> RIM said it plans to make the BlackBerry PlayBook available to retail outlets and other channels in the U.S. in early 2011. Other international roll-outs are scheduled to take place by the second quarter of next year. Pricing was not announced. Am I the only one who finds it curious that none of these upcoming iPad competitors are being open about pricing? What are they hiding? Could it be that Apple’s $499 entry point into the tablet market really shocked everyone THAT much, and it’s even now still impossible to even match, let alone beat, them?

A couple of thoughts on this PlayBook from Blackberry:

1. I’m glad Blackberry is trying to get into this game. The best thing for Apple is if they get to compete with more than just Android. If HP finally makes something useful out of the WebOS purchase, and Microsoft eventually drops full Windows on a tablet and adapts Windows Mobile 7 for tablet use, there may be enough platforms out there for Blackberry to carve a niche. And we’ll all benefit, too.

2. The device itself looks nice, though from the video promo linked in this article, you’d almost never know it. They spend the bulk of the ad showing the interface for the device projected against different objects. Kind of strange to me. Perhaps since the device looks very much like an iPad from the front, they were afraid people might think it IS an iPad?

3. HTML/CSS and Flash apps only? Dumb, dumb, dumb. Flash will still very much be a dog come next year. Don’t expect performance anywhere near what you see in this video. And web apps are, well, web apps. Didn’t work for Palm. Don’t see it working for Google with the Chrome OS, though they have the best shot at it. Won’t be very good for RIM. Basically, RIM is admitting that the only viable platform for native app development is iOS, so they are hoping web app developers will be their saviors, as they can “code once, ship everywhere”, including Android and WebOS devices (since they are all running Webkit browsers). But there’s no money in web apps outside of advertising, so don’t expect the best developers to come running. Worse, that’s no way to differentiate yourself in this market. Especially since iPad owners can also use web apps in addition to their own native apps. If your device has nothing special to offer, why would I buy it?

4. Not shipping until “early 2011.” So what you’re saying is, you won’t really have a competitor to the iPad, which began shipping last April, until next April, when Apple has already unveiled its iPad 2nd gen, and you’re just hoping that by announcing before Christmas you might just dissuade a few people who were going to buy iPads this Holiday Season to wait for your device, even though you’re short on little details, like, say, pricing. (And people wonder why Apple gets better press than everyone else.) This will not work. Should have held this one under wraps until it was ready. Or got it ready faster. What’s the holdup? Could it be that snazzy interface you’re showing off is nothing more than a demo video at the moment? That would be my guess.

5. Considering how well Apple is doing in the Enterprise with the iPad, it makes perfect sense for RIM to try and get into this field and hold on to its base of supporters in business. Unfortunately, with this consumer-focused ad campaign, I fear that RIM is instead going to continue to ignore its strengths and try to go for consumers with the PlayBook, which is so dumb I can’t even put it into words. Even the name, Playbook, while a thousand times better than BlackPad, is way too wannabe hipster for what should be this device’s main target audience: suits.

6. Tethering with a Blackberry (hopefully for free, but that’s unlikely) sounds like a smart move, but it severely limits the audience for this device. Imagine if Apple made the iPad compatible with Macs only, instead of being Mac and Windows compatible. That’s how stupid tethering only with Blackberries is. Especially since there’s no alternative networking on this thing other than WiFi.

7. The videos in this commercial of the interface scream vaporware. They play like display videos, rather than real-life use cases. Think Microsoft’s Courier. Clever animations are only going to lead to disappointment when the interface turns out to be less than stellar.

8. USB ports and 1080p output are great for a PowerPoint presentation, but what real-world use will they have? Consumers don’t care and the geeks who will care are a limited audience.

9. I’m still not sold on the 7-inch display idea. Everyone seems to be going in this direction, but I don’t think Apple was wrong to make the iPad substantially larger than that. 7-inches is too big to fit into a pocket (unless you’re a real nerd), so why not go to a larger 10-inch display? My guess is that this is little more than a cost-cutting measure, though I can’t imagine it cuts costs all that much. Maybe Apple is hogging up the entire world’s supply of 10-inch screens? That could easily be the case. But even if it is, a 7-inch screen makes for a device that is even LESS of a viable laptop replacement than the iPad.

10. The dual-core processor is interesting. But I wonder if that’s why there’s no mention of battery life for this device. My guess is that the real reason why there’s no mention of battery life is because there’s no real OS to test battery life on yet. Have I said vaporware yet?

