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WiMAX PlayBook 4G announcement betrayed by Google search?
Well, we've been waiting for a PlayBook packing something more than WiFi to rear its enterprise-friendly head, and there it is -- sort of. Search Google for "Sprint PlayBook" and the number one (non-sponsored) result is a page "introducing the BlackBerry 4G Playbook tablet," which means the companies are right about on schedule for that promised summer release. Clicking on the link just redirects you to the Sprint homepage for now and, sadly, price and exact ship date are still anyone's guess. There's enough detail in the search snippet to tell us that this is legit and and an announcement page is ready to go, though -- so, WiMAX fans, we hope you like QNX. [Thanks, Josh]
Switched On: RIM's shot
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Much like their home countries, Apple and RIM share much in common, but contrast in important ways. Both companies are among the few that produce their own software for their cellular handsets. Apple, a personal computing pioneer, sees market expansion in smartphones. RIM, a smartphone pioneer, sees market expansion in mobile computing. Looking at the tablets on offer, Apple has been just as adamant in decrying a 7-inch display as RIM has been defending it, the latter saying that it sought to create an ultramobile device with the PlayBook. Apple designs products for consumers that have relevance for enterprises. RIM designs products for enterprises that have relevance for consumers. This has also been evident with the PlayBook, which has taken heat for its lack of native e-mail and calendaring options. RIM consciously put these on the back burner because it wanted to appease CIOs concerned about data theft, even though it meant a less appealing launch product for consumers. Another parallel: RIM has suffered as AT&T delays in supporting Bridge, just as Apple struggled with AT&T supporting tethering on the iPhone.
Android apps on PlayBook eyes-on (video)
We knew it was coming, but today at BlackBerry World 2011 we were treated to a demo of Android apps running natively on the PlayBook. The end result isn't too far removed from what we saw with Myriad's Alien Dalvik at Mobile World Congress. Android's menu and home buttons are emulated using the standard PlayBook gestures, and the back button is replaced with an on-screen softkey. Of course, you'll have to visit App World to download Android apps for the PlayBook when the Android Player (as it's called) finally becomes available. And speaking of Android apps, the wildly popular Angry Birds is coming to the PlayBook as a native game - no cross-platform trickery required.
Windows Phone and BlackBerry struggle to attract developer attention
We're taking this with a grain of salt, since it applies only to users of the cross-platform Appcelerator Titanium development environment, but it appears that Windows Phone 7 is facing an increasingly uphill battle for mobile mind-share. At this point it should go without saying that a platform lives and dies by its developers and, according to Appcelerator, they're growing less and less interested in creating apps for Microsoft's smartphone OS. Only 29-percent of devs responded to the company's quarterly survey that they were "very interested" in putting their wares on WP7, a fall of 7 points from last quarter and far less than market leaders Android and iOS. News is even worse for RIM, which saw a fall of 11-points in developer interest for BlackBerry, and now trails the folks from Redmond. Again, this survey is based only on the responses of 2,760 developers using a particular product, so we'd refrain from calling the results incontrovertible. Still, it reinforces something that even a casual observer could discern: BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 have a tough row to hoe. Two more charts after the break.
Verizon Wireless: we might sell the BlackBerry PlayBook, if we feel like it
Frightened by the mere thought of picking up a partially-baked BlackBerry PlayBook? So is Verizon Wireless, it seems. Despite a March 22nd press release (embedded after the break for convenience) from Research in Motion suggesting that VZW would indeed be a "retail channel" for the QNX-based slate, the carrier's Brenda Raney is singing a different tune. According to her: "We're still evaluating the BlackBerry Playbook and have not made a determination as to whether we're going to distribute it." 'Course, we wouldn't cry too hard if Big Red ends up passing -- Sprint's 4G version ought to satisfy anyone pining to pick one up with an integrated cell radio. Too bad Mike Lazaridis isn't around to opine on just how "unfair" such a statement is.
