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BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins has dismissed the iPhone for slowly innovating, arguing that while BlackBerry 10 owes iOS for its groundwork on touch devices, Apple’s aging UI leaves it passé. “Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market, they did a fantastic job with the user interface” Heins told The Australian Financial Review as the Z10 made its debut down under, but argued that “the rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate … you can be replaced pretty quickly.” That’s something Apple should fear, Heins argues.

“The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old” he concluded. In contrast, Heins claimed, BlackBerry 10 is better at multi-tasking than Apple’s phone, .

The CEO wouldn’t be drawn on specific sales figures, pointing out that BlackBerry is in a quiet period ahead of announcing its latest financial results. However, he did re-confirm that the company is considering the potential for licensing BlackBerry 10 – assuming it could find other manufacturers sufficiently interested in using it on their own devices – but said that, right now, the focus is on the roll-out of the Z10.

Hardware we shouldn’t expect to see delivered any time soon is a tablet, though. Here, Heins gives Apple a little more credit: “Kudos to Apple, I think they really managed to own that space, so it doesn’t make sense for me to just take this head on” he conceded. “I need to figure out, for my enterprise customers, for my consumers, for my BB10 audience, what can I do that provides them a mobile computing experience in the form factor of a tablet, which goes beyond just the puristic tablet experience.”

That stance echoes comments by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who has repeatedly said that the Finnish firm will only wade into the tablet space once it can find a sufficiently unique angle to take with it. “I think the profit pool is very very thin,” BlackBerry’s Heins mused.

BlackBerry CEO: iPhone is old news is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Heads-up, BB10 users — checking in just got a little less second-class. Foursquare has today issued an update to its BlackBerry 10 app that effectively brings it closer in line with the version already available for iOS users. For starters, there’s a more compact Explore screen, and your friends can now be tagged in check-ins and comments. For big spenders (or frugal ones, we guess), Visa and MasterCard specials can now be taken advantage of by Z10 users. Per usual, it also ironed out a few miscellaneous bugs along the way, and you can get your update in the source link below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Blackberry

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Via: About Foursquare

Source: BlackBerry World

More than a few weeks after its launch, the Blackberry Z10 is finally nearing its release date, with it going up for pre-order for T-Mobile business customers and AT&T subscribers earlier this week. As we reported yesterday, the handset also became available for pre-order from Verizon at 8AM this morning. It will be available in stores March 28.

Verizon boasts a black version of the Blackberry Z10 in addition to the white one offered by AT&T. The handset costs $200 with a two-year contract, a price that many feel is too steep for a phone that the company is hinging so much on. While many handsets have been launched at this price point, including the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III, Blackberry isn’t a major player in the market, leading some to question the wisdom in the pricing. You can read more about this in our write up here.

If you’re a Blackberry faithful, however, or want to give the platform a shot and aren’t afraid to drop $200 and take on a new 2-year contract, you can head over to Verizon and place your order now. Still undecided? Read our review of the Blackberry Z10 to get a better idea of whether it’s the phone for you.

The BB Z10 features a 4.2-inch 1280 x 768 display, as well as a 2-megapixel front camera and an 8-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash. Inside, users will find a Qualcomm MSM8960 1.5GHz dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM, as well as 16GB of internal storage. There’s a microSD slot for storage expansion with support for up to 32GB.

[via PC World]

Verizon now accepting Blackberry Z10 pre-orders is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Blackberry just achieved a new milestone, receiving a record order of 1 million handsets from one of its partners. This is the largest order it has ever received, and is a boon for the company that has put a lot of effort into revamping itself after a string of bad luck. Not surprisingly, the company’s shares took a big jump after the announcement.

The only information supplied provided is that the order came from an established partner, but Blackberry declined specifying what it means by such a statement or who that partner is. In addition to carriers, Blackberry supplies devices for both corporations and governments agencies, although the number that use its handsets declined dramatically in 2012.

Said Blackberry’s Executive Vice President of Global Sales Rick Costanzo, “An order for 1 million devices is a tremendous vote of confidence in BlackBerry 10. Consumers are ready for a new user experience, and BlackBerry 10 delivers. With strong partner support, coupled with this truly re-invented new platform, we have a powerful recipe for success.”

Bloomberg, which is reporting on the story, reached out to the major carriers – Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint – none of which offered a statement about whether they were involved in the transaction. While the latter two declined commenting, Verizon hasn’t yet given a comment either way. The announcement resulted in an 8.2-percent jump in shares.

[via Business Week]

Blackberry scores its biggest order ever: 1 million phones is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

I liked BlackBerry’s Z10. Not enough to have it replace my current phone, mind, but enough to give it a reasonable rating, and to believe that BlackBerry, AT&T and Verizon are having a laugh if they think $200 is the right price. AT&T waded into the Z10 preorder field today with the announcement that, just like Verizon told us it would earlier this month, be asking $199.99 with a new, two-year agreement for the first of the BlackBerry 10 phones. That’s par for the course for a new flagship, but it’s also much, much more than BlackBerry should be targeting.

$200 has become the “norm” for a new high-end phone launch. The Galaxy S III arrived at $199.99; the iPhone 5 did too. HTC’s One will likely command the same amount when it hits US carriers in the coming months. The carriers have settled on a figure that has proved to be psychologically acceptable for the mass market (even if that mass market would probably save itself some money by paying full-whack for its new phone rather than expecting a network subsidy).

Whether it’s AT&T, Verizon, or BlackBerry itself, however, the pricing for the Z10 seems to have been knee-jerk rather than fully thought-through. Yes, $200 may be the expected price, but the Z10 comes to the market as a challenger, not as another proven quantity. Price was the first point at which the networks could properly express that challenger appetite, but they opted not to.

“BlackBerry 10 needs fresh blood, not more of the same”

Sure, the BlackBerry faithful will probably stomach two-hundred bucks to get their hands on what’s a significant improvement over their existing phones. Yet selling to the same, minority-share market – one which has seen many deserters already jump ship to Android or iPhone – isn’t a strategy for growth. BlackBerry 10 needs fresh blood attracted to the platform, not just more of the same.

The closest comparison is probably Windows Phone, which is also fighting to build its share in the smartphone segment. Verizon will sell you an HTC 8X for $99.99 with a new agreement, however, while AT&T will happily hand over a Nokia 920 at the same price. Like the Z10, neither is a perfect device, but Windows Phone undoubtedly has its strengths and with the pricing, both carriers are making them look especially appealing for new smartphone users.

BlackBerry took the decision to eschew Android and use its own platform; I can respect that. However, it also needs to wake up to the reality of the situation it thus finds itself in as a company, trying to break into a hectic and aggressive market with an unproven OS. That’s a tough fight at the best of times, but pushing for premium pricing as well seems at best an unnecessary challenge and at worst a clear misreading of the mobile industry today.

$200 is just too much for the BlackBerry Z10 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.