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BlackBerry 10 Unveiled
arcite writes "Research in Motion Ltd's new CEO, Thorsten Heins, unveiled BlackBerry 10 in Florida today. Will new features such as a virtual keyboard that learns from typing behavior and a camera that easily focuses on faces be enough to scrape back precious market share (which could possibly fall to 5%) from the likes of Apple and Android? With no physical device yet revealed and a release date ranging anywhere from August to October, it will be an uphill battle."
Engadget had some brief hands-on time with a dev Alpha. It seems RIM is trying to jumpstart app development through its App Generator and financial incentives.
and the all-new 2013 Tucker will run on air.
RIM is out in the garden at this point with all the other vegetables, and you can write your investment off.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
...and wind down of the company while it is still somewhat profitable? i.e., before management does all those desperate things they like to do at the end, like pay themselves huge retention bonuses and blow metric assloads of money on hail-mary projects metaphysically certain to fail, all of which buries the company in debt that will cause shareholders to receive nothing from the bankruptcy certain to result.
"App Generator" and similar services for iOS and Android are the reason why crApp stores are filled with millions of worthless crApps. What exactly is the point of a single crApp that functions exactly like a web browser but is limited to a single site, when you could just use the system web browser to do the same thing?
Of course, Apple and BlackBerry love the concept, because it means they get to claim they have "millions of crApps". (Ironically, just a few years ago, Apple fanboys were claiming that the Mac platform was better because even though it had fewer applications, the quality was higher than Windows. Funny how their tone changed when the iPhone App Store was unveiled.)
BB is a business phone, I think any attempt to make it more of a toy can only make matters worse.
Apple and Android are very tough competitors, no point aiming at ousting them.
Business people (if they exist, of course) need a phone which performs the usual basic office tasks, can be used a whole day without the battery dying and easily ties in to the corporate communications suite.
As such, I'd /really/ like to see them succeed. I watched them grow from a little company on Shoemaker Dr in Kitchener to the conglomerate they are now. They employ many of my friends.
That said, I don't think they can. They've been waaaay behind the curve and resting on their laurels for a really long time now. And it's bit them in the ass.
The Playbook is still a disaster. Their current phone offerings suck. And this device has ditched hardware keyboard, which was one of the things RIM really did right.
Pass.
I bought a blackberry because I couldn't stand the idea of letting Apple control another one of my gadgets, much less my phone.
What I got is an obviously flawed piece of technology that had to be replaced twice and even when working correctly was underwhelming at best. Even iTunes is better than using a Blackberry.
While I bought a BB with high hopes which were crushed over the next two years, my trusty Android has served me well for over the past couple years. Unlike with my blackberry I wasn't impatiently waiting out my 2 year contract eager to get a new phone.
That said, I'm really looking forward to the Galaxy S3
It's not unreasonable to say that at this point, most people who want smartphones and would be in their market have purchased one, and many are one or two years away from being able to by a Blackberry 10 device anyways.
Many people have already become involved in a non-RIM ecosystem (iOS, WM, or Android), and ecosystem inertia is a huge factor. The sunk cost in buying the compliment of apps one wants or needs is huge, and makes people very reluctant to "try something new" for a phone. At best, I think RIM is competing to keep the people who use Blackberries now, and haven't yet moved to another system. Which is good, but not ultimately sustainable, and is aiming for reduced shrinkage rather than actual growth.
They can lure developers, but all that that does it make it hurt less for users to switch to Blackberry (because they'll still never compete with Apple or Android in app variety). They could lure consumers with pricing, but for most people, any ecosystem switch has a $100+ app re-purchase penalty, not to mention the apps that simply can't be purchased at all and the time it would take to move over.
Simply put, the only thing (I think) that can save RIM would be something revolutionary. Some feature, certification, approach, or situation that makes people say "You know what, screw the apps, screw the extra time and money, I want THAT, and I'll do what it takes to get it."
I don't see that having happened here, sorry, RIM, but the writing's on the wall.