BlackBerry PlayBook now on sale in the US and Canada, starting at $500 with 16GB of storage
Today is the day in BlackBerry land. The wait for a dual-core device with an up-to-date operating system and that stylized BB logo is now over, and a vast array of stores in the US and Canada are now ready to sell you your PlayBook. Whether you'll actually want to buy one is less clear-cut, however, as basic productivity apps like native email and calendar aren't yet available, Android app compatibility hasn't yet been rolled out, and the PlayBook has an unfavorable dependency on having a BlackBerry smartphone nearby in order to be the best tablet it can be. Still, if you believe in RIM's ability to overcome those early software hurdles, the PlayBook's ready for ownership in exchange for $500 for the 16GB model, $600 for the 32GB version, or $700 for the 64GB-equipped top option (prices are the same in both US and Canadian dollars).
RIM: PlayBook email client 'very very soon,' 3G model this summer
Lately, anything goes when a RIM CEO gets in front of the media. Fortunately, it was the other CEO, Jim Balsillie, talking to Bloomberg this time delivering a calm, cool rebuttal to all the lukewarm PlayBook reviews. His consumer defense is largely based upon the PlayBook's ability to receive software updates (we received three in the brief time we had our review unit) throughout its lifetime. Jim, as you can imagine, preferred keeping the conversation focused on how the PlayBook is fully functional today when used in combination with a BlackBerry handset in business environments. Balsillie did seem to hint that the consumer experience could improve relatively quickly, saying, "We'll have an over the air email client to announce very very soon. We have BlackBerry World -- our user conference -- in a couple weeks. Stay tuned for all capabilities we have coming out on this stuff." See the man dance on the hotseat right after the break. Update: In a second interview, this time with the Wall Street Journal, Balsillie says that the standalone email client is scheduled for an OTA release within the next 60 days.
Editorial: Dear RIM, I'm your customer and I don't wear a suit
Like Joanna shamelessly admitted in her editorial a few months back, I was a BlackBerry addict. I'm also a 20-year old college student / tech-head whose phone serves every purpose from communications device to music player to TV remote. I tried to switch cold turkey and bought an iPhone 4 in August, but somewhere around Thanksgiving I gave in and picked up a Verizon Bold. I've been double fisting ever since -- using the BB almost exclusively for BBM, and my iPhone for everything else.Fast forward to late last week when I attended a meeting in New York with Tim Stevens and RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis to get the latest dish on the PlayBook. As Lazaridis demoed myriad features from HDMI presentation mode to the built-in music player on the company's hotly debated tablet, it hit me: the one question I've been pondering since getting a real look at the device. Who is it for? At that moment, I realized the problem that's been plaguing RIM as of late -- and not just in its tablet strategy, but its phone strategy as a whole: it doesn't know who its products are for and subsequently can't deliver. Am I crazy? Read on after the break and hear me out.
Editorial: RIM, we've been here before
By now you've no doubt read or at least heard about the New York Times interview where RIM's co-CEOs wound up asking most of the questions and challenged conventional wisdom about the company, or seen the BBC interview that Mike Lazaridis put an abrupt end to (see below, if you haven't). Those both offer plenty of juicy morsels for folks like us to chew on, but they're also indicative of a broader sense of frustration from the company that's getting difficult to ignore. One that is strikingly similar to what we've recently seen from another company that grew to dominate on the world stage, became a figure of national pride in its home country, and is now struggling to reinvent itself in the face of stiff competition: Nokia.
