Despite the clear advantage of a physical keyboard in a business handheld, Apple's iPhone is obviously making just about everyone in smartphone land a tad uncomfortable -- even if they
won't admit it -- which means we could be seeing some new BlackBerry form factors from RIM in the coming months to keep consumers interested. Of course, there's no telling if those new form factors will have a tilt-and-slide mechanism, or multitouch, but these here patents are certainly a start. The tilting mechanism aims at giving users the best of both worlds: a true keyboard and a big display, but the multitouch mechanism is interesting as well, and uses a different tech than the capacitive touch in the iPhone. Only time -- and hopefully Mobile World Congress next week -- will tell if these patents are going to be put to good use (hopefully as a team) in your next BlackBerry, but we're certainly intrigued.
posted Feb 8th 2008 10:04AM
why oh why the LG Shine scroller thing ?
Believe it or not, I vastly prefer blackberry's current models (8800, 8300, etc) over any sort of touchscreen/slider type form factor. Dont' mess w/ a good thing RIM!!!
Blackberries are last gen anyway. Who really cares. Who do business men need tilt and slide? I thought BBs are supposed to be durable and simple. Looks like RIM is trying to compete with Tilt and iPhone in one shot.
Hmm...I'm not so sure about this. My mom (who uses a CrackBerry almost religiously) said that her favourite thing about it is that the keyboard is right there, no need to slide, flip, hop, skip, or jump (her exact words.) I'm not sure how well this will go over in the buisness world other than the coolness factor. After all, having this kind of set up makes it more prone to breaking, which means that traveling users will have to be that much more diligent.
http://www.livingwithanerd.com
1) I would like blackberries if their keyboard wasn't so crowded. I cant type on the damn things.
2) i can only imagine how quickly that blackberry is going to break when it slips out of your hands while in its tilt position.
which model do u have? I would guess the 8800 or the pearl...
Try a Curve or an older 8700...easily some of the best keyboards made for a phone
For most "traditional" BB users, tilt and slide and multi-touch would probably end up being a nuisance and they would never buy the device. When you look at verizon releasing a pink pearl and more and more consumers buying smartphones and pda/phone devices, I can see why BB would start to think about branching out to more than just the business crowd with a "tiltPhone".
RIM should realise that they have nothing to fear from the iPhone.
It's not a smartphone, it's not aimed at the same customers as Blackberrys are.
They should just relax and keep producing devices that appeal to their customers.
RIM has nothing to fear?
How about the fact that despite being launched only months before, the iPhone took over the number two position in the US, accounting for 28% of smartphone share for Q4 2007? RIM, by the way has 41%. Windows Mobile? 21%. Palm? 9%
Worldwide, iPhone's share is 6.5%, tying with Motorola for third place with RIM in second carrying 11.4% and Nokia commanding a massive 52.9%.
I wonder about those figures I'm sure they are probably true but honestly I don't consider the Iphone a smartphone to me it is a multimedia phone I don't think the Iphone in its current incarnation should be considered a smartphone but then I guess its all about how they define smartphone
Tony, the iPhone isn't a smartphone and it's clearly not a suitable alternative to a Blackberry for the vast majority of business users.
The only people who class the iPhone as a smartphone are people who want to inflate it's success, making it seem to be a big fish in a small pond. It is, in reality, a small fish in a huge pond as it's just a standard mobile phone, nothing more.
As for the figures you quote, they're clearly ones that favour the iPhone and even then I doubt the veracity of them.
If it had a nice screen, but still reduced the form factor it would be nice addon for some. But I do agree that current BB models are perfect.
Isn't that the same tilt and slide mechanics that Nokia patented a few months ago (and shown on engadget)?
Yeah, I think that this is an interesting application of the tilt-and-slide mechanism, but as said earlier, probably won't work with their core demographic. I imagine this will turn into a product that is trying to get more people interested in BB's outside of the jet-setting exec group.
I've been a religious BB user for a few years now. I have to say, the keyboards are a really strong point in the device. However, I realize that I don't do much typing on my BB. SMS, yes, quick email, yes - but not that much of it overall. I wouldn't be completely torn by not having a keyboard - most of the time I open up my laptop if I have a issue that I need to actually respond to.
Ok, look at the first one. Why the hell doesnt the screen fill out nearly the whole front of the phone?? Apple managed to do it with the iPhone(disclosure-dont own one, not a fanboy), how hard would it have been to do?
you are so right what is it with these folks especially HTC with the huge bezels or what ever the hell they are called I have an 8525 and I love it but really the screen should take up the majority of the phone and based on the parts inside HTC phones they really dont need to be that thick I dubt the keyboard adds that much girth I bet they can make it thinner and keep the keyboard or kepp it thick and shove in more goodies and why the hell are their screens so small...ok now I'm repeating myself...my rant is done thank you
I am really upset about this patenting. What is so new,innovative, un-imaged so far about this design?
I wish engadget would get this right. These are NOT patents, they are APPLICATIONS for a patent. The Patent Office could outright reject these. There is a big difference between an application for a patent and an issued patent.
What the links are linking to is the publication of the application. ALL applications are automatically published at 18 months, so the fact that these are appearing means nothing more than that RIM dropped them in the mailbox to be sent to the PTO 18 months ago.
The only thing wrong with my blackberry is that it is not 3g (and the trackball doesn't work but thats another story). Fix what's broke RIM
It gets really old how every story since the iPhone was released tries to make it about the iPhone. I would think that anyone working at Engadget would know this, but long before the iPhone came out, the Blackberry was competing with Palm and Windows Mobile. Now maybe it has escaped you, but of those three types of devices, the BlackBerry was the only one that WASN'T a touchscreen device. Please, can we stop pretending that every touchscreen PDA is somehow a response to the iPhone. I doubt the iPhone makes RIM very nervous, seeing as how their sales have actually increased since it was released. If anything, the hype from the iPhone is helping them, as people look for real devices that can do more than make you look hip while you are on line at Starbucks.
HTC released a phone months ago that does this slide and tilt thing
heck it is even named "AT&T Tilt"
There are third-party PPC on-screen keyboards which are BETTER than the iPhone's keyboard. Try TouchPal for example.
It would be nice if RIM worried more about releasing a phone to the north america/euro markets that work in Asian countries like Korea and Japan. I work for a global company, a lot of my users like the simplicity of the Blackberry, but the ones that travel to Asia frequently have switched to the 3G Treos or other smartphones just for better compatibility with the phone infrastructure in those countries. Several have said they would go back to Blackberries if they had one that worked more seemlessly in Asia.
The BlackBerry 8707 works in Japan on DoCoMo, and also works in North America.
I like the blackberry, the motoQ and the iPhone. Unlike the author of this article, I don't think there is a "clear advantage of a physical keyboard" which sets blackberry's apart from the iPhone. After typing on a blackberry for years and now typing on the iPhone, I'd challenge a BB user to an accuracy/speed race any day. I think the "clear advantage" for Blackberry as a business device is push email and over the air calendar sync - the keyboard debate is over for me, they're both fast and accurate.