Yup! Even all the developers at QNX (It's in my city and I've actually worked there), won't care, because the OS has other solid customers. In the worst case, they'll get sold off by a dying RIM and it will be business as usual build dashboards for Harman-Becker and all the other companies who swear by QNX.
I recently had an opportunity to change phones from the absolutely disastrous experience I was having with my BB Torch 9800 (keyboard too small, unbalanced when slid open, crashy and laggy OS, battery sucking bugs, etc...)
My only choices at work were BB Bold 9900 or an iPhone 4S. My wife owns an iPhone 4, so I'm very familiar with both platforms. What it came down to for me was that after all the gee-whiz novelty of apps, games and fancy touch screen gestures wears off, what I need my phone to do is handle email, texts, phone calls and some light RSS news feeds without pissing me off. The iPhone blows Blackberry away in almost every way, but the physical keyboard is just that good on the Bold, so I went with (possibly my last?) Blackberry.
At this late juncture, for RIM's sake, they either better have a lot of people like me still out there or they'll need to need to play the consumer catchup game seriously, which means equaling or surpassing Apple on the hardware and OS fronts and building an ecosystem that doesn't completely suck. Microsoft looks poised to become #3 as it stands, and you don't want to know what happens to the #4 player in this space.
You could have said the same thing to the Apple shareholder when Mr. Pepsi ran it to the ground.
The PB is not a disaster; it is the most business-friendly tablet out. That might change if Samsung does a really good job on ICS for the Note, but at this point they are behind RIM, even though they are ahead on consumer tablets.
One key thing for Blackberry is that, if they go for a touchscreen keyboard, they must do it better than anybody else (or I will stay on my 9810 till it dies...) My belief, having seen the report, is that they get this. Six months ago I too had written them off. Now, I'm not nearly so sure.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
And that is to release BES for all devices and cease being a hardware company.
BES is still the standard for all governmental agencies for some reason, so if they double down here using their already entrenched marketshare, expand it with feature packs, addons, and more management, then they could have a real good win. The company would have to shrink in size but would be more profitable due to not having the overhead to deal with devices any longer either.
But of course, the leadership at RIM will probably just do as another poster suggested -- pay themselves huge amounts of money, let the company wind down in debt and walk away saying it was "the other guy's" fault.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
And you'd be correct. Apple sold off all their assets to NeXT (for -400 million).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
This is almost as painful to watch.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Most businesses I deal with have flocked away from BlackBerry. and yes this is Fortune 500 companies as well as mom and pop places with less than 50 employees.
Rim dropped the ball, kicked it off the field and is trying to fake they still have it. Everyone knows they are dead.
the ONLY chance they have is to stop the RIM email fees, give away the enterprise server software for free and make it less of a ugly evil turd as well. And finally, tell all governments to stuff it in their ass and revoke all email+messaging interception to regain the trust of the corporate world. yes that means telling the UAE to stuff it in their Bursa.
they have one chance this year to become relevant once again, and this device is not it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In 2005, before people realised the enormity of the pending financial crisis, having a blackberry in the city gave you the look of a soon-to-be rich cityboy/girl. Afterall, these people had had RIM's pager's since the late 90's - issued to them so that they could be on-call for their respective banks 24/7. Back then, they were expensive, and generally, only people who needed them, had them.
Fast-forward to 2010, and suddenly every kid seemed to sport a cheap plastic phone with a qwerty keyboard. Suddenly, the city-types didn't look quite so good with their company-issued ball-and-chains, and asked for iphones instead.
Blackberry have taken a step in the right direction by returning to the their old market - as long as their image isn't permanently tarnished and they get the blackberries off the children, I can see them becoming a small, but important mobile manufacturer catering for city/business/enterprise types.
People who are used to using iPads/iPhones, and Android Tablets/Phones are not going to jump over to BB. People are used to the apps they love with Apple or Google and I see no reason why they should switch. The company I work for can't live without the Apps they're used to, and I see nothing on RIM's app store that make people say "I need that!".
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
If you get an incentive check, do not wait to cash it.