BlackBerry PlayBook review
The words "play" and "book" are a bit of an odd choice for RIM's latest attempt at consumer relevance, a tablet that, at its core, runs one of the most hardcore and industry-friendly operating systems known to man. The OS is QNX and the hardware is, of course, the BlackBerry PlayBook. It's an enterprise-friendly offering that's also out to conquer the consumer tablet ecosphere, hoping to follow in the footsteps of the BlackBerry handsets that have filled the pockets of corporate executives and BBM addicts around the globe.It's something of a serious tablet when compared to the competition running software from Apple and Google and, while it certainly has games, its biggest strengths are rather more boring. It does a really great job at displaying PowerPoint presentations, for example, and has the security chops to keep last quarter's dismal sales figures from falling into the wrong hands. Exciting stuff? No, but useful features for sure, and regardless of whether you find those intriguing or boring this is RIM's seven-inch, Flash-having but 3G-lacking tablet clad in an unassuming but extremely sophisticated exterior. It's what's running behind the glass that disappoints.%Gallery-121160%
Gartner: Apple will dominate tablet space for years, Android won't drink its milkshake until after 2015
The inundation of tablets upon these very pages from day to day should give you an idea that manufacturers see this as a golden opportunity to grab a big chunk of a fledgling market. According to Gartner, though, the prospects are a little less rosy -- for the next five years, anyway. Analyst estimates indicate that the tablet market will boom over the next five years, from 17,610,000 units last year to 294,093,000 in 2015. No, not 294,092,000. 294,093,000. Apple will be the dominant force, its market share not dropping below 50 percent until the terminal year of this study. Android will take up the lion share of the other half, with the remaining dredges shared by MeeGo, WebOS, and QNX. The latter, which powers RIM's upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook, is scheduled to have a 10 percent share. That'll be the closest thing to a threat that Google and Apple will face -- if you believe any of this. Update: The figures above are in thousands of units.
Gartner: Android grabbing over 38 percent of smartphone market in 2011 on Symbian's demise
We like, ok, love poking fun at analysts' long term forecasts given the volatility of the smartphone market. Nobody, neither Gartner nor IDC, predicted the meteoric rise of Android and iOS, thus making their four-year projections (measured to a decimal point) laughable, to say the least. Shorten that timeline to the end of the year, however, and the accuracy of these forecasts tends to increase dramatically. Gartner just released its smartphone projections that align very closely with the numbers released by IDC a few weeks ago. Both research firms see Nokia hemorrhaging its smartphone dominance in 2011 after announcing plans to adopt the Windows Phone platform. Gartner sees Symbian pulling in a remarkably low 19.2 percent (down from 37.6 percent in 2010 or an impressive 46.9 percent share held back in 2009) regardless of Nokia's insistence that it still has some 150 million Symbian handsets to ship -- IDC, as you'll recall, was a bit more gracious with a 20.9 percent projection for Symbian in 2011. Like IDC, Gartner sees Microsoft making a dramatic comeback just as soon as Nokia can flood its global channels with mid-tier handsets by the end of 2012 with the Windows Phone operating system ultimately rising to the number two spot in global marketshare (Gartner says 19.5 percent to IDC's 20.9 percent) by, eh hem, 2015. Gartner expects the iOS smartphone slice to peak with a 19.4 percent share (to IDC's 15.7 percent) in 2011 before dipping a bit under the strain of an Android juggernaut and Apple's reluctance to sacrifice margins (and profits) for market share. Gartner expects Android to increase the 22.7 market share it enjoyed in 2010 to 38.5 percent in 2011 (compared to the IDC's slightly more aggressive 39.5 percent share) on the way to dominating the competition with a 49.2 percent share in 2012. Bringing up the rear then is RIM with an estimated chunk of just 13.4 percent in 2011 (compared to 16 percent in 2010) with further declines through 2015 even after the BlackBerry maker migrates to QNX in 2012. Ouch. As for WebOS: sorry HP, you're in the "other" category along with Bada.
BlackBerry PlayBook FAQ confirms native email, calendar and contacts apps, just not at launch
The native app situation on the BlackBerry PlayBook has been one point of contention since the device was first announced, and there's still a fair bit of confusion even now, less than a month from launch. We now have a fairly definitive answer for one key question, however, although it may not be the one you were hoping for. According to an official FAQ provided for a Verizon webinar, the PlayBook will indeed be getting native email, calendar and contacts apps in a "future software update," but you'll have to make do without them initially. That means either relying on the PlayBook's web browser, or using the "Bridge" mode to access the apps on your BlackBerry smartphone. So, the PlayBook may not technically be "reliant" on a BlackBerry, but it is certainly handy to have one around. [Thanks, Tom]
Switched On: The PlayBook polyglot
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. When Apple introduced the iPad, it had but a smattering of third-party applications, but the company stressed its own. As Apple iPhone software SVP Scott Forstall stated in the iPad introduction video, "We looked at the device and we decided: let's redesign it all. Let's redesign, reimagine and rebuild every single app from the ground up specifically for the iPad." Compare this to the strategy employed by RIM, makers of the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. One year after the iPad's debut, Apple's head start in apps has proven a formidable advantage against the onslaught of slates announced by its competitors in the smartphone world. Some have chosen to latch onto Android and attain backwards compatibility with over 200,000 existing smartphone apps. HP, with its TouchPad as flagship, will circle its wagons of PCs, printers and phones around the webOS platform. However, the announcement this week that RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook will support Android apps says much about how the company sees its position in the tablet wars.
