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Now all they need is a hardware overhaul, a touch screen and a modern OS.
The change partly addresses one of the most common complaints of navigation on BlackBerries.
Antennagate: The Finale?
Marketing can be a chess game. Steve’s made his move, now his competitors get to make theirs. “Them’s fighting words” for these guys, and they’ve already had some nasty things to say about Apple drawing them into its “self-made debacle.” Careful with this one, boys. You may protesteth too much. More and more stories are beginning to appear confirming that this really is an industry-wide problem, and other phones do suffer from a similar death grip.
Good article that sums it up well. I chose the above quote because the statements from RIM, Nokia, HTC, etc. have all been non-denial denials. Like the author, I agree this should backfire on them, but believe it won't because their phones just aren't that interesting.
Why would a tech site spend their time thoroughly testing other companies' "death grips" and then publish the results when no one will click the link anyway? Apple gets page-hits, others do not. This stopped being about "news," or "concern" for the consumer, and crossed over into the realm of SEO and page hits long ago.
RIM Publishes Non-Denial Denial.
Apple's attempt to draw RIM into Apple's self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple's claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public's understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple's difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM's customers don't need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.
Above is the full statement from RIM Co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.
Sounds harsh, yet nowhere in that torrent of words do they deny the Blackberry Bold has a death grip issue. Good thing, too, because it most certainly has one.
I have an iPhone 4 and can reproduce the death grip; once I knew how to hold it, it was easy. But I also own a BlackBerry Bold 9700. Guess what? Now that I know how to hold it, I can reproduce the issue with it, too. In fact, my tweet about it came many hours before the Co-CEOs published their non-denial denial.
But what about the Bold owners who swear they can't reproduce it? I guess we pay as much attention to them as the iPhone 4 owners who say they can't reproduce it, either. Fair's fair, right? I'd like to point out that I've never dropped a call on my iPhone 4 or Bold, both sans cases, so the real world counts for something.
It's a shame that even with two CEOs RIM weren't smart enough to let this go, choosing instead to get all puffed up while not even denying what they presumably got puffed up about in the first place.
Meanwhile, the reason RIM "has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4" is because Blackberrys are relics from a half-decade ago. The most "innovative" thing RIM's tried to do in five years is add a touch-screen to a track-ball based OS, and they failed miserably. Both times. This is why they've been giving their phones away—buy one, get one free—for nearly a year.
The good news for RIM is that people are so disinterested in their out-of-touch (pun intended) relic that the Bold won't get near the attention Apple's innovative iPhone has. This is one time where RIM's inferior product will actually help them.
Apple Crushes Everyone In Cell Phone Customer Satisfaction Ratings
Surveys of consumers' future buying habits mean very little. If consumers did what they said in surveys, products made via those surveys would be raging successes, but they're not. Apple, perhaps famously, eschews such surveys, contending a customer doesn't know what they want until they see it. So even though the future looks great for Apple in the article's surveys, it means little to me.
There is, however, one type of survey that's very important. Customer Satisfaction is not about the future, it's about real people who own the device now, and how happy they are with it. I would argue it's the only survey that really matters. Look at that chart. Apple crushes everyone by such a wide margin the other guys should be revamping their support policies, procedures and staff, not their product lines.
Larry Page answers Steve Jobs by misrepresenting Google's mobile phone history [u]
We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that, because that did not exist in the market place," Page reportedly said. "I think that characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable.
I believe Larry Page is trying to shake two notions at once: that somehow Google entering the smartphone arena had nothing to do with Apple, apparently it was just a coincidence; and that Android phones aren't somehow a copy of the iPhone. So he claims they'd been working on Android "a very long time" and that Steve Jobs is rewriting history.
Unfortunately for Larry, the history of the iPhone and Google's involvement with Android do not support his representations.
iPhone
When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone at Macworld in January, 2007, he said he'd been waiting 2.5 years for that day. This means we know the iPhone was in process circa July, 2004. We also know from Jobs' statement at the D8 conference this year that Apple had actually started on the touch-screen tablet first, and then set it aside to do a mobile device. From this we know the iPhone was a touch-enabled, revolutionary device from it's very inception (again, mid-2004).
There were other signs of Apple moving into mobile through various rumors of tying iTunes into a mobile phone with a hardware partner (which turned out to be true via their agreement with Motorola to use iTunes on the ROKR phone).
Obviously, Apple's mobile entry wasn't news to Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO and an Apple board member at the time. While Schmidt probably had no specific details of either device (Apple is very secretive; I doubt the board gets those kinds of details that early), he would certainly know that Apple was getting into mobile. Schmidt was elected to Apple's board in 2006, but other indications existed that Apple was flirting with mobile, and this article is not dependent on Google having specific iPhone details. Indeed, it assumes Google did not have specific details.
Android
Meanwhile, Google bought Android in August, 2005, over a year after their CEO discovered Apple moved into the mobile space. Larry Page would have us believe this is a coincidence, but no reasonable individual would buy into that.
Google having no particular ideas of their own, the phone they set about building was clearly a Blackberry copy (below). Trackball. Hardware keyboard in the "lower 40". A few icons at the bottom of the screen. It's pretty much the spitting image of a Blackberry (except it's white, copying a design cue from Apple's iPods).
