BlackBerry Tablet Confirmed, Supports Flash

HouseMuzik writes "Betanews' Tim Conneally reports that sources close to RIM have confirmed the existence of a BlackBerry Tablet device, with a ship date by the end of the year. Previous reporting on the device was confirmed by the source, including a 7" screen and a 1GHz processor. The source added that the device would support Flash, and would include a hardware-based Flash accelerator. Betanews' reporting seems to confirm an earlier report that quoted Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar as saying the BlackBerry Tablet indeed existed."

Comments

Memo from Jobs to Balsilie

[eldavojohn]

July 12, 2010
From: Steve Jobs
To: Jim Balsillie

Jim,

Hey, buddy, sorry about getting my piece of the pie in the mobile phone market from under your feet but daddy's gotta eat. Right? Really though, I've been meaning to send you over some complementary hookers and blow but you know how things get busy what with the release of my new baby.

Speaking of which, it's called the iPad--maybe you've heard of it? I don't know, seems the other CEOs spend half the time with their heads up their asses so you coulda missed it.

Anyway, I wanted to take this time to send you a message, loud and clear:

It's okay. You can release a tablet device now.

I know, I know, you're probably pitching a tent under your desk as you read this. This has been tried -- what -- like fifty times before? And everybody's failed. But now your sugar daddy has warmed up the masses and anybody can stick their meat in. Even you! Of course you gotta hit below my price point when you offer them your aborted fetus of a tablet but come on let's be happy about this.

I mean, there's the three mil that have already bought the iPad--you know the people whose time is worth more than watching a goddamn blackberry shit itself. And there's everyone else (your customers).

And now that I've said it's "okay", it's "okay" to own a tablet. Did you see how that worked? Let me spell it out for you. Before it wasn't okay. Companies couldn't sell it, people couldn't buy it. And then Steve Titty Fucking Jobs showed up and said it was okay. Suddenly three million people have iPads. That's how it works. On July 12, 2010 your stock shares will jump a little bit because I told you it was okay to turn a profit.

Now someone else gets the dregs, offer up a knockoff and cash out. The Courier fell flat on the pavement like a bead of sweat sliding off of Steve Ballmer's bald head so I guess that comes down to you. But really, when is the last time that guy did anything right?

And you know what? After the iPhone took any non-corporate user you might have had maybe you deserve this. Maybe you are good enough to have Apple's sloppy seconds this time around.

Consider us even. I bet you're upset right now and that's because you're just reading this memo wrong. Don't read it that way.

Steve Jobs

Re:Memo from Jobs to Balsilie

[mdwh2]

Which is indeed what Jobs and some people here no doubt believe, but remember it's not true. Tablets were around before the Islate or whatever they called it, and they're still not mainstream after Apple's tablet. No doubt they will become more popular in time, but this is a gradual change due to increased technology (hence things like touchscreens, prices falling, cheaper mobile Internet connections), and there is no reason to single out Apple as a sole cause.

What has happened is that we now have vast amounts of media hype over Apple's tablet. But this happened before it was even released - or even officially announced in fact. So had nothing to do with any success it did or didn't have (and indeed, the causative link would be the other way round - vast amounts of media hype leads to better sales, not vice versa).

If we're going to credit anyone with popularising tablets, thank the media. But it's still very rare for me to see anyone with a tablet (and when I have, it wasn't from Apple).

Apple entered the phone market after most other companies - so they had to wait until other companies told them it was okay to release a phone now...

(RIM still have higher market share in phones than Apple, don't they? Although they're still small compared to companies like Nokia, Samsung, Motorola).

Re:Memo from Jobs to Balsilie

[shutdown -p now]

If we're going to credit anyone with popularising tablets, thank the media.

No, thank Apple for putting themselves into a position such that the media will create hype over any new Apple product release. Which is entirely Apple's doing.

But it's still very rare for me to see anyone with a tablet (and when I have, it wasn't from Apple).

I don't know where you're looking, but my anecdotal experience does not support this. For one thing, where none of my friends and acquaintances had any kind of tablet before, a few have iPad now (not all are happy about it, but that's another story). For another, I still see a lot of people around several stands with iPads in the local Best Buy - so much so that they sometimes have to queue up because there aren't enough for everyone.

Kick Apple for being closed - fair enough; but denying that iPad is already a huge success in market terms is just delusional.

Re:Memo from Jobs to Balsilie

[Anonymous Coward]

"... and would include a hardware-based Flash accelerator."

pathetic. building hardware acceleration features into a device to support a crappy bit of code from Adobe.

Re:Memo from Jobs to Balsilie

[mjwx]

Which is indeed what Jobs and some people here no doubt believe, but remember it's not true. Tablets were around before the Islate or whatever they called it, and they're still not mainstream after Apple's tablet.

Indeed. This is why I compare the Ipad to the Apple Lisa. In the end it's a product that is less useful and more expensive then previous products. If tablets become popular it will end up being the same story the Ipad will be forced out by cheaper, more competitive tablets from other manufacturers much the same as the Lisa was ignored in favour of the cheaper and more ubiquitous IBM PC's of the 80's.

Of course the fanboys will talk up how nothing can match the Ipad's supreme interface or some such, but remember that Apple fanboys of the 80's talked up protected memory. The Ipad will either be another tablet that goes nowhere or be overtaken by US$2-300 tablets.

Guarunteed way for success

[Pojut]

Make ANY tablet able to function as a Wacom or Cintiq, including the pressure sensitivity. You will lock in the Internet Comic business almost instantly.

There are other things required in order to be a true mainstream hit (which the iPad is, admittedly, fairly close to fulfilling), but creating a niche product that has been requested by pretty much everyone in the industry would certainly be a smart move.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[guruevi]

You mean like the Axiotron Modbook? It's a really nice device designed by Woz. I considered getting one myself but it's a bit expensive.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[gstoddart]

Make ANY tablet able to function as a Wacom or Cintiq, including the pressure sensitivity. You will lock in the Internet Comic business almost instantly.

Ummm ... is the Internet Comic business sufficiently large as to cause any large corporation to factor it into its demographics when designing a mass-appeal product?

It sounds a little like "left handed goat herders who program in scheme".

but creating a niche product that has been requested by pretty much everyone in the industry would certainly be a smart move

RIM doesn't want a 'niche product'. They want something as many people as possible will buy. The internet comics crowd? Maybe not so much.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[ahankinson]

Wait.... the iPad isn't a mainstream hit? It sure looks like it is from here...

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[WillAdams]

They're available, and expensive, and not selling that well:

http://www.motioncomputing.com/products/tablet_pc_J35.asp

http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=home

And until recently the battery life wasn't that great either (technology is finally catching up to the early promise) --- I still have to use 9-cell extended life batteries in my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4121 (and unfortunately Fujitsu has discontinued their ST-6012)

William
(who has been using pen computers w/ Wacom styluses since the NCR-3125)

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[Anonymous Coward]

Make ANY tablet able to function as a Wacom or Cintiq, including the pressure sensitivity. You will lock in the Internet Comic business almost instantly, creating a niche product.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[bberens]

It's simple, RIM will go after the business market. Tablet style computers are great for lugging around to meetings and taking notes on and such. Give it some sort of a video out so I can attach it to a projector and it's an ultimate win. In the venn diagram that is the two companies' markets there's less overlap than there is individuality. Apple will get the consumer and RIM will get the business, assuming it doesn't totally screw up the business apps.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[dov_0]

I think that success is guaranteed for a blackberry tablet IF they can enhance usefulness instead of just getting awkward. People love blackberries cos of what they cram into a small space. If they can increase usefulness by making a tablet instead of just getting bulky, well, go for it!

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this is all of the hot new devices use capacitive touch screens. While capacitive screens have that iPhone like 'light-touch' and better multi-touch capabilities, you can't use a non-conducting stylus on the screen. This would make Wacom-like tablet functionality pretty useless. On the other hand if they used the older/cheaper resistive touchscreen technology you would be able to use a stylus, but it would probably be seen as a "con" in most reviews. You have to apply more pressure to get your touches to register and they don't feel quite as fluid.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[macs4all]

You mean like the Axiotron Modbook? It's a really nice device designed by Woz. I considered getting one myself but it's a bit expensive.

It IS nice; but it wasn't DESIGNED by Woz. He is involved with the company; but pretty much only as a PR booster.