Having said all of this, I’ll say that if this device ever ships, and if it comes in at a price that isn’t too crazy expensive, it might just have a chance at winning over some Blackberry loyalists who hate Apple just on principle. Might steal some of Android’s thunder, which is a good thing. But I wouldn’t be scared if I were Steve Jobs.

> Of the stories analyzed, 42 percent described Apple has “innovative and superior,” while another 27 percent praised the company’s loyal fans. For comparison, only 20 percent of stories about Google portrayed the search giant as having innovative and superior products. > > But Apple received its share of negative publicity as well, as the Pew Research Center found that 17 percent of stories suggested that the Cupertino, Calif., company’s products do not live up to the hype. Another 7 percent of stories said Apple is too controlling with its products. Apple gets the majority of the tech press because it consistently produces interesting products. If Microsoft were to invent the next iPod instead of copying it two years later, it would generate more excitement.

Apple also has a far more effective marketing department, and does a remarkable job of keeping most of its announcements under wraps until the exact right moment (recent leaks notwithstanding). It also paces announcements every few months throughout the year and has a consistent track record of exciting new technology. It is a well-oiled machine, developed over decades. And the competition, in contrast, is particularly inept in this area.

The press doesn’t like Apple better, in other words. It just likes juicy, interesting stories that catch people’s attention better.

I would argue that calling Apple “innovative and superior” does not constitute “positive” press, either. The mere existence of those words does not speak to the overall tone of a particular article.

Let me give you a for instance: “Apple’s products can sometimes be innovative, but the superior attitude of Apple loyalist fans is largely unwarranted.”

Would you say that’s a positive statement?

And calling Apple fans “loyal” is a backhanded compliment, at best. It’s usually used as a way to dismiss fans as zealots under the control of their mercurial leader, Steve Jobs.

Apple Insider’s assertion that this study finds “Media coverage of Apple overwhelmingly positive” is also strange. 42% is less than half. That’s not overwhelmingly anything.

I generally trust the Pew research center to be relatively unbiased, especially compared to many other research agencies. I think a lot of people are using the findings of this study to make conclusions that the research wouldn’t necessarily support.

The big shocker for me was that only 7 percent of stories suggested Apple is too controlling. That sounds crazy low to me. I must not be reading the same sources they are.

> This guy has written quite a bit about the new Windows Mobile 7 platform. While it would be easy to denounce anything Microsoft is doing in this space, especially considering what Microsoft is up against in terms of competition, I have to say that what I’ve seen so far of this new OS is, if nothing else, very different from what we usually see from the Redmond Giant.

For one thing, it looks like a lot of time and care has gone into this thing from a design standpoint. This isn’t a cheap clone of iOS, the way Windows is a cheap clone of Mac OS, the way Android is a cheap clone of iOS. This is something very different. Still touch-based, still simple and clean (maybe even more simple and clean than iOS), but very different from anything Apple is doing. It even looks almost completely different.

And there’s documentation. Design principles. Human Interface Guidelines. The whole nine yards. They’re putting the hours in over there.

But does it work? Of that, I’m still not sure. I think of projects like Courier that demo very well but upon further inspection make no practical sense, and I worry that what we’ve been shown so far will be better on paper, in short video clips, or at a sales demo than in actual use. Seems like a lot of screen real estate gets wasted; seems like a lot of swiping to off screen content; seems less intuitive to operate for someone who doesn’t know where to tap or swipe.

But I’m going to reserve my real judgement on this one, despite my natural tendency to immediately assume anything Microsoft produces will be crap. The level of thought that appears to have gone into designing this thing suggests that some of the real talent at Microsoft has finally been allowed to float to the top.

All of this could be moot, anyway, if you believe what most people would have you believe, that Android already has the mobile game won by a mile, that even Apple will only have a small percentage of market share in a few years, after the massive Android takeover occurs any minute now.

But you don’t really believe that nonsense, do you?

The way I see it, it’s still a wide open field. Apple will be stuck in a war with the carriers for a while still (many will not want to give up that precious control they love so much, and Steve Jobs is, well Steve Jobs), and that will leave a large chunk of the market up for grabs. Right now, Android is mopping up that market. But for how long? So far they’ve been competing mostly with dead Windows Mobile 6 and non-smart phones. They don’t seem to be fostering long-term loyal customers, the kind of people who stick to one platform for years and years on principle. HP has WebOS, which will most likely go nowhere, but you never know. RIM keeps making the mistake of trying to expand to consumers and is meanwhile ceding ground on the business front to Apple.