So, no debt. Billions of cash on the books. A rapidly growing equity position. $500 milion in free cash flow each quarter. Prem Watsa on the board of directors (a very famous value investor the likes of Warren Buffett).
So, you say that management is hoarding the cash to themselves. OK, show us hte SEC statments to prove this comment. Otherwise it is all misleading garbage.
What's SO wrong with a few small players in the market? Doesn't anyone see the danger in only having mega-corporations making all our products? RIM is selling millions of devices per quarter, sure that's less than they used to sell but is that not enough to be considered successful? So what if they aren't breaking sales records, they are still huge and their products are still high quality. Personally I can't wait until these mega corporations are deemed illegal. They leech every last penny out of the system in the name of capitalism, forcing competitors out of the market and making the chance of other small businesses competing almost impossible. If products were made, marketed and sold locally, the distribution of wealth wouldn't be so skewed.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
1. Be the BEST and most integrated social networking tool.
2. Be a WALLET by leveraging their existing encryption infrastructure.
Humans are social creatures. Making a product directly targeted at these two areas will be a winner. Humans are fed up with carrying around a ton of credit cards, bank card, coins and bills.
RIM needs to get away from feature-itis and gimmicks. There are no legs to this approach. Leveraging the existing social and commercial ecosystem is the way to go.
*** Don't be dull.***
I was a BB user and couldn’t wait for my contract to die; I won’t trouble them ever again.
I was desperate for Samsung to release the S3 already, but I couldn't stall any longer 'cos the three other guys on my shared plan wanted their iPhones, so I went with the HTC OneX and I’m pretty darn pleased with it!
One of the iPhone users has already admitted he made a mistake and another is wavering!
Loving the schadenfreude Android gives me at the moment!
which BB did you get? i have had a bold 9700 working flawlessly for 2 years now. BB is the only (mainstream, i don't wanna hear about some mil spec 3 pound brick) phone with real crypto security that cannot be cracked or bypassed
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
The only reason they're selling a few million is because they used to be selling many millions. On their current course (which they seem to be accelerating on), they soon won't be a small player, they'll be non-existent. As the parent poster suggests, at that point the random shareholders lose everything and anything of value they've made will be lost. If they sell now, it means the random investors get something out, and the things of value they've created will be more likely to be preserved. It also means some executives have to swallow some pride and find a new job, so it won't happen.
For most of history, this was the case. Almost everything people used was made within a few mile radius (often by themselves). I don't think you want to live in "most of history". Tremendous specialization of labor and mass production are what created modern civilization, and neither of those ideas work without large distribution networks.
Distribution of wealth is a growing problem because individual humans are worth less and less to the economy. The economy used to need more people for all sorts of things. Now it needs less. Eventually it will need very few. People will cling to capitalism long after it has ceased to be an effective way to distribute wealth.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Even iTunes is better than using a Blackberry.
Wow, now that is saying something. *cringe*
+1, but they'l never do that.. as always, investors the suckers.
And books still get translated into Esperanto – but less then Estonian. And more are books are translated into Spanish then Estonian.
But 3rd party Apps are proving to the killer app in the smart phone market. Why would a developer want to build a polished optimized app for the Blackberry – even if it’s a 6 month old version of their current product?
While Betamax was the gold standard, Sony got out when it realized it was going to be a nich product. Now, nich products can survive and thrive – but they tend not to rely on the networking effects on the modern computer era.
I just don’t see much life for a small, propriety phone OS. They are going to need to dig Steve Jobs out of the ground and come up with a new dead brilliant idea if they are going to remain independent.
Personally I can't wait until these mega corporations are deemed illegal.
Who is going to deem them illegal? The same government that deemed mega corporations "too big to fail" and poured hundreds of billions of taxpayer money in to prop them up?
If products were made, marketed and sold locally, the distribution of wealth wouldn't be so skewed.
That is nice when you are talking about produce at the grocery store, but the "gotta have it" gizmos everyone is enamored with wouldn't exist in such a system. What did exist would offer significantly reduced utility at a much higher price.
