BlackBerry announces new company name, new Z10 & Q10 devices running BB10
The company formerly known as RIM announced on Wednesday new BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 handsets running the BlackBerry 10 operating system, as it attempts to regain ground lost to Apple and Google.
The Z10 is BlackBerry's most direct competitor to Apple's iPhone, sporting a 4.2-inch display with a density of 356 pixels per inch. Like the iPhone, it features an all-touchscreen design and eschews a physical keyboard.
But BlackBerry also hopes to retain its devoted users who remain attached to the company's tactile keyboards. Those users will be served by the QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry Q10, which also features a 3.1-inch touchscreen.
The Z10 launches in the U.K. tomorrow, in Canada on February 5, and in the U.S. in March. Pricing will vary by carrier. The Q10 is expected to debut on the first global carriers in April.
Both devices run BlackBerry 10, the company's latest mobile operating system designed to take on the market leaders: Google Android and Apple's iOS.
At Wednesday's event, the company showed off applications for BlackBerry 10 that will offer connectivity with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare. In all, the company has promised 70,000 applications will be available in the BlackBerry World store at launch.
Features of BlackBerry 10 highlighted by the company include:
"Master BlackBerry thumb typists might not find it as fast as the traditional physical keyboard, but, for a one-finger typist like me, it was faster and more accurate than either the native keyboards on the iPhone or Android," Mossberg said. "This is partly because it features predictive typing."
Ultimately he found that the hardware on the Z10 was "decent," while the user interface with BlackBerry 10 is "logical and generally easy to use." He's of the opinion that RIM could see a resurgence in the smartphone market if it can bolster the number of available applications for the platform.
In changing its name from Research in Motion to BlackBerry, the company's new stock ticker of "BBRY" will reflect the change. The company said BlackBerry 10 represents a reinvention of the company's brand, and the new name will reflect that.
The Z10 is BlackBerry's most direct competitor to Apple's iPhone, sporting a 4.2-inch display with a density of 356 pixels per inch. Like the iPhone, it features an all-touchscreen design and eschews a physical keyboard.
But BlackBerry also hopes to retain its devoted users who remain attached to the company's tactile keyboards. Those users will be served by the QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry Q10, which also features a 3.1-inch touchscreen.
The Z10 launches in the U.K. tomorrow, in Canada on February 5, and in the U.S. in March. Pricing will vary by carrier. The Q10 is expected to debut on the first global carriers in April.
Both devices run BlackBerry 10, the company's latest mobile operating system designed to take on the market leaders: Google Android and Apple's iOS.
At Wednesday's event, the company showed off applications for BlackBerry 10 that will offer connectivity with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare. In all, the company has promised 70,000 applications will be available in the BlackBerry World store at launch.
Features of BlackBerry 10 highlighted by the company include:
- BlackBerry Hub: A single place to manage all conversations, BBM messages, social media updates or notifications.
- BlackBerry Flow: Enables features and apps to flow together. For example, tap on an attendee listed for a meeting to see their latest tweet or LinkedIn profile. Or tap the thumbnail of a picture to launch the Picture editor and quickly apply a transformation or filter.
- An adaptable virtual keyboard.
- BlackBerry Balance: Separates and secures work applications and data from personal content on BlackBerry devices.
- Time Shift: Captures a group shot where everyone is smiling with their eyes wide open.
- Story Maker: Bring a collection of photos and videos together, along with music and effects, to produce an HD movie.
- BlackBerry Remember: Combines memos, tasks and more into a single experience. It helps organize and manage information around projects or ideas, letting users collect content such as websites, emails, photos, documents, and other files, and then create tasks, assign due dates, and your progress.
"Master BlackBerry thumb typists might not find it as fast as the traditional physical keyboard, but, for a one-finger typist like me, it was faster and more accurate than either the native keyboards on the iPhone or Android," Mossberg said. "This is partly because it features predictive typing."
Ultimately he found that the hardware on the Z10 was "decent," while the user interface with BlackBerry 10 is "logical and generally easy to use." He's of the opinion that RIM could see a resurgence in the smartphone market if it can bolster the number of available applications for the platform.
In changing its name from Research in Motion to BlackBerry, the company's new stock ticker of "BBRY" will reflect the change. The company said BlackBerry 10 represents a reinvention of the company's brand, and the new name will reflect that.
Comments
It looks great. Let's just hope they do not enter the spec game (let that to stupid fandroids that understand 0 about tech and engineering) and create an unique ecosystem.