Microsoft looks like it’s coming very late to the party with an OS that will likely be under featured on launch. But hey, Apple does that on a regular basis and manages to pull it off, so I wouldn’t write MS out of this story just yet.

> In fact, Nokia, Samsung and LG combined sold roughly 400M mobile handsets worldwide in the first half of 2010 with a combined value share of 32% of handset industry profits, while Apple sold roughly 17M units over the same time period and captured an estimated 39% of industry profits, or greater than the top three global handset OEMs combined. Apple leads the industry in every metric except for unit share… Apple figured out a long time ago that you can easily make money without having the most popular product. Just make sure you have the most profitable product. And profitable doesn’t necessarily mean “most expensive” either.

Personally, I think market share is a crock. The method of counting is always skewed. With PCs, they count all sorts of products, like cash registers at supermarkets, and other types of machines that Apple doesn’t even make, as PCs. And they compare Apple with every other manufacturer combined, since all those other manufacturers make Windows machines. You rarely see comparisons between Apple sales and Dell sales, for instance.

For this reason, most people still believe that only about 5% of people have Macs in their houses. That’s never been true, and is far less true today than it was ten years ago. Macs are still far from the majority, but they have a lot more share than we’re led to believe.

With phones, every single type of Android phone is counted as one item vs. the one iPhone. As if Android phones really had that much in common. They never show you a chart with the Droid X vs. the iPhone. Or the Nexus One vs. the iPhone. Any such chart with any other single device would be an embarrassment next to the iPhone.

Sooner or later, all these other manufacturers are going to figure out that even with the free Android, they still can’t make a whole lot of money on phone sales, no matter how many they sell. The only company benefitting from Android is Google. It’s not a mutually beneficial relationship to HTC, Motorola, etc.

Some are saying that soon the iPhone will shrink down to a 5% market share, just like the Mac. Even if that were true, Apple would still make plenty enough profit to keep making iPhones. But it won’t be true, because Android phones (and Windows 7 phones, and RIM phones, etc.) can’t beat the iPhone on price. At least not by much. Phones are pretty much $200 with a 2-year contract, no matter which phone you buy. So why would people not choose an iPhone?

The price difference was the leading factor to PC dominance throughout the 90s.

With the iPad, the competition is still trying to figure out how to react. Samsung seems to be resorting to locking people into another 2-year commitment in order to appear to be price competitive. I’m not so sure people are going to fall for that. If manufacturers can’t figure out how to beat Apple’s $499 entry price without a contract, Apple is going to enjoy another year of dominance in the tablet market in 2011. Even before you factor in the improvements Apple will make with the next gen iPad early next year.

> Verizon Wireless confirmed Thursday that the [Android](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178688/Android_news_reviews_more) 2.2 update known as Froyo will not be provided for the Droid Eris [smartphone](http://www.computerworld.com/s/topic/75/Smartphones) , outraging some customers. > > Rumors that the Eris, built by HTC, would not be updated with Froyo started in June, but as other phones running earlier versions of the Android operating system began getting the update, Eris customers became restless to know if they would get Flash support and other features provided in the update. > > Restlessness turned to anger Thursday as some customers on Android forums said they have another year on their Eris contracts but can’t upgrade to get the capabilities or applications they seek, including some apps that require Flash media player support provided in Froyo. When you put the power of upgrades into the hands of a carrier like Verizon, why would you expect anything different?

What motivation would Verizon have to invest in software development for a phone that’s more than a few months old?

Carriers don’t care about brand loyalty, because they have you by the nuts with that two-year contract.

I’ll say it again: Why would anyone, given the experience of choosing Android and getting royally screwed into an outdated phone one year into a 2 year contract, choose to buy another Android phone?

Google may be winning the short-term numbers game, but they’re doing an absolutely abysmal job of inspiring brand loyalty. My guess is that Google is betting it can kill everyone else off before this matters, the way Microsoft did with Windows. Leave people with no choice but to keep buying their crap.

I have serious doubts about that.

Say what you want about the iOS 4 update slowing down the 2-year old iPhone 3G. (A problem which Apple acknowledged and fixed with its most recent update.) At least Apple offered an upgrade path, and made a serious commitment to fixing the slowdown on phones that were two years old. Google is not saying a word in defense of its customers here. Why isn’t the press hounding them for a comment?

It’s not just the Eris, either. The majority of Android devices sold before Froyo was announced will never be able to run it. Way to reward your early adopters, Google.