RIM could unveil its answer to Apple's iPad next week - Page 2

Saturday Night Live ?

That is what capitalism is all about competition from the other companies involved with i pads.Let them all compete.

They will write once and be able to compile for all the popular platforms. Seemingly, Apple will be included now that they have revised their submission guidelines.

And yet, they outsell Apple year in, year out.

60 years old? Is it nap time grumpypuss?

Another "iPad-Killer." LOL

This will be great for all of those who want to gain access to RIM's vibrant ecosystem.

Oh, wait, RIM doesn't have a vibrant ecosystem.

This attitude is typical of 10 year olds.

But consumers of electronics? WTF?

Do people take product comments as personal attacks on the very core of their being? Do they need to plot their revenge? Do they feel better if they can cite advantages of their brand or product over another?

Bitter mocking? About hunks of plastic and steel and glass?

Yes they do. You can buy Blackberry accessories in pretty much every outlet that sells iPhone accessories.

Don't forget that Blackberries outsell iPhones by a huge margin.

I don't think that it's as locked up as people think. iPads & iPhones are finding their way into corporate environments pretty consistently now. It especially seems to be finding a place among sales people and people who are out on the floor with customers (like at car dealers).

I think that RIM has been very slow to react to the change to more modern (touch screen) phones -- so there's a fair amount of phone envy built up on among Blackberry users.

The biggest thing that seems to tie them to their Blackberries is the physical keyboard (and maybe the Blackberry e-mail infrastructure).

It will be interesting to see what rimm comes up with and how their os works, especially their browser, since I have heard surfing on a blackberry is a bit of a pain.
It will also be interesting to see how many and what platforms will be successful and supported because my feelings are that it isn't just the device but the integration of the os with it's ecosystem. This is where Apple and Android have a big advantage.
How many black pads need to be sold for it to be considered a success/failure. Just some off the cuff numbers without anything to really back them up, if rimm introduces the black pad soon, if they sell less than 250,000 by the end of the year, I will consider it's initial intro a failure. If it sells more than a million, I would consider it a success. Anything in between, for me, will be a wait and see.

Mmmmm.. so by your logic Apple would have come out with iPads, iPhones and MacBooks that look like existing form factors or at least concepts of existing form factors. You don't buy into the idea that someone like Ives actually breaks with existing conventional designs all the time? Perhaps Apple's designs are so 'just right' you see them as the ultimate designs that cannot be improved upon? If so I'd point out Apple continuously scraps existing and sometimes still very successful designs for the next 'radical design concept'.

I couldn't disagree with you more, IMHO design is never at the 'final stage' but currently only Apple seem capable of seeing past the current to the next step, be it hardware or software.

Far from 'getting over it', I relish the next great designs, be they flat panel TVs or toasters, that breaks with all we know and accept, whoever it is from if it is truly a game changer. I love industrial design, but that's just me, I guess you are easily satisfied with the status quo.

The BlackPad will have a bigger wider hard drive, will run at faster speeds, and will work well with other's I/O ports.

Not as many years as yours but the sentiment is the same.

For those who are worried about what Apple is going to do about this "latest threat", please bear in mind that Apple already has new products in development, and that Apple is a moving target, not a static one. Most prognosticators - especially in here on both sides of the discussion - treat the current system as the target to hit. In reality, its already baked and delivered - Apple has moved on already development-wise and is working anything from one to three years ahead of the current systems. Think about it - that means that the iPhone 4 was already in the lab when the 3G hit the streets - for example. And that's just with existing platforms. Imagine what is in the lab that is new.

On another tack, it would be interesting to compare what RIM is offering platform-wise for this new device - because they already have a small ecosystem for their existing smartphone devices - to the other major players. Because to focus just on the device hardware category as something to deliver to, will be to fall in the same trap that crippled inital tablet devices in the PC class.

This is where so much of what the device makers are doing is silly - just tossing off a quick 7 incher because you can, doesn't make it a viable platform to the average consumer if it doesn't have a compelling user experience/ecosystem. Again, with Google trying to steer device makers away from using Android for the tablet formats, it creates a conflict and they will need to ramp up the ChromeOS ecosystem if they expect to address the popularity of the iPad ecosystem. Otherwise the device makers are perfectly happy leveraging Android as-is in order to use the existing ecosystem to drives sales.

You seem to have misunderstood.

The email and BBM are each important to RIM users, as I understand it.

People, and especially tech people, get way too obsessed with specs. Consumers want to know what it does on the screen, not behind it.

Ever go to a Best Buy or Apple store and watch people use the iPads? Nine times out of ten they are playing games. They know it will surf the web, but they can do that on their computers, they want to know what the thing does that they can't do now.

Apps are what sells the iPad, and other manufacturers can bring out tablets with better specs, but it won't really matter much if it's only sales point is that it has ports, a hard drive or a faster processor -- those things count on laptops.

Because of this, I think the way to go is to build in streaming and other media capabilities right into the tablet -- don't depend on the developers because they are busy building for iOS (and Android).

They have been in the market longer, and have an entrenched user base that is experiencing erosion from the competing platforms. Based as their current systems/devices are in their original pager/email delivery models - this has been a significant shift for them. Look at how they struggled to get the new Storm out and try to address both their entrenched users and regular consumer demands for an iPhone-like interface. Remember, they have also been trying to shift the profitability from the devices to the systems/services delivery side. BES servers are a strong revenue stream for them on the enterprise side - just like Microsoft has with enterprise server/.Net, Office and Windows desktop. It would be interesting to see how RIMs profitability breaks down between the consumer and enterprise markets.