RIM adds Android app support to BlackBerry PlayBook via 'optional app player'
You read that right -- RIM just announced that its forthcoming BlackBerry PlayBook will support both BlackBerry Java and Android apps. That includes native C/C++ development support, HTML5, Flash and AIR support, not to mention game engines from Ideaworks Labs (AirPlay) and Unity Technologies (Unity 3). That means that you'll have access to over 200,000 Android apps should developers choose to "quickly and easily" port them over, and assuming you dive into one of two optional "app players" in order to do so. It's also worth noting that RIM's presser only focuses on Android "2.3 apps," and while we're assuming Honeycomb apps will eventually be supported, there's no mention of Android 3.0 just yet. Furthermore, devs can look forward to an imminent release of the native PlayBook SDK, which will specifically enable C/C++ application development on the BlackBerry Tablet OS. So, now that you can look forward to digging into the near-limitless Android Market via BlackBerry wizardry of some sort, are you actually considering picking up a PlayBook on April 19th? Let us know in comments below!
RIM earnings show strong revenue and growth, but weak guidance for the months ahead
Research in Motion just kicked out its year-end and Q4 earnings for fiscal 2011, and while things look fairly rosy for now, shares of the company have sunk around ten percent in after-hours trading. Why? Because even the greatest performance in the world can't ward off skeptical investors who are keyed in on guidance. The outfit reported expected revenues of around $5.2 billion and $5.6 billion, with earnings ranging from $1.47 billion to $1.55 per share. Sounds lovely, but not when you consider that analysts had expected those figures to be closer to $1.65 per share. That said, RIM did manage to ship 52.3 million BlackBerry smartphones, representing a 43 percent uptick over fiscal 2010. Furthermore, fiscal 2011 revenue shot up 33 percent over fiscal 2010 (landing at $19.9 billion), and we were given a confirmed ship date of April 19th for PlayBook. If you're looking for a breakdown in revenue for the quarter, you'll be interested in knowing that 81 percent was attributed to devices, 16 percent to service and just three percent to "software and other revenue." Based on what we've gathered from the earnings call, RIM understands that it'll be selling more lower-end devices going forward (during what it continually referred to as "a transitional period"), and it's expecting stronger revenue to come from software and services based around QNX. In fact, QNX (known as BlackBerry Table OS on the PlayBook) was pinpointed as being an OS for future "superphones," and while we heard a brief mention of the impending BlackBerry OS 6.1 release, it's fairly evident which platform the outfit is salivating over. If all goes well, we're told to expect some sort of RIM superphone in 2012, and while our instincts are telling us that just has to refer to a phone with a 4.3-inch display, no specifics whatsoever were given beyond the moniker. When referring specifically to the PlayBook, it was confirmed that WiMAX, LTE and HSPA+ versions were en route, and when asked about incoming 4G products, we were told that while no specific products could be spoken to (and that "no promises" could be made), there's a "super intense 4G effort" ongoing within the company. We also heard that BlackBerry OS 6.1 would be a "major upgrade," and even though no deets flowed from this call, we were assured that this "substantial" overhaul -- which will launch at some point this spring -- would be teased at BlackBerry World.
