BlackBerry Bold stands as 3G iPhone's chief rival

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 79
    the cool gutthe cool gut Posts: 1,714member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    There will continue to be room in the marketplace for both competitors, just like MS and Apple. No one company has a one-size-fits-all solution.



    I couldn't disagree more. RIM is dead in the water. Will most likely be bought by MS some time in the future.



    I've had a blackberry for nearly 5 years. Beyond a prettier screen, that STUPID fucking "pearl" roller, NOTHING has changed. In 5 YEARS. Their only feature is PUSH email. That's it, nothing else. They don't have the software or developer base to even come close to being able to compete with the iPhone.



    Sure they did well, when competing against a bunch of other 3rd rate companies like Samsung and Motorola - but they don't have a snowballs chance in hell to compete with Apple. Their last holdout is corporations who have invested heavily in their proprietary push email service.
  • Reply 22 of 79
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by the cool gut View Post


    I couldn't disagree more. RIM is dead in the water. Will most likely be bought by MS some time in the future.



    I've had a blackberry for nearly 5 years. Beyond a prettier screen, that STUPID fucking "pearl" roller, NOTHING has changed. In 5 YEARS. Their only feature is PUSH email. That's it, nothing else. They don't have the software or developer base to even come close to being able to compete with the iPhone.



    Sure they did well, when competing against a bunch of other 3rd rate companies like Samsung and Motorola - but they don't have a snowballs chance in hell to compete with Apple. Their last holdout is corporations who have invested heavily in their proprietary push email service.



    But that before the iPhone upstaged everyone's UI and made large, high res, multi-touch, capacitance screens, large flash capacities, motion sensors, and accelerometers seem like they should be the norm rather than the exception.



    RiM is far from "dead" in any aspect?and you can find BB users as fervent about their phones are iPhone users are?though will be losing marketshare this year with the Exchange support coming to mOS X v2.0. They're putting a $150M incentive for new apps and I'm sure they will hiring a large number of software engineers or buying a firm like Nokia did to step up their game



    As for MS buying RiM, I think they would if they could, but a market valuation of $80 Billion makes that tough.
  • Reply 23 of 79
    k2directork2director Posts: 194member
    This guber of a phone will appeal to hard-core Blackberry fans, but it's not going to prevent a bunch of Blackberry defections to the iPhone, and it's certainly not going to win RIM any more marketshare now that Apple is in the game.



    Really, who thinks the Bold is going to capture the public's imagination like the iPhone has? How many regular, non-business users are going to say to themselves, "I want that Blackberry with the tiny screen and cramped keyboard, which tacked on music and movies and photos as an after-thought!"? It's just not going to happen.



    On the other hand, I bet Apple will be able to lure away a bunch of former Blackberry users with iPhone 2.0 (and hardware upgrade to 3G).



    RIM, you've been out-maneuvered. You defined your market as "business" (which is fairly limited), and then built a product with that market in mind. Apple created a product aimed at a much broader market (like a PC versus a dedicated word processor), and it's going to start eating away at your narrow position.



    I'm not saying that RIM is going be over-run in the near term, but I think it's going to be forced to stick with the limited business market, instead of growing beyond that, which is something that RIM hoped to do.
  • Reply 24 of 79
    monstrositymonstrosity Posts: 2,234member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Captain Jack View Post


    The point is, it's way easier for Apple to add these little trinkets to the iPhone ... then it is for Apple's competitors to come up with an OS like OS-X (now that friends, is the task of the century)



    ha indeed. you dont recreate this kind of thing overnight, no matter how many dollars you throw at it. its hard to fathom how any company can possibly compete.

    The original creators of the OS, light years head start, the best brains in the business, and almost faultless vision.



    Give up



    It was obvious 5 years ago that once the processing power of the mobile phone was capable of running proper applications, then everyone else would be left for dust.

    I have friends in the business franticly trying to create competing products for large multinationals I cant mention, I have told them they may as well give up, but they wont listen



    They always ran second in school exams and lacked imagination, now thousands of shareholders gamble their millions on them. Damned if thats where I'm investing my money. AAPL for the long haul.



    And thank god for the anonymity of the internet, else i'd be a few friends down right now.
  • Reply 25 of 79
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Oka's77 View Post


    I love the Iphone but the Iphone was a copy of LG's Prada. It's just the Prada was never sold here.



    I'd like you to explain how Apple could copy LG when both were announced and displayed within like a week of each other.
  • Reply 26 of 79
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by echosonic View Post


    For the rest of your lives, you Blackberry users and RIM employees will get to look back at the best blackberry phone ever made, and resign yourselves to the fact that its a weak-ass iPhone ripoff.



    They didn't even TRY to hide it.



    Look at it.



    Its an iPhone with QWERTY. But not as cool, useful, or pleasing the touch....



    The screen interface is quite far from it. Most UIs that try to copy Apple use icons that look like Apple's, down to the color choices, the icons are quite a bit different here. Some of the icons are clearly inspired by Apple's, but with several icons, they at least do something quite different, as well as going with a different look. I think Google's Android used a square book with brown spiral binding with tan covers "@" on the friont for their address book. This thing's address book looks nothing like Apple's.



    I see the similarities, but I really don't think anyone's going to confuse this with the iPhone. The trim color, aspect ratio and curves are different.



    But, "Bold"? As much as I'm getting irritated by Apple's lame iCamelCase naming system, Bold sounds like an uppity energy drink that causes intestinal cramping.
  • Reply 27 of 79
    inkswampinkswamp Posts: 337member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    There are no towels being thrown here.