I didn't follow that. What struggle did they have?

Remember when all the new tablets were being called 'slates' because the rumor back then was that Apple was going to call their tablet the 'iSlate' and then they didn't?
Ya, that was awesome... or something.

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If someone using Apple's Tablet is said to be "iPadding"...

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Come on, RiM, your great management has been propping up your lackluster innovation and reluctance to change with the times. Please have something great for us as I want to invest with you once again.

Videos would be better widescreen. But website browsing on landscape mode on iPad is just nice, I think.

Interesting, I was not aware that developers had stopped writing for iOS, and are only now starting to include Apple.

Very good points. Several people (including a Google rep) have said that Android apps won't scale properly (will look "ugly") on most tablets -- not just size but aspect ratio. Apparently this was one of the reasons that Samsung chose to skin their new tablet and provide their version of basic apps.

There are conflicting stories whether Android Market will be available to tablets.

As to streaming and media playing -- Apple has provided both: built-in function and APIs for the developers.

Apparently there is a pent-up demand for tablets in hospitals, medical facilities, etc. It appears that several companies are targeting 7" tablets for this use. I would think the larger screen iPad would be a superior solution.

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I wonder if that is relevant to Blackpad. Apple still has the highest profit margins in the smartphone industry.

There may be many Blackberry users and units out there, it remains to be seen if they will be able to run their apps on the Blackpad, and what apps will be out for the Blackpad.

I think RIM touchscreen models were not as popular as they anticipated.

Wrong. There are good reasons why books and magazines aren't printed landscape.

It is interesting to remember the rumors from 9 months back-- just before the iPad was announced.

1) A lot of people (including me) expected a 7" diagonal screen.

2) The consensus was that price would be $1,000 -- anything above that wouldn't sell.

3) If it didn't run a "proper OS", OS X, it would fail.

4) They wouldn't be so stupid as to call it an "iPad".

5) The market for an Apple tablet was .5 - 1 million units in CY 2010.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong!


Looks like the only thing we got right was that it would be an Apple Tablet.

What? Are you a faking moron? Or maybe middle-aged, bitter and grumpy. People post "1st post" posts on FORUMS all the time. Sometimes the posts are even funny. Grab a life. Move on...

The Storm was the first RIM phone to address the perceived threat by the Apple iPhone (and later the Android phones) where RIM made their physical interface depart fully from the tried and true keyboard/scrollball pointer interface. Neither Storm I nor Storm II had a full keyboard or pointing interface. RIM tried to throw their user base completely into a full touch interface with no transition. Reviews were mixed at best and they were among the poorest performing in the Blackberry lineup from a user purchasing/use report perspective. Another downside to the Storms was the BlackBerry operating system. The applications often hadn't been optimized for touch interaction, making clicking problematic. Also like the Palm series, the Storms' screens depressed when you tapped or typed on them which many users disliked. The result was abysmal consumer uptake.

The recent Torch model was RIM's attempt to find a middle ground for it's user base. By including a slide-out keyboard, dropping the physically clickable screen, and adding a touchpad pointer they addressed the key objections to the physical interface. With the update to Backberry 6, they addressed most of the issues around the touch interface for the apps, updated the media browser, switched to a Webkit internet browser, updated the touch interface itself with trays and notification, but still doesn't have Flash supported.

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

blackpad?
i'll stick with my honkey-cracker iPad.

To be honest, I was like, okay, iPad... Kinda weird, bezel is too big, interesting price point, but how will 3G models do reception-wise and compatibility with telcos? Then after using one, heh, it all falls into place.

iPhone 4 though.... I'm on the fence about. Where I am it is a 2 year contract on one of the two major telcos carrying it. Was hoping for one year contracts to be available.

The Blackpad will have its work cut out for it. At this stage, BB phones may very likely continue to sell well but Apple just has to make more iPhone 4 and iPad to keep up with demand.

Haha. Post of the day.

...that smaller, cheaper variants of a given form factor will generally always have a valid segment of the market. Given that Apple has taken the risk, and produced a "cross-over" device benchmark in the iPad, with demonstrated consumer popularity, the other device makers will inevitably produce similar products to try and capture part of the segment.

We need to remember however that Apple is not looking to capture a given market, they want to leverage that market to drive their entire ecosystem. OSX is that ecosystem, with the traditional computing (MacOSX) and lightweight computing (iOS) branches, providing the underlying feature set for advancing the hardware part of ecosystem. You can't separate out the individual components to compare them to other hardware or software. They are designed and implemented to be part of a contiguous whole from the start. So comparing RIM and Nokia to Apple is more relevant (for example) than comparing Microsoft or Android, which are wholly different approaches and leave the OS/software and physical interfaces to develop independently.

I think they should have named it the padberry.

So I assume the mental 13-year-olds who got their rocks off mocking the iPad name are equally busy doing the same for this thing?
Oh yeah, its only Apple gets that reaction.

Actually, I prefer BerryPatch... really!


Edit: On second thought BriarPatch is even better!

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Google 'blackpad iPad killer' and you already get 68,500 hits.

I hate the phrase not because of any real threat, but because its just such lazy journalism.

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For those of us that follow such things, another couple of milestones have been reached-- one earlier today.

AAPL surpasses MSFT market value by $50 Billion.

AAPL market value is 1,135% of DELL market value.

... maybe Apple should take part of that $42 Billion cash, buy Dell, liquidate it, and pay off the shareholders.




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