And it is insanely expensive.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[webdog314]

I would agree with you, but not so specifically. Any pressure-sensitive tablet capable of running Photoshop would be an instant winner in the art community, especially if it were priced around that of the iPad. The trend into digital illustration is huge, and not just in the comic industry, but frankly, working on a split screen/tablet format sucks. It's certainly doable (as I can personally attest) but it's a FAR cry from working directly on a medium.

The problem with this is that it's self defeating. The moment you bring ANY form of input device (other than your fingers, which most of us always have with us) back to the tablet, it completely changes the user experience to the point that the device risks falling back out of the "tablet" definition altogether. Would the "stylus" be required for input? It is on any Wacom device.

While such a device is a pipe-dream for artists (and has been for a LONG time), I seriously doubt the public wants to give up the versatility of finger gestures in favor of a pen, even a pressure-sensitive one.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[macs4all]

pple will get the consumer and RIM will get the business

Really? I know that iWork for iPad isn't exactly MSOffice (in some ways worse (Numbers), in some ways much better (Keynote)), but exactly what integrated word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation app suite does RIM have?

Those types of apps take serious amounts of time and money to develop.

RIM better get crackin' ,'cuz this is all they show under "Business Software"!!!

Oh, and the "business" market for the iPad hasn't been lost on Apple, either.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[webdog314]

After some reflection, it even makes more sense for a company like Wacom to take the display technology like that used in the iPad, and put it under their pressure sensitive matrix as a display hooked up to a stand-alone system. I know they did this with the cintiq, but at $2,000, the price point is just too high for all but the most serious of artists. To be viable in the current market, I'd say they need to cut their price point by half at least. A display with pressure input that was say, 20-30% more than a similarly sized display would be a no-brainer for almost any serious artist.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[Anonymous Coward]

WHAM!!!! KAPOOOOOW!!!!!

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[nyctopterus]

You can do this already with the iPad, but it uses an private API, so it's a no-go for now. However, I expect Apple will see the value in opening this up at some point (please?), so we will set third-party pressures sensitive drawing apps and pens.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The trouble with tablet Photoshop is that, while Photoshop's base specs are only modestly outrageous(in fine Adobe tradition), its real-world spec requirements, among the sort of users serious enough to buy specialized hardware, can be absolutely stratospheric for absolutely unavoidable reasons of the "Nope, that's pretty much just how much RAM working on a 35 megapixel image at reasonable bit depth and adequate speed takes" flavor. You could probably do "Photoshop-lite" tasks easily enough on iPad hardware(and I think that there are already a few apps of that flavor); but advertising a "Photoshop tablet" would be hard because if you kept it as a svelte tablet design(probably CULV based to spare Adobe an ARM port), your performance will make anyone who is enough of a photoshop junkie to buy such a thing cry. If you pack enough power to satisfy the junkie crowd, you'll get something that looks (and weighs) like the bastard child of a LAN Party Desktop Replacement gamer laptop and a General Dynamics Mil-Spec tactical tablet PC.

The other problem is that Photoshop also has scads of keyboard shortcuts that make experienced users much more efficient. A tablet would be OK for parts of the job; but serious photoshoppers would cry bitter tears if their keyboards were taken away.

The Cintiq has a "fuck you, what are you going to do about it?" price point; but that's because it is pretty much what all the photoshoppers lust over.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[TheRaven64]

No, it really isn't. In comparison with computer or mobile phone sales, the iPad is very much a niche product. It's a successful niche product, but it's far from mainstream. Even in comparison to iPods, it's not particularly mainstream.

Apple sells 50-60 million iPods per year, they've sold 3 million iPads in three months. The iPad has had a lot of press coverage, and is selling well, but it's definitely not a mainstream product.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[Anonymous Coward]

Try google for MyPaint on pressure sensitive Nokia N900.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[corerunner]

Would the "stylus" be required for input? It is on any Wacom device.

While such a device is a pipe-dream for artists (and has been for a LONG time), I seriously doubt the public wants to give up the versatility of finger gestures in favor of a pen, even a pressure-sensitive one.

A few of the Wacom Bamboo tablets support stylus + multitouch. They're also some of the least expensive available.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[ColdWetDog]

And doesn't work well. The digitizer is 'grafted on' as opposed to 'designed in' and it shows. The company is about to go bankrupt. Most of the software support to make the thing usable has been done by a couple of users, not the company.

It's just like most of the Windows tablets - a hack job that's close to being useful (and indeed useful enough in edge cases) but never given enough engineering love to get the hardware and software to work together. I'm quite sure it will go the way of those tablet PCs: production will cease, the several thousand people who have fallen in love with them will band together and complain endlessly in some remote corner of the Internet and try to scarf old ones off of eBay.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[ari_j]

While I agree that there are very few internet comics actually finding success, I wonder if it's anything like the guitarist market. For every one guitarist who is making enough money from it to call a part of the guitar industry, there are 20,000 people who want to buy the same guitar, amp, effects, cables, strings, picks, hats, and condoms as the hero is using. That's a large part of what drives the guitar-related product market. The same applies to hip-hop artists in their mothers' basements doing whatever it takes to get ahold of an MPC, a couple of good turntables, a good condenser microphone, and a recording console of some sort. High school kids' parents spend untold fortunes on whatever top-end basketball shoes are hot on the market that year.

Does the same phenomenon occur with internet comics? Are there enough wannabes to drive the market for these features in a tablet computer?

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[ari_j]

I don't know enough to comment on the substance of what you said, but I do know from shopping for Christmas gifts for artistic family members that Wacom makes at least one tablet that does not require a stylus. The Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch is one example. But then, when I was looking for that link, I came across the Cintiq line. It's got the pen tablet and display in one - now just add the computer and make it pen-and-touch like the Bamboo and you're set.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[LBt1st]

Internet comics aside, there are still a lot of artists who would like such a product. I have no interest in comics but I know I'd love to lounge at a park or somewhere other then my dark cave and do some artwork. Sure I could do that on paper but then you've got an array of pencils, paper blowing in the wind and no undo! Not to mention having to scan anything you want to share. A single object that'd let me to everything would be awesome!

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait.... the iPad isn't a mainstream hit? It sure looks like it is from here...

Must be getting crowded up there... you know... in Steve Job's ass.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[Amouth]

and presentation app suite does RIM have?

well it wouldn't be hard for them to port Open Office.. If you can get your users to use Apple's iWork suite over MS office.. you can use Open Office instead..

the Only application that MS Office has over others is Outlook.. and RIM already has an e-mail client.. (personally i can't stand blackberry's mail support but god there are alot of them).

i can think of many ways in which a tablet would be useful - and in many ways i could replace my laptop with one.. BUT they all have it with a fuck load better specs and software than we all know they are going to put in them.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[EXrider]

I hope the web browser and OS are radically improved on it, because if this tablet is running anything like what runs on the BlackBerry phones it will fail miserably. BlackBerry Browser is hands down the worst browser out there amongst the rest of the webkit based browsers on modern smartphones.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[mjwx]

RIM doesn't want a 'niche product'. They want something as many people as possible will buy. The internet comics crowd? Maybe not so much.

/looks at hastily drawn flow chart on whiteboard. I tend to see those quite a bit.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lots and lots of tablets that have pressure sensitive digitizers made by Wacom. I own one that can be had on the secondary market for less than two hundred dollars. Runs Win7 with Illustrator, Photoshop, Artrage, Mangastudio, Sketchbook.. whatever you want.. quite well.

I draw comics.

Recently I was at an art festival and I walked by a person who could be heard to say "the ipad will change art forever."

It made me sad. It also made my motion m1400 sad, but then I made some nice drawings on it and it perked right up again.

Re:Guarunteed way for success

[Anonymous Coward]

well it wouldn't be hard for them to port Open Office.

Have you used OOo lately? It's getting to be as bloated and slow as the package it is emulating (surprise!). iWork for iPad, OTOH, was designed from the ground-up as an iOS app. It is NOT simply a "port" of "desktop" iWork, and it shows. Simply porting OOo into a touch environment, with its tiny little toolbar icons, would be an utter disaster. And good luck waiting for OOo or the so-called F/OSS "community" to redesign it to have a DECENT touch-based UI.

So, what now?

Flash, that big a deal?

[El Neepo]

Does Flash support really make or break the deal when buying a smartphone or a tablet? Do people really double think that iPhone/iPad purchase just because of Flash? Does anyone even on Slashdot go Android just because of Flash?