    There is a towel being thrown in. The reaction of competitors to the iPod and the iPhone reminds me of the Pepsi-vs-Coke wars of the 80s. Coke pretty decisively lost that battle by changing Coke to be more Pepsi-like. In doing that, Coke showed everyone how completely lacking in confidence they were about their own product. When a company comes along and imitates the competitor too closely, it sends a weird lack-of-confidence message to the consumer. It says, "We don't believe in what we were doing before so we need to make our new products more like this other well-known product." In the minds of a lot of consumers, the question comes down to "Why shouldn't I just buy the original, then?"



    So you bet there is a towel being thrown in. It may not spell the end of RiM, but it's a dumb move to imitate any competitor too closely.
  • Reply 28 of 79
    foo2foo2 Posts: 1,077member
    There's a reason they didn't name it Beautiful.
  • Reply 29 of 79
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by inkswamp View Post


    So you bet there is a towel being thrown in. It may not spell the end of RiM, but it's a dumb move to imitate any competitor too closely.



    1) I don't see this as an imitation of the iPhone?they even have a QWERTY keyboard on the device?just that cell phone manufacturers are finally stepping up their game.



    2) "To throw in the towel" means to admit defeat. I see no admitting of defeat here, only that they are gearing up for a big fight. ...So begins the phone wars.
  • Reply 30 of 79
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    But, "Bold"? As much as I'm getting irritated by Apple's lame iCamelCase naming system, Bold sounds like an uppity energy drink that causes intestinal cramping.



    Compared to Italic and Underline it's a great name.
  • Reply 31 of 79
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Compared to Italic and Underline it's a great name.



  • Reply 32 of 79
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by the cool gut View Post


    Sure they did well, when competing against a bunch of other 3rd rate companies like Samsung and Motorola - but they don't have a snowballs chance in hell to compete with Apple. Their last holdout is corporations who have invested heavily in their proprietary push email service.



    I wouldn't count them out that quickly. For nine months out of the last fiscal year, despite competing against the iPhone for 3/4ths of the year, they still doubled their revenue and profits over the previous year.
  • Reply 33 of 79
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    This is great from an innovation point of view. We have RIM going first, Apple announcing in June and Palm's new device coming late in '08.



    Best of all, it doesn't matter who wins this fight. Microsoft loses in every scenario.
  • Reply 34 of 79
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    ...only that they are gearing up for a big fight. ...So begins the phone wars.



    I love the Star Wars reference. I am such a geek...
  • Reply 35 of 79
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    I wouldn't count them out that quickly. For nine months out of the last fiscal year, despite competing against the iPhone for 3/4ths of the year, they still doubled their revenue and profits over the previous year.



    Over the last 2 years RiM's stock has gone from $20 to the $140 it is now, though it was at $140 per share 6 months ago before the drop. That is a 600% increase compared to Apple's 300% and Nokia' 100% increase over the same time frame.
  • Reply 36 of 79
    labrats5labrats5 Posts: 17member
    I'm personally loving this. Nothing is better than some healthy competition, and the Blackberry Bold looks like a decent rival for the iphone. RIM has lots of fight in them.



    Now to see what Cupertino has up its sleeve.



    RIM and Apple are going to double their market share, together. There are a lot of handsets out there, and very few of them are smart phones. Only RIM and Apple seem to have any idea at all what there doing, so even if RIM can't make a better phone than Apple, as long as they make a decent one, the market shift towards smartphones will benefit them because they still hit all four carriers.
  • Reply 37 of 79
    tofinotofino Posts: 697member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    There will continue to be room in the marketplace for both competitors, just like MS and Apple. No one company has a one-size-fits-all solution.



    I tend to agree with that. the iphone vs. blackberry wars are as tediously boring as the osx/windows battles. there are plenty of crackberry addicts that would never dream of touching an iphone, and as long as they have their chiclet keyboards, they are going to be happy.



    i'm sure it's not a coincidence that the bold's styling is very similar to the iphone's, but that just reinforces the perception that apple is a leader when it comes to style. i'm sure mr. jobs is flattered and a healthy competition keeps everybody on their toes.



    i for one don't think that RIM is going to roll over dead any time soon, and in the long run that is good news for all of us. microsoft however has something to worry about... you don't hear a lot of hype about their offerings in the mobile phone business.
  • Reply 38 of 79
    delfoniqdelfoniq Posts: 95member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    BlackBerry Bold stands as 3G iPhone's chief rival



    No, it doesn't...
  • Reply 39 of 79
    tofinotofino Posts: 697member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    *cough*



    Ericsson R380



    http://www.gsmarena.com/ericsson_r380-pictures-195.php



    There were plenty of touchscreen phones before the iPhone and Prada.



    lets go back five years earlier, to 1995, shall we?



    http://www.msu.edu/~luckie/gallery/marco.htm
  • Reply 40 of 79
    akacakac Posts: 512member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by columbus View Post


    What they never show is the interface beyond the home screen, which looks cramped and difficult to read.



    Goodness knows what this is like to develop for ? I see no Xcode and IB. Everything about the software stack looks primitive compared to the very high bar set by Apple.







    Compare and contrast with iPhone's Google Maps client.



    Actually its not bad to develop for. Pretty easy. We use the BlackBerry IDE and Java APIs. But yes, the UI beyond the main home screen can be very DOS-ish. But that simplicity and performance is what many people like.
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