The prototype is from February, 2008, eight months after the original iPhone became available. By this time, doubters since the Macworld iPhone announcement are being proven wrong. The iPhone has received great reviews and is beginning to catch on. The touch screen works, a "full" web browser on a mobile device works, and people are loving it. There are still plenty of doubters and bashers, but even at this relatively early stage there are many who can tell it's the future of mobile. Google's prototype is a joke by comparison.
Sometime during 2008, Google very clearly changed mobile strategies, dumping the Blackberry copy and proceeding to work on an iPhone copy.
The Real History
Let's sum up:
- Google was aware Apple was entering the mobile space (Not definitely, though industry rumors gave this indication.)
- Google purchased Android a year after Apple began their mobile development
- Google initially (and unoriginally) targeted a Blackberry copy (in iPod white)
- Google sometime in 2008 (again, unoriginally) changed their target to an iPhone copy
Larry Page's statement is a misrepresentation of what went down in Google's mobile development. From entering mobile in the first place after industry talk indicated Apple had, to using a white design in their prototype, to copying the iPhone once it proved to be the future, and even to later adding a "market place" of apps after Apple opened the App Store, Google's every move in mobile—except the business model—is a copy of Apple's.
I couldn't care less Google entered mobile. It's where all the action is and they feed off people on the web. Without a shot at the mobile market they may have ceded those ads to somebody else. Further, I couldn't care less they dropped the Blackberry copy and targeted the iPhone, since it's much superior (sorry, RIM fans). But it's funny to see, like Microsoft, Google fighting off the obvious fact that they follow in Apple's footsteps and hope people have short memories or won't look it up. You're following the leader, quit denying it and try to actually make something better.
Adobe Soon is Adobe's most popular mobile product
Adobe's newest Flash Player 10.1 will soon be available on Google's Android "Froyo" 2.2 operating system for smartphones and other devices, and Adobe's Murarka said other smartphones would soon support Flash.
"You're going to see Flash not only on Android. Consumers will see devices from Palm, Research in Motion Ltd's Blackberry, Nokia's Symbian and Microsoft Windows Phone 7 support the full Flash Player," Murarka said.
Emphasis mine. It's always "soon" with these guys.
Dear Verizon and Sprint Customers: Welcome to Hell
The Bold 9650 is the successor to the BlackBerry Tour that is currently on Verizon and Sprint. It adds Wi-Fi and RIM's new optical track pad, which has been seen on newer BlackBerrys, like the Bold2 and Curve 8520.
I've been using the Bold 9700 (aka the Bold2) for over a month. It's crap. Yes, I know it's RIM's flagship QWERTY model -- and even better than what they announced for Verizon and Sprint -- but it's still crap.
Honestly, in the age of modern smartphones (iPhone, Nexus One, Droid, Palm Pre, etc.) it's hard to imagine anything as out of place as a Blackberry. It's like buying a brand new PC with Windows 98 on it.
This might be the worst case of denial I've ever seen.
[RIM co-chief Mike Lazaridis] claimed that most of the people who bought touchscreen-only phones in the past two years were going back to phones with hardware QWERTY keyboards, whether touch-enabled or otherwise. It's those keyboards that made RIM "famous," he said.
Really? Is this why RIM continues "Buy One Get One" deals on their traditional QWERTY Blackberry models while working furiously to get a modern phone built with the Storm, then Storm 2?
I've had Blackberry's flagship QWERTY phone (Bold 9700) for nearly a month now. It may have been something before electricity, but compared to a modern smartphone it's crap.
Is RIM losing its competitive edge? My New Blackberry Bold Says Welcome To 1998
The breakthrough innovation of 10 years ago rarely makes the breakthrough innovation of today, and the company's current strategy is too centred on leveraging in today's changing environment what made BlackBerry so strong in the past," he wrote.
It’s unreal I found this article tonight. Earlier today I received my new Blackberry Bold for work. RIM’s flagship model with all the bells and whistles (3G, WiFi, GPS, visual voice mail, etc.).
It’s an OK device, but so weak by modern standards (iPhone, Android, Web OS) that it should be embarrassing to RIM. The browser is laughable. I mean really, really laughable.
Seems to me it’s the kind of device only an IT group could love, safely ensconced in the bureaucratic cocoon of Blackberry server voodoo and licensing issues.
IT fans notwithstanding, RIM clearly knows this device is on its last legs:
- They’re trying like mad to get an iPhone-like device built. Unfortunately, the Storm (both versions) is a disaster. Even someone longing for a modern phone like me turned it down. RIM is finding that a trackball-based OS cannot be easily “optimized” for touch.
- They are, literally, giving phones away. They’ve had “buy one get one free” deals with various carriers for months.
Nearly half their user base yearns for something better. RIM needs to start over, as Microsoft did with Windows Phone 7 Series, or maybe buy Palm. When your flagship model looks like something the other guy left in the trash, you know the current plan isn’t working.
Blackberry Users Are Ready For a Real Smartphone
Nearly 40% of Blackberry users continue to prefer Apple's iPhone as their next smartphone purchase, but a third of them would also switch to the Android operating system
In short: We're using a Blackberry, but we'd rather have the best smartphone, and would even settle for second-best in a pinch.
Is it any wonder RIM and their carrier partners have maintained "buy one, get one free" deals for months? Giving the things away is what keeps RIM's quarterly sales looking good. The bad news for RIM and their shareholders is it's an unsustainable business model.