Maybe I'm biased as I have an iPad but lacking Flash is a minor annoyance at best. If I switched to some other OS for a tablet or smartphone, Flash support is way at the bottom of the list of features I would switch for.

Personally, I think Flash needs to just die as it's only used for games and annoying ads.

Also, I really don't see why Flash should be in the headline. Unless BlackBerry is really targetting the Farmville segment of users.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[oodaloop]

Unless BlackBerry is really targetting the Farmville segment of users.

There's an app for that.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have an iPad now, you're probably an Apple fanboy(or girl).

Your leader has told you, "you don't need flash" and you believe him.

Real people use flash on the internet. That is why it is a deal breaker.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[gaspyy]

It's actually important for me.
From Google Analytics and Yahoo Finance to a game I play daily I rely on Flash. I actually like flash. I also like to be able to write my own flash app and to be able to install it on a device.

I seriously considered buying an iPad, but I decided against it due to lack of flash and MKV support (I understand there is a player albeit very buggy).

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have an iPad now, you're probably an Apple fanboy(or girl).

Dude, seriously ... shut your pie hole. Not everybody who bought an iPad is a drooling Apple Fanboi. Heck, I don't even own a Mac.

Your leader has told you, "you don't need flash" and you believe him.

I'm in a browser on a machine that doesn't have Flash installed. Flash is a buggy, insecure piece of crap that I've been avoiding for a bunch of years.

Real people use flash on the internet. That is why it is a deal breaker.

So far, the only things I've seen people say they can't live without is badgers badgers and farmville. For the rest of us, Flash offers nothing of value.

Flash free for years now, and not missing a damned thing -- a web page which is flash only just tells me I don't want your crap anyway.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

... needs to just die as it's only used for games and .....

One of the things I look forward to is the Apple voices fading out across the internet as they all move to read-only platforms like the iPad and the iPhone.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[netsavior]

My wife's netbook broke a few weeks before iPad launched and she was looking at getting one then: Wait, what? Hulu doesn't work on iPad, then what the heck is it for? Never mind, I'll just get another netbook. Sure I know that they have Hulu plus now, but for my wife who is more technical than some, but by no means a Slashgeek... Flash was a dealbreaker.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[AHuxley]

Flash would let you use a web cam for real.
The ability to broadcast from any location on any network to a world wide audience with a few clicks seems 'flash easy' at this time.
Apple is still trying to get beyond wifi and device lockin with its open FaceTime camera efforts.
Sure html5 is fast, pretty and new but easy UVC web cam support is still a ?

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Steve S]

Although I program in and use Flash daily, actual flash support was not a dealbreaker when I chose to get an android phone. It was important, sure, but not a dealbreaker. The dealbreaker was WHY flash isn't supported on apple products. It's clearly not a technical limitation since it can be installed on a jailbroken ipad and works well even through a compatibility layer http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/07/how-to-install-flash-on-your-jailbroken-ipad-for-real/. It's entirely political. I don't want to be told what I'm allowed to install or not. My devices are MY devices.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[El Neepo]

It's actually important for me.
From Google Analytics and Yahoo Finance

Thank you for informing me of legitimate Flash uses. Those and Hulu, that someone else mentioned, are good uses of Flash.

However, I do still think that the lack of Flash support isn't a way to shoot yourself in the foot. Apple obviously didn't support it. I'm just wondering if any other companies will follow suit because of whatever reason or do they really believe Flash is a must-have.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[PPalmgren]

Flash sways iPhone/iPad purchases because people beleive they should be able to think for themselves. The "think different" line is definitely no longer accurate.

You never know what they're going to decide for you next.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Does Flash support really make or break the deal when buying a smartphone or a tablet?"

I don't own an ipad because it lacks Flash. The primary reason I wanted a tablet was because I wanted a home viewer for legitimate streaming sites, many which are Flash based and encrypt the video data. Having a general purpose browser that worked well without restrictions would be a benefit. The ipad doesn't match either of these because it lacks Flash. Adobe is partly to blame, since they don' t have a clear Flash spec, but Apple is, to me, being the worse player, since they've restricted other programs and content from the app store.

There are other issues with the ipad, such as not being 16:9, or high enough resolution to adequate handle letterboxing in a 4:3 ratio, but they aren't deal breakers. Not being able to use common sites the way I want them, without a custom app released by that site, is annoying.

"Also, I really don't see why Flash should be in the headline"

Then you don' t use Flash, and are happy not using Flash. Not everyone is like you. Many people want Flash. As such, the company that puts out a decent device with Flash may win over that population of buyers who are interested in owning a tablet which supports Flash.

This is why Android 2.2, which supports 10.1, is to most people the tablet they may be waiting for, if device makers can put out a decent hardware package.

Maybe, I'm guessing, you're not a regular /. reader then either, as you don't seem to know you own an Apple product that has been lambasted for months for being closed, restricted, crippled, and lacking development tools, Flash often being cited as an example in all these cases.

Steve Jobs wrote an open letter criticizing Flash, and even belittled Adobe that they were late in getting Flash to mobile devices and having them worked well.

Then of course, Adobe released Flash 10.1 in final candidate for supposedly the upcoming Android release, and has been releasing decent Flash updates like 10.1 for most general purpose computing, and as a result, in my mind, become the second company to show in the past few months that Steve Jobs's way of thinking is backwards and old.

Jobs says AT&T is great and has great plans.

AT&T screws users with revamped plans.

Jobs talks about how great the iphone is, which runs pretty much the same OS as the ipad in its current gen. Tech folks point out Android devices have been making huge gains into that market.

It's the Macintosh and Windows debate all over again. Jobs hasn't grown up. Except this time, it's not MS with the general platform, it's Google, and Google is far superior to MS when it comes to putting out more open, clear products (even though it'll stay in beta for years).

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

While some of what you say might make sense to you, the fact is that Apple have been selling technology to people that are, shall we say, lacking in the technical department for years, and that's fair enough.

If you buy an ipad though, then it's a bit of a different matter - really its almost certain that you're not just a bit daft, but you're really very limited indeed. The ipad is a piece of overpriced crap - and this is obvious to all but the thickest amongst us. The lack of flash is probably the biggest omission but certainly not the only failing - the whole pos stinks to high heaven. But hey - it's ok dude; we can't all be Einsteins right!

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[masmullin]

as an iPad owner, i doubt my purchase because of the lack of flash. I couldn't watch the world cup on it, I cant see videos from my favourite sites (like tsn.ca), and there are lots of places where I see "you need to download flash to use this." Its actually much more annoying than I thought it would be. I dont care how technically poor flash is, the fact is there are tonnes of cool stuff done in flash that I cannot access on my iPad.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[masmullin]

I have an iPad, I am not a fanboy. I am very disappointed at not having flash on it.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[masmullin]

flash delivered the streaming world cup games. flash delivers lots of interviews from some of my favourite sites. flash delivers a HELL of a lot of content that I miss on my iPad. I can live without it... but I dont particularly want to.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[illumin8]

To be fair, the version of Flash that people are installing on their iPads is a hacked version of the Flash Player 10.1 for Android that was just barely released a couple weeks ago. It still has a lot of issues with Flash that requires hover actions, and playing back video at a decent framerate. Most of the complaints I've seen are that it is impossible to scrub video because the controls are too tiny to actually tap on with a finger.

Personally, I don't blame Apple for not including it with the iPad - It wasn't even available when the iPad was released, and it doesn't have the user experience Apple products are known for - trying to watch Flash video that is so small you can't even click on the play or pause button is going to be an exercise in frustration for anyone.

Once Adobe fixes these bugs, I have a feeling we might see something change from Apple, and they may include it with a future release of iOS or Safari.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[MistrBlank]

"Thank you for informing me of legitimate Flash uses. Those and Hulu, that someone else mentioned, are uses of Flash."

The use of "Good" is subjective. I happen to think it's a waste in Hulu Why do we not have flv support as a plain codec? Why is it still only usable in flash based players?

And you can't tell me those sites couldn't code their sites to work with Ajax or retool them for HTML5 (you know, an actual defined standard).

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[MistrBlank]

Pity she's now missing out on Hulu for the iPad. If that was her only reason, I feel bad that she's stuck with a "full sized" device that probably requires it to be plugged into the wall because flash just ate all the battery while watching her favorite show on hulu.