I would love a blackberry for under 300 euros, I can't justify more than that.
Apple better watch out, I heard Facebook is producing a new smartphone named Kumquat. /s
One of RIM's 17 CEOs upon the introduction of the iPhone: "Users need a physical keyboard. A virtual keyboard sucks ass. This iPhone? What a f-ing joke. It'll last 3 weeks. The BlackBerry is king and will whip its ass."
Today: "eschews a physical keyboard."
One serving of crow delivered.
There are so many brilliant and clever demos today.The gestures are well thought-out and being able to use BBM (like iMessage) and pop into a video chat (like FaceTime) with a single button within the same app is the way I'd like Apple to tie their communication apps together.
On top of that they also have screen sharing. As someone that uses this feature often with Windows and Macs to quickly resolve issues it can be a huge PITA to walk someone through their iOS device.
Even if BlackBerry nee RiM doesn't gain much traction today they have re-imagined the smartphone market in many ingenious ways.
Yes, I use the term "duopoly" loosely, I'm just saying it is pretty much a 2 horse race in the future. My opinion, I'm frequently wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
... Those users will be served by the QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry Q10, ...
Sigh.
Are you people ever going to stop doing this? It's NOT a "Qwerty" keyboard!
This isn't rocket science or brain surgery, it's simple English.
Use the right term for cripes sake.
If you "Donno" what that is, maybe you can "Axe" your "MOMA."
That would be great is they were allowed to acknowledge that the iPhone or Apple even exists.
I'm surprised Samsung hasn't made a PineApple division. They certainly pine for Apple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smiles77
It looked pretty decent all-in-all. I think BlackBerry Balance is a great tool for businesses that worry about personal phones at work, and the two phone models cover their target market pretty well. Overall a good showing by BB.
I agree, but the essential problem Blackberry was facing remains. If you *aren't* a business dude, why would you switch to this phone?
Every new product should focus on having a reason why people would choose it over another product. This product doesn't have one that I can see.
RIM was in a situation wherein they couldn't produce a product that the non-business consumer wanted, and that their business users were buying into alternative platforms. The additional factor was that the overall growth of the market was focussed on consumer use, not business use and the consumer portion of the pie has been growing in leaps and bounds over the business portion. This new set of devices *might* slow down the migration of business users to other platforms, but it doesn't seem to do anything much to attract new consumer users.
All of the new features are aimed at that shrinking portion of business users that Blackberry sees as their "core market." There is no killer feature that a regular consumer who doesn't already use Blackberry would need to move onto this platform and away from iOS or Android. I think they are going to have trouble getting any kind of market share numbers, soon enough to stave off the inevitable financial collapse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrayven
This should push others (Apple/Google) to innovate.. thats my hope. I'd like to see Apple jumping in with new idea's for the UI.
Right, because everyone else, especially Apple, has been sitting on their hands while TCFKAR has been hard at work.
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
It's NOT a "Qwerty" keyboard!
I see the letters q, w, e, r, t, and y in succession. Pretty dang sure that's what it is. No one knows what a Remington keyboard is.
It's been 6 years, and in the tech industry no less. It's not important that they had no vision for the future or comprehension of it when looking at the iPhone. What's important is that they saw the error of their thinking and radically changed the entire company to adapt to these changes. I think that's commendable. Even today we still have MS thinking it's being radical when it's just doing the same thing it's always done with Windows except trying to shoehorn into the tablet market.
I'm quite impressed with what I've seen. The changing of the name was also a brilliant move. Eschew the tainted brand and adopt the one that still has some value, even of it's mostly nostalgic at this point. And anecdotally I've used the terms 'rim' and Research in Motion with people who had no idea what I was talking about until I said BlackBerry.
PS: Whenever Dell is doing bad we always get that old quote from 1997. Note that he said what he would do. He's not Steve Jobs and probably couldn't have saved it. I know I wouldn't have been able to… even knowing what I know now.
It seems that they are really addressing the problem, this time. But this is much too late ....
One thing analysts seem not to understand is that once a significant installed base has been created, unless users are deeply unsatisfied with what hey have bought (which is not the case, for Apple), challenging the champion is extremely difficult ... unless you propose something which goes far beyond the existing products ....
For smartphones, and probably even more for tablets, where Apple position is even more enjoyable, the time competitors have wasted in abandoning the market to Apple will never be regained.....