Spreading the wealth is a nice concept, but in reality causes there to be much less wealth to be spread around. That makes it easier to achieve the stated goal, but doesn't do much toward the intended goal.
This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
I gave a fuck. I have to be able to support these damn things on a BES when they are released.
But it wasn't a happy fuck. Indeed, it was a rather troubled fuck.
/* No Comment */
If products were made, marketed and sold locally, the distribution of wealth wouldn't be so skewed.
Ah yes, I'm sure that locally-made smartphones, totally incompatible with smartphones made in other regions, and totally incompatible with cellular networks in other regions or countries, would be a great thing for the economy. I'm sure app developers would be jumping up and down to write apps for dozens or hundreds of different proprietary smartphone OSes used all over the world.
That is nice when you are talking about produce at the grocery store, but the "gotta have it" gizmos everyone is enamored with wouldn't exist in such a system. What did exist would offer significantly reduced utility at a much higher price.
Exactly; the reason these electronic gizmos are so affordable is because they're made by a few players in enormous quantities for a global market. Smartphones made in small quantities and only sold in a certain region would cost millions, and simply wouldn't be made. The economies of scale that apply to hardware and software development don't apply to vegetables grown on a farm, so there's natural limits as to how cheaply you can grow and sell a cucumber, and larger agriculture companies end up cutting corners to get their prices down and yield up, by doing things like picking fruit way too early or spraying it with toxic chemicals so there's room for local growers to compete on quality (by accepting a lower yield and not spraying pesticides, or by leaving fruit on the plant longer since they don't have to ship it to another continent but only 100 miles).
A lot of people who hate their BBs have old curves like the 8300. If you were using a 6 year old phone, you'd hate it too. It'd be like using a first gen iPhone.
DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
Should just buy them to put them out of their misery and get what is left of them out of the game so they are no longer an irritant.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
RIMM needs to decide it can compete as a hardware maker against samsung and HTC. If they can, then they should switch to android (for the apps and open platform) and implement their own enterprise technoogy over it. They should further do like the Amazon Fire and pre-process web fetches not just for speed but also for security (e.g. maintain ssl, filter out phishing attacks and viruses, restrict access to corporate approved functions, disable features like cameras or recoring in restricted corprorate areas). They will thus become the premier value added corprorate android phone.
If they can't compete against Samsung and HTC on hardware then they need to stay away from android. Windows 8 would be the logical choice and it is aligned with bussinesses. Their best route there would be to be the premier Intel based smart phone. Windows 8 is going to run better on intel and arm. Corporations will be able to port their proprietary windows platform codes to win8 on intel. And windows RT (arm) appears to be a disaster. So they could beat Nokia in the corporate smart phone area. Let nokia have the developing nations market. High margins for their enterprise system and a high barrier to entry for everyine else in that sector.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
One year ago, see http://slashdot.org/submission/1533832/microsoft-buys-rim-in-q4-for-39b , I wrongfully predicted that Microsoft would buy RIM in Q4 2011. Even though there were rumors in Q4, they were nothing more. However, my much greater mistake was the price, $39 billion. I could hardly have been farther off.
I thought this because RIM had the best integration with Exchange (better than Windows Phone7), and I could not see a future for RIM as an independent company. Well, Steve Balmer made his second best decision as CEO not to buy when they were high (Yahoo was his best no-buy decision). Now he could pick up both for lunch money (they eat well in Redmond).
RIM's latest vapourware presentation with a vague rejoinder about a phone in the fall (fall ends on December 21st) seems like a desperate marketing event. Once again, apologies about the prediction. This time, I predict that RIM will recover and gain market share, becoming handsomely profitable for years to come. Of course, given my last prediction, you might find now the time to take out a payday loan and short their stock.
Is that the nickname for their user base?
The Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha looks nice to me, at least in the pictures. It looks a lot better than the Windows phone.
But 3rd party Apps are proving to the killer app in the smart phone market. Why would a developer want to build a polished optimized app for the Blackberry – even if it’s a 6 month old version of their current product?