If you build it, they will write software for it, and in this case demand for Hulu on the iPad necessitated a push for it there.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[MistrBlank]

You didn't look hard enough, I watched world cup no problem with mine.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that there are two(or three, depending on how you cut them up) factors at work:

1. Yes, some people do need flash, for various reasons. Not as many as used to need it; but still some.

2. Given that Adobe, spurned by Apple, is in full breakup/rebound mode, alternately calling Apple at odd hours and leaving sobbing voice mails, and vowing that they don't need Apple, there are plenty of other device makers who are just as good, and Flash 10.1 will be not sucking on anything that isn't a 2+GHz wintel any day now; adding "Flash Support" is a relatively cheap and easy way for any non-Apple device maker to pick up a marketing bullet point, and possibly some of the users from point #1.

2(a)/3. Part of the reason that Apple doesn't need Flash is that they are the big fish. Loads of websites that do, in fact, require flash, have kicked out Apps that substitute for whatever functions were provided by flash. The Youtube app, and every other video app out there, various dedicated games, etc, etc. If you are not the big fish(and, in terms of 3rd party app development, RIM definitely isn't) you cannot depend on 3rd party providers going out of their way to build a native application just to support you. Ergo, you have to tailor your device to consume whatever their website dishes out.

What piques my curiosity, though is this "flash accelerator" hardware. If it is simply something like Broadcom's "CrystalHD", which Adobe could conceivably use to accelerate h.264 "flash video", then that is probably a good design decision; but nothing novel or wildly interesting. What would be much more interesting(and, to my knowledge, not previously seen) would be an actionscript accelerator, along the lines of the java acceleration that some embedded chipsets have. In addition to its novelty, actionscript is pretty damn similar to javascript. This would suggest, for certain purposes, hardware acceleration of javascript might be possible...

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Skuld-Chan]

I have Flash 10.1 Beta 1 on my Nexus One and its kinda handy actually - its fun to watch some of those funny web cartoons, or the videos on The Escapist, or the videos on crooksandliars.com, or an inline video someone linked on a blog to youtube/vimeo or whatever. Oddly enough this really is a case of "it just works" you can rest assured visit any site and everything on it will work without any external app I have to pay for or download. Yeah sometimes its a bit buggy (its never crashed though), and the phone itself sometimes doesn't handle really complex (or poorely optimized) flash files, but I suspect much of this will be addressed in the coming releases.

For me personally if I'm browsing the web I want it - and it is a deal breaker for me if the device doesn't have it.

And to answer the question of the Jobsian followers - it hasn't had any effect on battery performance - in fact since I've been using Froyo battery life on my Android phone has never been better.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[tlhIngan]

To be fair, the version of Flash that people are installing on their iPads is a hacked version of the Flash Player 10.1 for Android that was just barely released a couple weeks ago. It still has a lot of issues with Flash that requires hover actions, and playing back video at a decent framerate. Most of the complaints I've seen are that it is impossible to scrub video because the controls are too tiny to actually tap on with a finger.

Personally, I don't blame Apple for not including it with the iPad - It wasn't even available when the iPad was released, and it doesn't have the user experience Apple products are known for - trying to watch Flash video that is so small you can't even click on the play or pause button is going to be an exercise in frustration for anyone.

Once Adobe fixes these bugs, I have a feeling we might see something change from Apple, and they may include it with a future release of iOS or Safari.

More fundamentally, only the iPad meets the requirements for Flash. Adobe's Flash Player for Android requires a minimum 1GHz processor. Only the iPad has it (the iPhone 4 is rumored to be a 600-800MHz processor). Not a problem for Android since all the good ones all have 1GHz processors (pretty much out of necessity to get a really nice and smooth running phone). But Apple's not ramping up the CPU speed (they don't need to - even the 3GS with its 600MHz CPU is really speedy).

Jobs' next challenge for Adobe would be to get Flash running "great" on an iPhone 4 or something, which would be about 20% slower than the Android phones it already runs on, or this Blackberry device.

(And Jobs could easily force Adobe's hand by requiring third-party platforms support new features by new OS release date. App store apps using said platform will be removed until updated runtimes are available. Thus, native developers have advantages in having apps ready all the time, while those reliant on 3rd party platforms get locked out until the platform is updated. And everyone saves face, except Adobe has to work harder in getting their Flash updates in time with iOS updates...).

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[s73v3r]

Even if the iPad had Flash, Hulu would have blocked it. They do it with every other mobile device which supports Flash.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[s73v3r]

Flash 10.1 will be not sucking on anything that isn't a 2+GHz wintel any day now;

I will believe this when I see it.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[shutdown -p now]

I feel bad that she's stuck with a "full sized" device that probably requires it to be plugged into the wall because flash just ate all the battery

With more or less recent versions of Flash, it's perfectly usable on Windows, and not at all a "battery eater". All the complaints seem to be coming from other OSes.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[CdBee]

They could recode (at least to an extent, I remember Google recently commented on the difficulty of going all-the-way with Youtube because of certain advanced features they would have to drop.

Also, although Google analytics probably has a generous dev. budget, Yahoo is in a perilous financial position and maybe can't afford the designers and testing costs of a makeover into new technology (for Hulu i cannot comment, I know nothing of their finances)

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[RocketRabbit]

The *ONLY* people who are irritated at Apple's lack of flash are either flash "developers," Adobe employees, or internet marketoids. For just about everybody else it is merely a vector for free games, cheap porn, and eyeball-exploding advertising.

The trend among people I know has been to delete flash entirely, or use a flashblocker so it is more of an on-demand choice than something that gets thrust into your face.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[masmullin]

Its an apple... its supposed to "just work" I went to Canada's official carrier of world cup games (cbc.ca our official broadcaster), and wasn't able to see it. If I wanted to search around & fiddle, id get a netbook with ubuntu... I dont, I want it to just bloody work.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[illumin8]

(And Jobs could easily force Adobe's hand by requiring third-party platforms support new features by new OS release date. App store apps using said platform will be removed until updated runtimes are available. Thus, native developers have advantages in having apps ready all the time, while those reliant on 3rd party platforms get locked out until the platform is updated. And everyone saves face, except Adobe has to work harder in getting their Flash updates in time with iOS updates...).

That's an interesting idea, but what do you do when someone purchased an app only compatible with iOS 3.1.3 and they want to update to iOS 4? Do you just break all their existing (already purchased) apps? I suppose a lot of apps already break in this manner, but I would be more concerned with customers that may have bought very expensive apps like Omnigraffle ($50) who end up without being able to run it on future iOS versions.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Froyo update allowed me to watch the WC on the go on cbc.ca/sports, the legit provider in Canuckistan. That alone justified it to me. It was pretty smooth in fact.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[cbhacking]

Your "minimum 1GHz processor" argument is complete bullshit. The N800 had a 400 MHz processor (ARM-based, like iToPhoPad) and could run full Flash 9 just fine (it came with the device). This was three years ago, in the relatively early days of the iPhone, which actually had a more powerful CPU IIRC. Yes, hover was tricky, and yes, it used battery life more quickly, but it *worked* just fine.

There is not, and never was, a legitimate technical reason for lack of Flash on Apple's mobiles. Linux and OS X aren't identical, of course, but but don't try to tell me that Nokia could get Adobe to port Flash to Linux on ARM but Apple couldn't get them to port it to OS X on ARM. Even if that ever was the case, you can be damn sure Adobe would have been willing to do it in the intervening years, seeing Apple's sales numbers (the N800 and N810 were better devices from a nerd's technical perspective, but didn't have the mass-market appeal).

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[PPalmgren]

Parent is correct. For a more recent example, flash 10.1 is coming to the Droid. The Droid runs a 550mhz processor.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[mad.frog]

> Adobe's Flash Player for Android requires a minimum 1GHz processor

Actually, it doesn't, it just requires Froyo. It runs just fine on (e.g.) the MotoDroid, which is a ~600MHz ARM.

Of course, since Froyo isn't yet available for anything less than 1GHz...

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I happen to think it's a waste in Hulu Why do we not have flv support as a plain codec? Why is it still only usable in flash based players?

Hulu mentioned why they don't do that a little while ago.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[EXrider]

I feel bad that she's stuck with a "full sized" device that probably requires it to be plugged into the wall because flash just ate all the battery

With more or less recent versions of Flash, it's perfectly usable on Windows, and not at all a "battery eater". All the complaints seem to be coming from other OSes.

Exactly, Adobe can't seem to make Flash work well anywhere else other than Win32, it hasn't even been officially released on 64-bit Windows yet. It's a barely useable resource hog on MacOS and Linux. So do you actually think that Adobe can make Flash work well on mobile devices?

