won't work in the US, but judging from the language in the screenshot, you're not in the US.

Good luck.

Sent from my SM-S926U using Tapatalk

If you haven't deleted the BlackBerry id or flashed it, your Passport might still have some good native apps still on it.

Besides Conite's archive, this site has a bunch. A lot of overlap. BBtube is a nice YouTube replacement.

https://lunarproject.org/

Browser: the native browser still works for a lot of sites. This link includes Kiwi Browser which can go where the native can't.

https://forums.crackberry.com/blackb...ricks-1173929/

Thereare also version of FireFox and Chromium that are compatible.

The Passport's a great device if you can find a use for it. I use mine even day, mostly for playing music but Docs to Go is useful for editing.

Also a good reader. If you have a gmail account there is a complicated way of setting it up but it can be done. I use mine for various subscriptions with articles I can reader on that nice wide screen.

RedReader works splendidly for Reddit. Better than the Reddit app imo and ad free. It's unbelievably good on my Passport.

As far as I know there's no option to login to Reddit using RedReader, unless you know some magical trick to do that and you would like to share with others

There is a way to login according to ProjectBlackberry and his video showing howto but I've not tried it. I'm just a lurker on RedReader. Oh - his videos on YouTube are down and he is in the process of uploading them again on a new account.

That workaround no longer work