That's the real problem here: the fragmentation of the application marketplaces. There's no good reason for the vast majority of iOS and Android apps to not just be written in cross-platform HTML5/JS/CSS except that neither Apple nor Google wants to support that as a first-class application platform because that would make competition too easy. To be fair, it may be true that only newer smartphones/versions of WebKit are powerful/efficient enough to actually run HTML5 apps at speeds and power usages comparable to native apps.
"Will new features such as a virtual leopard that learns from typing behavior..."; xkcd is right s/keyboard/leopard/g really does make the Internet a better place.
Betamax lived until everything went digital. Not sure you can say Sony really "got out"... In fact all of their digital stuff is still based on Beta (Betacam). They have been very supportive of the niche market Beta has with professionals.
^^Unless RIM chooses to hand over all your data.
I am among those "random shareholders", and I have no problem keeping my money in RIM. They have good people and--yes, even now--good product. BB10 is a worthwhile platform that's incredibly easy to port to for existing Android and iOS developers. Their current product has the best messaging and inter-app communication platform around.
What lost this company was arrogance, blame that can be laid at the feet of both co-CEOs. They're gone, and competent management has already begun the process of restoring trust and bringing the company back.
At the VERY least, I believe the current team will build the stock's value enough that I'll enjoy a tidy profit if RIM is bought out next year.
I was actually a bit disappointed that every single comment seems to be about how the company is going to die, or arguing over whether it's relevant in a business environment. Does anybody out there know anything about the new development environment?
I don't see that. RIM (even using their old design) right now has the best texting / email phone. If they were willing to move down market, get carriers in countries other than England and focus on something like a 200m data plan with unlimited text and email push cheap they could have a very nice niche phone with a substantial 2 year price advantage.
With BBOS they have the only RTOS phone with an actual functioning microkernel. In theory that should allow for some rather unique advantages like much longer battery life as whole hardware subsystems shutdown and boot as needed.
Don't play in the smart phone market. Play at the high end of the dumb phone market. They have the best email, IM, texting phone. Go down market.
There's no good reason for the vast majority of iOS and Android apps to not just be written in cross-platform HTML5/JS/CSS except that neither Apple nor Google wants to support that as a first-class application platform because that would make competition too easy
There is very good reason. The same reason Apple was hostile to flash. Apple wants the dominant iOS apps to follow iOS HIG standards, and to follow the culture coming from WWDC. They want Apple developers plugged into Apple culture designing iOS apps so they can provide a unified experience and move the entire platform as they need to.
cracked? why should they crack it? the people who REALLY want to see it can thru the governments who happily have access to the RIM servers.
People will cling to capitalism long after it has ceased to be an effective way to distribute wealth.
Thing is, capitalism wasn't "designed" to distribute wealth. It was designed to promote productivity. The basic deal of capitalism is: produce more, get more wealth. It's a decent concept. Where it falls down, though, is when you're at the upper end of the capital curve. Then you get more wealth, not by producing more, but by already owning lots of wealth. The trait of capital to self-perpetuating in large amounts, and the capacity for capital to be passed down to people who haven't had to work for it are two properties that (IMO) undermine the system.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
That would only make sense for the shareholders if the total value of RIM's assets is greater than its market capitalization, which is rarely the case. Stockholders who believes that RIM's situation is so dire that the company is better of liquidated would be best served by selling off their shares.
I wouldn't blame them!
There are a surprising number of comments here saying how great this or that BB product is, and I won't even argue, because everyone is entitled to their opinion. But Apple and Android have taken over the world and RIM is just fucking dead now. It's just a matter of time.
The thing is, a modern BB is better than a dumbphone, or old smartphone, by leaps and bounds. But so is any other smartphone. And no good current smartphone is leaps and bounds better than any other. So for a while, it's just inertia, who can get into the most markets and onto the most carriers, and who does the best job of keeping things cooking year after year.