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[shutdown -p now]

it hasn't even been officially released on 64-bit Windows yet

It has been officially released on Win64 a long time ago - it's the same 32-bit plugin, which happily runs in the default 32-bit IE that comes in Win64.

A native 64-bit version - which is not required to run it on Win64 - hasn't been released yet, that is correct. But also largely irrelevant (they don't do it not because they can't do it, but because there's no business case for it).

So do you actually think that Adobe can make Flash work well on mobile devices?

Seems to work fine on my Nexus One.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[ahankinson]

Flash doesn't do any of that. H.264, the video codec Flash puts its own wrapper around, delivers all of that stuff. Remove the wrapper, and you've still got the same video stream. The issue isn't that the content is not available in an video format that the iPad can't play, it's that all the websites are slow to catch up on the shift. Give them time, however, and Flash will follow Realplayer into the history books.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[masmullin]

I can't wait. The world cup came and went and I couldn't watch it. Don't give me technicalities. I simply couldn't play the video on the iPad.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Zawahiri]

Striking parallels here to AOL users who still felt content to use the AOL-only Internet in 2001.

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[JNSL]

Frankly, you have no idea what you're talking about. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=YHOO+Key+Statistics

Re:Flash, that big a deal?

[Xarius]

And you can't tell me those sites couldn't code their sites to work with Ajax or retool them for HTML5 (you know, an actual defined standard).

HTML5 is not a defined standard yet, it's still very much a work-in-progress (although I do dislike Flash also.)

I hope the software doesn't suck

[ari_j]

I currently have a BlackBerry, and the operating system is horrid. I regularly have to pull the battery because the device's media processor gets tied up by software malfunctions, preventing ringtones from being played. The browser currently crashes entirely when viewing any Wikipedia page. Even sending a text message can take up to 90 seconds from the time I hit send and the time the device is usable again, apparently due to some ridiculously bad programming on the part of whoever wrote the message display software.

I am currently thinking about getting an iPad to replace my personal laptop entirely, probably after a few more first adopter issues get sorted out and I am convinced that I can carry on my normal workflow with it, browsing web pages and being able very quickly to switch to read and reply to instant messages and e-mails (which will most likely be in another browser window until a better Gmail app with threading becomes available), etc. I have an iPod Touch and believe that there is actual potential for the iPad to effectively replace my personal laptop. I also have a BlackBerry and I can't imagine a larger version of it being even the least bit useful.

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[DigiShaman]

I've got a Curve 8330 myself. Even though it has the latest OS (v4.5.0.175), it will still reboot on its own. Quite annoying. And yes, the processor is slow. I wish I hadn't updated Opera Mini. It's so damn slow, the mouse cursor skips all over the place. I will be dumping it for a Droid soon.

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[MMC Monster]

Blackberry is (unfortunately) being marginalized. They've still got a strong hold on the corporate market, but they see the writing on the wall. At some point Android and iPhones will be considered "good enough" for the corporate IT.

The problem is (as mentioned above) the blackberry OS sucks. I mean, it sucks almost as bad as Windows Mobile. That bad. It's a miracle it works at all with multimedia.

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[pnaro]

Mine is a piece of crap too. Luckily my employer pays for it.

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[ari_j]

I will likely end up with a Droid, as well. I actually had a Pearl 8130 for 2 years until this past January, when my contract came up and I got a 1-year contract on a Curve 8330 on a $20.10 promotion. My desire was to let the local Alltel assets get switched to AT&T and let Verizon get the Nexus One (which didn't happen) and have the bugs ironed out on both fronts by next January, when I will either get a Droid or (if available - AT&T's acquisition here has been a no-apparent-progress thing for the past 2 years or more) iPhone.

My iPod Touch is a curse, though - it makes me really want an iPhone. But I'm sure I'd be happy with a Droid as well. All I know is that a buggy Droid would beat my BlackBerry, which has no excuse for that kind of crap given how long they've had to mature the platform.

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[ari_j]

Have you considered going on strike?

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[Anonymous Coward]

4.5.x might be the latest version approved by your network carrier, but that version is 3-4 years old. Try the 5.x series which you can get on crackberry.com. The 6.x series is also slated to come out sometime this year.

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[COMON$]

Preach it. Really all we are waiting for (us blackberry admins) is a good management server for Android or iPhone. Really all we want to do is be able to put policies on our phones so they automatically lock and encrypt. We could do these one at a time but when you have more than 10-20 phones this becomes problematic. Are there any projects out there for this?

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[s73v3r]

Wasn't the 5.x series made for the Storm devices, and not the regular Blackberries?

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[EXrider]

Preach it. Really all we are waiting for (us blackberry admins) is a good management server for Android or iPhone. Really all we want to do is be able to put policies on our phones so they automatically lock and encrypt. We could do these one at a time but when you have more than 10-20 phones this becomes problematic. Are there any projects out there for this?

I know of no such thing for Android yet, but there is centralized management with onboard encryption and remote-kill/lock capability available for iPhone/iPod Touch, see the Apple marketing speak here for more info. On the bottom-right of that page there are PDF links for Deployment Resources.

I'm currently researching all of this because our BES users are fed up with BB OS and it's useless browser, so we're looking to jump ship possibly to either iPhone, Android or *shudder* Windows Mobile 7.

Does anyone know of some management tools available for Android? All I can find are articles saying it's coming.

Re:I hope the software doesn't suck

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not at all. I use it in my curve 8900. new ones come out every couple of weeks. Sometimes they have a few bugs, so just keep upgrading until you find one stable enough for you and then stop.

More Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

I am with Linus on this one.
Totally agree with Linus.

A Blackberry tablet?

[shikaisi]

That would be a fruit lozenge then?

Do you know what day it is, kiddies?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Patch Tuessay! Go get your patches! Seriously!

Well isn't this cute.

[Anonymous Coward]

BBOS has been stuck in some usability quagmire since the Quark. RIM knew that business users don't like being bombarded with a constant stream of change, so they sat on their laurels and did absolutely nothing with their captive, well-moneyed audience. Not a damn thing. Now they're little more than a third-tier also-ran struggling to become relevant once again. Sorry, this tablet is far too little, far too late.

Re:Well isn't this cute.

[COMON$]

Well that is kind of the way many of these companies go *cough*palm. You have forums filled with threads of people asking for a feature or improvement. Then RIM releases something that not one person asked for. Seriously, community driven development is the way to go. That is why I have so much hope for the Android. I like companies that ask the users what they want rather than telling them what they want.

Apple In 3rd Place And Losing Marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm sure Jim Balsillie gives a shit about Apple and its falling marketshare in the cellphone market and what type of tablet a bunch of Hipster Douchebags bought.

Jim Balsillie is worried about Google and the explosive growth of 2nd place Android.

Re:Apple In 3rd Place And Losing Marketshare

[morgan_greywolf]

In addition, Jobs isn't worried about BlackBerry, either. Jobs has been shown to be visibly upset about Google and the explosive growth of the 2nd place Android.

Re:Apple In 3rd Place And Losing Marketshare

[Thinboy00]

So, why is GP Troll and parent Insightful?

Trackpad

[Zaffle]

Of course, in the tradition of blackberry, the device will be a tablet with a keyboard, and won't have a touch screen. Fortunately they will instead use the new trackpad, instead of the trackball. Blackberry don't have a good record with touchscreen... In fact, its pretty atrocious. People forget, the touchscreen is what makes a device. This is why iPhone, iPad, etc are so popular, Apple have nailed the touchscreen. (btw - in case anyone accuses me of otherwise - Avid blackberry user, hate the iPhone, love the blackberry, but I call it like it is - Apple ownz touchscreens).

Re:Trackpad

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "nailed the touchscreen" you mean "nailed it to the wall".

The touchscreen on the iPhone (and the many other trend-follower phones that now use capacitive technology) is crude, at best, compared to the previously used resistive screens.

Let me reiterate: the iPhone touchscreen makes the devices less useful, as in, less usable. They are limited significantly by the capacitive touchscreen (lack of) sensitivity, and as a result have to compensate in crude ways such as "multitouch".

Resistive touchscreens were better. They had (have) higher resolution and the ability to do finite things with them (pen or finger) was possible. What the hell does it matter if your screen has a high resolution if all you can do with it that I can't with mine is watch higher resolution porn?

Re:Trackpad

[Zerth]

Funny, you'd think a blackberry user would remember the bb storm. All screen, no keyboard and it distinguishes hovering from clicking.