HP derides BlackBerry PlayBook OS as a 'fast imitation' of webOS, RIM says it's just good UI design
It's not rare to hear talk of other operating systems employing webOS-like elements -- we've been asking to see its elegant notification system in iOS for years -- but RIM's BlackBerry Playbook borrows so heavily from the UI concepts of the software built by Palm and now owned by HP that it could easily be confused for a webOS tablet. It handles multiple concurrent applications using a card view and allows you to shut down unwanted apps by swiping them off the screen, a multitasking implementation that exhibits "uncanny similarities" in HP's eyes to its own TouchPad tablet. Still, the Hewlett Packard team insist that they're focused on their own products and will "keep innovating, we'll keep honing and those guys hopefully will continue to see the value in it and keep following us by about a year." Ouch. RIM's response, as espoused by Jeff McDowell, has been to say that "when you're trying to optimize user experience that juggles multitasking, multiple apps open at once and on a small screen, you're going to get people landing on similar kinds of designs." This essentially sidesteps the issue by throwing a subtle compliment HP's way, but it brings up an interesting question -- shouldn't companies aim to make the best software possible, in spite of it potentially looking like a ripoff of someone else's work?
PlayBook Android app support mentioned during demo at MWC, old BlackBerrys show up in ShopSavvy's Android logs
As far-fetched as it may seem, rumors that RIM is working on some sort of Android app support for its QNX-based PlayBook tablet have persisted in various forms for months now -- and they've turned up once again in a video posted by development community MobileMonday's Rio chapter taken at MWC earlier this month, where a RIM rep seemingly says "we will also support Android apps" after talking about Java-based offerings. Of course, this could've been staged by some rabble rousers or a rep could've simply been echoing back the rumors he's seen on the interwebs -- but regardless, it adds fuel to the fire. Follow the break to see the video of that. But it gets weirder. ShopSavvy -- which makes versions of its app for iOS and Android -- has started turning up a couple of older BlackBerry devices in its Android build's usage statistics on Flurry: the Curve 8300 and 8520, to be specific, along with an 8600 model that doesn't exist (at least, not yet). The 8300, in particular, is pretty ancient at this point and we're having a hard time wrapping our brain around RIM's game plan in porting Dalvik (or a Dalvik-like) VM and associated libraries over to it; if anything, Flurry could be confused. Then again, a next-generation full-touch BlackBerry that just happens to run a full suite of Android apps in a sandbox could be a pretty compelling product, indeed. [Thanks to everyone who sent these in]
Bloomberg: RIM working to let BlackBerry PlayBook run Android apps, but Dalvik's not the way
We'd heard sweet, sweet rumors that RIM would include a Java virtual machine in the BlackBerry PlayBook and even bring Android apps on board -- and lo and behold, Bloomberg's corroborating those claims with no fewer than three anonymous sources. Where the new rumor diverges is that the Dalvik virtual machine used in Google's OS reportedly won't be part of the formula; RIM considered it, these sources say, but decided it didn't want to get involved in the Oracle / Google legal fracas. Apparently, the company's working on this secret project in-house and targeting a possible release in the second half of the year. We have to say, the ready availability of roughly 200,000 Android programs could be quite the shot in the arm if WebWorks and AIR don't produce killer apps right away.
WiFi BlackBerry PlayBook priced at $500 in Office Depot's systems
Now this is what we're talking about! Sure, we've been well aware of RIM's plans to take the PlayBook to Sprint (and maybe even Verizon), but if this Office Depot listing is to be believed, a 16GB, WiFi version of the 7-inch tablet will also be heading to some retailers for the very competitive price of $499.99. It's really the first solid PlayBook pricing we've seen, and we've got to admit, we're happy to see that RIM followed through on its word to offer the touchscreen slab for under $500. (And hey, it sure beats the leaked Xoom pricing we saw earlier this week.) Unfortunately, the screenshot above doesn't reveal much more, although it lists the QNX-powered slate as hitting Office Depot stores on "Week 17," which is the last week in April according to our calendar. That's a bit later than the March date we've heard before, but either way we're waiting for spring to start and hoping Office Depot's cut out its shady practices so we can snatch up one of these ASAP. [Thanks, Braden]