RIM can't be "as good as" and win back any share. "A little better than, in some situations" won't cut it; even "quite a bit better in several key ways" won't do it. To take a substantial chunk out of the market, a new product would have to be night-and-day better than ANYTHING else, and stay that way for a couple years, and--barring some Hollywood-esque soul-switching thing, where the ghost of Steve Jobs takes over the body of whoever is running RIM these days--that just ain't gonna happen. Period.
RIM is dead, it's just a matter of time before the body becomes cold and everyone accepts it. Sorry, guys. You did some good work, and you had a great run there for a while, but you got blindsided, and you SUCK at playing catch-up. If you're LUCKY, you can get good at certain things and hang in there with 5% of the market for a while (don't laugh--that kept Apple alive for ten years!) but you won't ever be a force to be reckoned with again unless you're the first one to do something totally new. But more likely, you'll struggle for a couple years (until all your contracts expire) and then you'll be completely smothered.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I agree in large part, and RIM could have outs. If I was RIM, I'd focus on their advantages in hardware (good battery life, good reception, good keyboards, that little light when you have an e-mail) and corporate integration. If they were doing that, I'd have a lot more faith in their prospects. I think that market is solid, and may actually rebuild as people get tired of unreliable (by comparison) iPhones and cheap Androids.
This, though, seems like a too-late, too-fast, too-big move into app-phones - and I think they're going to bungle it like the bungled the Playbook, and the fail will taint their other products.
Honestly, I wish them all the best. It's a cool idea, and I don't have any real love for the other mobile platforms (I carry an ancient Nokia). I just don't think they'll pull it off great, and I don't think the market will have much patience for even small failures in the new product.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Agree. But when the economy is heavily "people churning out stuff", capitalism distributes wealth pretty reasonably as kind of a side effect. Most people can create a reasonable amount of value, enough to support themselves as well as a surplus that creates employment opportunities.
I agree that there's a strong positive-feedback cycle in multi-generational capitalism, but that's much more manageable than the collapse that's coming when a large percentage of people have nothing to offer the economy.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
This, though, seems like a too-late, too-fast, too-big move into app-phones - and I think they're going to bungle it like the bungled the Playbook, and the fail will taint their other products.
I agree they are likely to bungle it. RIM still thinks of themselves as a premium brand not a discount brand. 3 years ago RIM could dictate terms to carriers today they probably get take it or leave it style contracts. 3 years ago RIM was annoying to their customers and developers, today they have to hustle to save business. That's a big culture change and one that can be difficult.
In terms of their next generation I think BB10, being the only RTOS kernel could be really unique. For example given the much worse CPU, storage and RAM on phones vs. desktops they could own the multi-tasking phone experience for a long time. But... that's a niche. They would have to accept they make a niche phone to fill certain niches.
There is a good video of the keyboard on youttube.
Go about 6 minutes into the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x5KKQx04yD0#
It has a nice shortcut for autocomplete that is soemthing iOS and Droid do not provide. They also said thath te keyboard is learning. If you go after the letter E and tend to be two pixels to the left, it will adjust the boudnaries of where E is. But this is hte concept. I'm sure it is more of an alogithm based function where the keyboards touch input is skewed over time as it learns about the user's tendencies
The video also hioghlights flow. No longer do you open and close apps. They stay open. You swipe to go from one to the next. There also seems to be some sort of view of running apps so you can quickly get to where you were last.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
RIM can't access your data either, RIM can access your BIS traffic, which is consumer phone network traffic, unless diverted via hotspot mode where you lose the RIM server precooked HTML and only works via wifi
RIM can also access your BES Express traffic, which is consumer grade BES server operated by RIM but offering some of the BES features, such as remote wipe
RIM cannot break a passworded+encrypted blackberry (unless the password is too simple and brute forcable)
if you run your own BES server (corporate blackberry) RIM can't access much information about your traffic (other than times and origin data from the cell network) because it operates an encrypted tunnel from the phone to your server then out to the internet (however your ISP could see what you are doing from your phone)
Snowden and Manning are heroes.