Not that I'm saying the bb storm touchscreen was particularly good, but at least it let you interact with the web as if you had a mouse. Now if only it didn't freeze up every other week.

Re:Trackpad

[quacking duck]

Funny, you'd think a blackberry user would remember the bb storm. All screen, no keyboard and it distinguishes hovering from clicking.

Not that I'm saying the bb storm touchscreen was particularly good, but at least it let you interact with the web as if you had a mouse. Now if only it didn't freeze up every other week.

We're looking at different Canadian carriers for replacement work phones, all offer the iPhone and classic keyboard-equipped Blackberries, none offer Storm on their business plans. When asked, one of them said it didn't meet their quality requirements for a business device.

Interestingly they have no problems selling it to consumers.

Underwhelmed?

[Hadlock]

I really like my Blackberry. As a phone. It's nigh indestructible, and the OS is ideal for the itsy bitsy 2.5" screen. I can even buy aftermarket replacement parts for it (trackball). However the smartphone industry has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last year. As much as I am satisfied with my BlackBerry, I know it's so far behind the curve now that even their new OS 5 can't save them now. My next phone will for sure be an Android device, maybe an iPhone. Even the new "Windows Phone 7" isn't completely distasteful. Do you really want to buy a consumer device tablet running an outdated OS designed for enterprise users? On an oversized tablet device? There's so many better options out there, starting with the Apple iPad, various Chrome/Android products in the works, and HP has a WebOS tablet in the works. But something running the Blackberry OS in this day and age simply looks....antiquated. RIM may never catch up in the smartphone OS race at this point; I think the BB Storm is proof of that. And with the Motorola Charm on the horizon... well, we come to bury RIM, not praise their outdated OS.

Re:Underwhelmed?

[ThosLives]

I recently received a BB Bold from my company for work (I didn't really want a smartphone, but the BB Bold was literally 50% of the options offered by Verizon that did not have a camera, and the other 50% was some soon-to-be discontinued BB model; I work at locations that prohibit cameras and actually enforce that policy).

During my initial attempt to familiarize myself with the phone, the thing crashed while using the default browser on the NOAA website. Not just hung, mind you, but dump to the white screen with hex codes on it (that incidentally didn't stay there long enough to record to send in a bug report or whatever).

I was not impressed that the phone crashed in such a manner within an hour of booting it for the first time (and seriously - 60 seconds to boot a phone? A phone is an appliance, it shouldn't have to "boot".)

I still dislike smartphones...they have become portable computers with voice features rather than phones with computing capability. I wish the phone manufacturers would go back to the old way of thinking about things in this regard.

Re:Underwhelmed?

[jomcty]

I agree with your sentiment about smartphones in general. At times I enjoy the features of a more advanced phone, but do we really need more that the trusty Nokia 1100? It seems to me that the BlackBerry is the middle ground.

Re:Underwhelmed?

[moosesocks]

running an outdated OS designed for enterprise users?

Enterprise user here. Apart from the exchange support and BES (which is admittedly quite nifty and unique), I certainly wouldn't argue that Blackberry's OS fits our needs to a T. In fact, we're routinely frustrated by almost all aspects of it.

I've said this many times, but it bears repeating -- The first phone manufacturer who can make a product that functions as a drop-in replacement for BES will capture the enterprise smartphone market. It's ripe for the picking.

Re:Underwhelmed?

[EXrider]

and seriously - 60 seconds to boot a phone?

60 seconds!? Lucky! My POS 8820 stuck on lowly OS 4.6 takes 6 fucking minutes to boot with a 2GB MicroSD card in the slot, with no progress indicator, just that annoying blinking clock on a white background.

Flash rulez

[Anonymous Coward]

My college just got HTC desire he was playing with it and he's like "Hey it supports flash!!! ... I wonder if there's a flash block" :D

Re:Flash rulez

[Anonymous Coward]

Your college speaks to you in person? My university just sends me impersonal bulk emails from time to time.

Seriously a tablet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rim or whomever they are called better get thier asses in gear and start making the next generation PDA's.

I am about a hairs breath away from moving to the new Apple iphone.

I am not what you call a die hard crack berry user, but damn to see that Apple iphone in action I am almost there.

If it's anything like my corporate Blackbury

[Nicolas MONNET]

It will crash all the time.

It will not display most web pages properly.

It will be slow as fuck.

The user interface will be confusing, the error messages will use inadequate terminology, esp. in i18n.

Scrolling through long lists will give you callosities.

It will be butt ugly.

But it will have great battery life!

In other words, I won't ever be seen carrying in one except if I'm forced to by the incompetent nazis at the IT department.

Re:If it's anything like my corporate Blackbury

[Ubergrendle]

The keyboard and battery alone make Blackberrys very good, if not the best, mobile wireless devices for the enterprise. Given Apple's 'f u' corporate service focus and poor enterprise support, its not a surprise that most large orgnaisations support the iPhone grudgingly, if at all. Blackberries don't provide great mobile internet browsing, because that's not their primary purpose. "Incompetent nazis" suggest to me you lack perspective and experience in supporting 10,000-100,000 users.

Re:If it's anything like my corporate Blackbury

[Anonymous Coward]

...you lack perspective and experience in supporting 10,000-100,000 users.

And this, right here, is the only part in which RIM truly shines. BES is a management dream come true. It's just a shame their phones and OS blows goats.

Re:If it's anything like my corporate Blackbury

[Nicolas MONNET]

> "Incompetent nazis" suggest to me you lack perspective and experience in supporting 10,000-100,000 users.

I'm not calling them incompetent nazis because they use Crapberry, I'm calling them incompetent Nazis because they are incompetent and arrogant.

Re:If it's anything like my corporate Blackbury

[helix2301]

With the way Rim focus on the business market this might really take off for them especially if it integrates with blackberry enterprise server.

Re:If it's anything like my corporate Blackbury

[Anonymous Coward]

i do not know about incompetence but you are arrogant for sure
    --Another Nicolas

P.s. seul les académicien pétulant capitalise leur nom de famille!

Re:If it's anything like my corporate Blackbury

[MistrBlank]

"Given Apple's 'f u' corporate service focus and poor enterprise support,"

Not sure what you're talking about but the crappy Enterprise Exchange support on the blackberries make me laugh at my colleagues who allowed their phones to be "upgraded".

I stayed on a 4 year old xv6700 with WinMo 6 to avoid the "upgrade" to Blackberry because I at least get to keep my task lists and a calendar and email I can navigate quickly and at least resembles Outlook to some degree. They always complain about how crappy the email client on their Curves are.

And my personal iPhone is an AWESOME client for an Exchange account minus task management support (which is the only thing it doesn't do for me).

Re:If it's anything like my corporate Blackbury

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, many Africans do it, too. Maybe it was something in the old French system that got passed down to them.

Good Liddle iFanboy! Now Roll Over!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sooooo cute! Jobs has his little fanboy army so well trained!

"OMG!!! I TOTALLY don't want teh Flash!!!"

-wags tail and looks for a treat from its master...-

This will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Only Apple can pull off a successful tablet because tablets are not really useful and only Apple fanbois can justify blowing their entire paycheck on a shiny but useless toy.

CAPTCHA: gimmick

A tablet...from blackberry?

[grasshoppa]

That's two strikes, I'm waiting for the third.

It's not that blackberry can't make an OS...it's just that their OS isn't one I want to use for recreational purposes. Corporate email? Ok, they've got that locked up, I'll grant them that. But usable might be a bit of a stretch.

And a tablet? It's a niche market, at best. Sure, because apple released a tablet everyone's nipples are hard for one, but honestly it's a flash in the pan. What app will really drive people to a device with no keyboard, or any physical input method whatsoever? Portable media player is about all I've got here.

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[macs4all]

Sure, because apple released a tablet everyone's nipples are hard for one, but honestly it's a flash in the pan.

Sounds like Bill Gates' famous 1993 quote regarding the internet: "The Internet? We are not interested in it".

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[grasshoppa]

Ok, you tell me what use a tablet is then. I can see it as a fancy media player...but other than that, what? eReader? Web browser? I realize many geeks are skilled in browsing one-handed ( myself included ), but that's not a skill that the general public is interested in learning.

What problem is a tablet trying to solve that would dismiss the format's failings?

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[CAIMLAS]

RIM doesn't have corporate email locked up. Apparently that's mainly a Midwest thing; people in traditional GSM markets have been using WinMo + Exchange for quite some time.

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[ceoyoyo]

You named them. Reader and web browser. To the average person the Internet IS the web, e-mail and IM, probably in that order. The iPad excels at the first two and is decent at the third. It's convenient to use on the couch (where most people want to use the web, e-mail and IM), it runs cool and is lighter than a notebook.

As for an reading, colour tablets are going to soon be pretty much required for students and people who need to have a lot of technical documentation around.

And if, for some reason, you really need a keyboard, hook one up. It's not hard.

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[grasshoppa]

That's exactly why I said that. Having used WinMo, blackberry definitely has the edge.

While the Blackberry OS does suck, it's nowhere near the the level of suck that is Windows Mobile. Maybe that'll change with 7, who knows.

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[grasshoppa]

You missed my point; the physical format of the device requires you lay it down on something or use it one handed. eReader, ok. Media player, fine. Web browser? Not so much. Email? Again, not so much. IM? I don't know anyone who actually likes using a virtual keyboard. Smartphone users do it because their mobile options are limited, but that's not a niche this device is trying to fill.

Most users who would have a tablet will also have a laptop, complete with keyboard AND is easier to use on the couch. They will use their laptops for email, browsing and IM.

So again, what niche is everyone trying to fill?

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[ceoyoyo]

I suppose you can use a netbook or notebook with both hands without laying it down on something? Or even with just one hand? Good luck with that.

I doubt very much you've actually tried an iPad or iPad-like tablet. Or observed how the average person uses a computer at home, for that matter.

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[grasshoppa]

Except, you know, you can set the laptop/netbook down, and the screen presents itself at an angle.

I've used an iPad, but perhaps I'm missing this functionality of it somehow?

( one of us is very confused. Given you still don't really understand what I'm saying, I'm guessing it's you )

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[Hadlock]

As far as I can tell, Microsoft has ceded the enterprise market to RIM with the introduction of Win Phone 7, which looks like a mostly consumer OS. There's got to be some detail they're leaving out about the new MS phones; when phone7 was announced there was hardly any mention about buisness use. I guess they'll expect buisness customers to continue to use WinMo 5/6 which has a featureset from five years ago?

Re:A tablet...from blackberry?

[ceoyoyo]

If you want to type on the thing, you need to have a case with a wedge so it sits at an angle. Or you can stick something under it. there's a tape measure sitting on my coffee table right now that looks like it would work pretty well. Of you can just hook up a keyboard.

It seems to be MOST useful when it's not sitting on something though. Look at how most people use a computer. They look at web pages or video and read articles, forums and e-mail. Sure, a tablet isn't an ideal platform for writing the essay-emails my mother sometimes sends out, but most of the time it's exactly what you want - something small and light enough to use on the couch, where you definitely do not want to have to set the thing down on something. For typing in the odd Google search you can hunt and peck. You can't use a netbook or notebook that way, at all.

Anyone Ever Actually Seen An iPad In Real Life?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean other than Starbucks?

Anyone???

Flash? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when do we like Flash around here? Wasn't it the Scourge Of The Intarwebs or sumfin?

Re:Flash? Really?

[awshidahak]

We don't. We just need it for half of the internet (cause most webdevs don't know better).

Ho Hum - more vaporware

[rclandrum]

This certainly isn't news. Apple comes out with a popular device, so everyone else thinks they have to come out with one, too. Everybody makes future vaporware announcements to see what the reaction might be, but until they are actually on the market and you can buy one, they are just PR fluff.

Re:Ho Hum - more vaporware

[Xest]

Tablets have been coming out long before Apple made one so the idea that any tablet release now is a response to the iPad is just stupid. Tablets released now as much a response to the iPad than the iPad was to Microsoft's courier anouncement, or any of the millions of Windows tablets that have been commonly available to those who want one for at least a decade.

We did a trial using Windows XP tablets in 2003 in a few schools, they weren't so popular then simply because the hardware was a little too bulky- only around the initial advent of netbooks did general computing kit really become small enough to start doing devices like tablets properly.

Of course, we've even had laptops with screens that twist to allow you to turn it into a tablet for years now too, and they're certainly way ahead of tablets simply because they are so effectively dual function. They aren't really much bulkier and certainly aren't any heavier than the iPad, which is a suprisingly heavy device for it's size.

Re:Ho Hum - more vaporware

[rclandrum]

I agree that there were tablets way before Apple's iPad. My point was that I was tired of hearing yet another vaporware announcement of an upcoming tablet that doesn't yet exist. I define "exist" as available for purchase. Seems to me that once Apple managed to create a tablet that was commercially successful, that a bunch of wannabe tablet competitors are coming out of the woodwork with advance announcements that really amount to trial balloons. In my opinion it isn't really news - i.e. deserving of posting on Slashdot - until its reality, not illusion.

Re:Ho Hum - more vaporware

[Xest]

I think the issue is that Apple is good at generating pre-release hype by having an extremely loyal (scarily so sometimes!) fanbase, and sometimes by controlled leaks or small snippets of authorised information.

Other companies feel the pressure of that, and attempt to do the same, but as they don't have fanbases quite so rabid as Apple's it comes out as a bit dull- much like this very Blackberry tablet announcement.

I guess Apple are just fortunate enough to have built an insanely loyal fanbase that get excited about the slightest tidbit of infomation, and are simply better doing their pre-release announcements in a way that stirs hype and discussion. As you say- when RIM announce one it doesn't have quite the same charm I suppose does it?

I'm not an Apple fan, far from it, I don't like them much at all, it seems barely a product release goes by without some fault in the product suggesting poor QA, and I don't like their policies at all on app development and the likes, I don't even agree Apple stuff is easy to use- I've found it an absolute pain in the arse to do some things the times I have had to use them. But despite all that, despite my distaste for Apple, each time they announce something new I do take a look, and do talk about it with colleagues and so forth, and love Apple or loathe Apple, it's really that that separates their marketing and announcements from the rest, they just no how to generate hype, and I believe the controversy some of their bad decisions make may even be a calculated part of that- because it ensures even their detractors are mentioning their products and keeping them in the public view, as they say, there aint no such thing as bad publicity I guess.

Re:Ho Hum - more vaporware

[rclandrum]

Whenever Apple comes out with a product that becomes a commercial success, commentary breaks down into two main groups:

1. Apple products are crap - the reason they are a success is that there is a rabid fanboy base that eagerly sucks up Apple's substandard stuff.

2. Apple products are revolutionary - the reason they are a success is that Apple has managed to combine usability and features in exactly the right mix to create a product everyone wants.

At this point in the history of technology, it doesn't much matter which viewpoint is correct - Apple's products get enormous play in the market - whether that is the result of fanboy pressure or because the stuff is insanely great. The result is that they sell millions of whatever they release. And because of that, they are in the drivers seat when it comes to defining the shape of things to come, whether it's what an MP3 player should look like and how it should operate, what a real smartphone should look like and how it should operate, or what a real tablet should look like and how it should operate.

Until Apple stumbles and falls on their face with a bad product (the external antenna goof probably won't make that happen), or some other manufacturer manages to create a revolutionary product that catches the public eye, or create a fanbase to rival Apple's, they will continue to define the future of portable consumer computing.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tablet device form-factor has been around for a number of years before the ipad and in realitive terms nobody cared. As the market responded to poor sales they were scaled back.

Everyone seems to be revisiting this path because of Apple. In my opinion this is just a short lived fad that will ultimatly die but not before it saps some R&D energy from the smartphone industry.

The tablet convertable notebooks with the twist screens in my view were amoung the coolest ideas because you get the best of both worlds. For some applications the tablet form factor makes a lot of sense but for many the harsh reality is you just can't get any real work done without a real keyboard and something that does not resemble a laptop where both horz vert directions are not taken advantage of would end up being much larger in terms of space required to use than a laptop and in my opinion more ackward to use.

Smart phones are getting bigger and have touch screens .. how many gadgets do people really need? I'm sure the answer for some is never enough. At the end of the day those betting on inventing a new mass-market are in for disappointment.

What are blackberries good for?

[Qubit]

I've never carried a blackberry myself, although I do know a fair number of people who were issued them for work. I remember my father saying that there were a few younger folks at his workplace that loved their crackberries back in the day, but for him it was just an oversized cell phone.

Now that you can get similar devices on pretty much every cell network, with your choice of iPhone, Android, or Windows Mobile (Win7?) OSes, I really don't see why anyone would particularly care about what RIM is creating, especially as AFAIK they have a pretty closed environment with no corresponding desktop OS.

I gotta assume that there's some way to develop applications for the Blackberry OS, but I can't ever remember anyone talking about it.

I guess there are some companies that might issue a standard set of devices, just like issuing standard laptops to everyone, but I'm still finding it hard for them to justify the tablet form factor.

So.... why would anyone actively *want* a Blackberry tablet?

Re:What are blackberries good for?

[jd2112]

What are blackberries good for?

Making pies. Yum!

Re:What are blackberries good for?

[ducomputergeek]

BES is the reason I hear most enterprising loving their blackberries because they can push out apps do remote wipes, etc..

Re:What are blackberries good for?

[Hadlock]

They have a really good keyboard. Email, facebook, phonebook, phonecam integration is superb, it even has a (rather good!) integrated PDF viewer. But it can't browse the web worth shit. Blackberries were excellent devices barely a year ago, but I think RIM got blindsided by cheap, excellent Android phones. I think their OS development VP thought they had at least another year before Android really caught on, and could count on the iPhone exclusivity contract to bide their time. Sadly, nowadays a Blackberry Curve that looked like an excellent phone/buy a year ago, now looks terribly dated. With the advent of "free android phone with 2 year contract", RIM may have lost whatever foothold they had carved out for themselves in the consumer market. Android phones are better in practically everyway for the consumer. Except the fantastic keyboards.

Re:What are blackberries good for?

[EXrider]

I would not count BlackBerry's Facebook integration as superb by any means. The BlackBerry Facebook app (which is written by RIM btw) works about as well as their POS browser, it fails to scroll reliably amongst other glaring bugs, check it's less than stellar 2-star rating in BB App World. It hasn't been updated in almost a year either, which should tell you something about their commitment to the average consumer.

Re:What are blackberries good for?

[Hadlock]

My version of the facebook app has been updated three times this year ??? Maybe there are different versions for different generation BBs. My 8320 has the FB app and I haven't run into any of the issues you're talking about. My only gripe is the high level of compression they use on "mobile uploads" pictures.

Re:What are blackberries good for?

[Xest]

"I gotta assume that there's some way to develop applications for the Blackberry OS, but I can't ever remember anyone talking about it."

Oh I'm sure you have, it's called Java.

RIM does well with the Blackberry not because they try and build better devices per-se, but because their devices still to this day integrate better with corporate IT infrastructure than any other manufacturers do. Many people who haven't touched Blackberry Enterprise Server have heard of it and assume it's just a tool for interfacing Blackberrys with e-mail but it does more than that- it can convert attachments such as PDFs or Excel files into a format more readable on the device before pushing it to it, it provides corporate IM services, it allows you to manage security policies, you can push out bespoke businesses applications to your devices and so forth. The fact that you can effectively completely manage your company's mobile phones without the users having to bring them into the office (great for if you have mobile users like Salesmen) is a big deal that no other manufacturer has really got quite right yet.

Now that's not to say that I'm a fan of Blackberry devices, I'm not, I'm an Android fan who was previously a Nokia/S60 fan if anything, but at the end of the day there's good reason that RIM owns the business smartphone marketplace- because flashy user interfaces are less important than the ability to manage all your devices centrally and save a fortune on support costs and the likes.

For what it's worth I don't see this tablet being worthwhile either, but then I'm still not overly convinced about tablets in general, laptops with foldable or even detachable screens make much more sense as you get the benefits of both worlds then. With some of ASUS' thin form factors, or the MacBook Air form factor we've seen we can do thin laptops, if we can also just rotate the screens to turn it into a tablet so it can be used as a tablet or a laptop then flexible laptops like this still seem the smartest way forward, because at the end of the day tablets by themselves maybe convenient for a few things but are still crippled when it comes to many other things- this sort of flexible device would not be. We already have them in larger laptop form factors, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to minituarise them now or soon.

Re:What are blackberries good for?

[EXrider]

1.7.0.22 is the latest version, it was last updated on 11/18/2009. A quick Google search reveals other people complaining about the imfamous scroll issue here.

The low point of the IT industry

[paxcoder]

Hardware acceleration specifically for Flash.

NOOOOOOOO...

[COMON$]

In other news PalmOS creates a tablet...

Seriously, as a BB admin I can say that their OS sucks big hairy balls. Why would I want, or why would ANYONE want a tablet edition of this? Even with the BIS, you are so limited in what you can do..eg I can brick it and a couple other neat tricks. What is the point? You are a sinking ship BB, going the way of palm because you are a one trick pony whose trick isn't even good anymore.

Things that BB needs to fix before they can even pretend to compete with iPhone and Android devices:

1. Fix the damn OS so it doesn't take 5 to 20 minutes to boot based on the memory card.

2. Allow wifi hotspots from your devices. I mean good lord, you are a business phone! you should at least make the tethering simple and allow 802.11...idiots.

3. Allow at least some kind of reasonable management software...installing 300MB of roxio and desktop crap just to back up my phone? WTF.

4. You havent updated BIS in what? 2 years? Features like online backup are listed but unusable..literally? Any of you who have used BIS know the fun that is installing BIS and managing it, a hundred options, 20% of which are disabled waiting to be finished. Oh yea and it can only be installed on 2003 x32 or less...on a good day.

5. Finally, slap verizon for charging an extraneous $15 charge per phone just for using BIS.

With our next rollout, as the admin i am recommending we switch to an iPhone or Android based phone, depending on who comes out with a central management app first, but that even isnt necessary.

Re:NOOOOOOOO...

[jamesyouwish]

You really call yourself a Blackberry admin using BIS. Come on we all no that sucks. BES on the other hand is what you should be using. I cannot say it is great but I can say it allows me to securely deliver email to my corporate users.

Re:NOOOOOOOO...

[COMON$]

ya I get yelled at for saying BES as well. Technically I am using BPS. And it really is no more secure than OWA.

It's the ebook market stupid...

[accessbob]

Books are going digital. Newspapers are going digital. Magazines are going digital. Journals are going digital. Print is under 10 years from being as popular as a dial-up internet connection. Not that it won't exist, but it will be a dinosaur existing in niche markets. All the device manufacturers are going after the market. RIM is just the latest.

Tethering

[jamesyouwish]

Well at least I wont be tied with a second bill to AT&T. I can tether it off my existing Verizon data plan that is unlimited!

get a Wacom Cintiq

[WillAdams]

They've been available for years now --- but they're expensive enough that most people won't buy them:

http://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Cintiq-12WX-12-Inch-Display/dp/B00115OFJK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1279042099&sr=8-1

List price $1,199.99 --- on sale ``just'' $947.54 at the moment.

William

Why this is going to be a success

[frank249]

When the BlackPad comes out I will be the first in line to get one. The main reason will be that I already have a great dataplan for my Blackberry and I will not have to pay for another dataplan. What will also set Blackberry out from the crowd is that their OS and servers are way more effiecient at using bandwidth. I am a very hearvy user of emailmail and internet on my blackberry and I have yet to ever come close to using 25% of my dataplan limit. Now with the Blackpad, I will now not have to go through the bother of tethering my BB to a laptop to use a bigger screen. The new OS6 fixes all the problems with the web browser so all in all I cannot see any downside.

Re:Why this is going to be a success

[EXrider]

The new OS6 fixes all the problems with the web browser so all in all I cannot see any downside.

Oh, because you've used OS6? Sorry, I remain skeptical. RIM claimed that there would be numerous improvements to BB Browser in OS5 which was not the case when it came release time.

What are they going to call it?

[Vector Meson]

The RIMShot? !!

blackberry appeal?

[yivi]

Hi there,

Could someone please explain me what's the big deal about BlackBerry? Every time I tried to use one of those I hated the experience, from top to bottom, and never managed to understand why anyone would actually choose a device by RIM than from Nokia or even SE (or now Apple).

Is it the Enterprise support with things like the BlackBerry server? But now you can get that with other phones, right? I mean, even with Google Apps you get most of that now through their Exchange support...

Is it that they were the first (that I know of) on getting mail to be "pushed" to the device, and hence got enough mindshare to keep on selling despite being horrible?

Or is it just a thing about different tastes/cultures between American and Europeans?

I don't know, at the company I work for we were just about to upgrade all our phones, and they sent me a couple of BBs trying to get us to get in the BlackBerry wagon. Again, I was disappointed, and hurriedly chose something else from Nokia, as usual

Regards,

I.-