Despite the more recent releases of the Curve 8500 series and the Curve 3G, RIM has never really offered up a true successor to the venerable Curve 8900 — a device some would argue remains the prettiest that Waterloo has ever manufactured. Indeed, with the QVGA display and meager cam on the 3G, there’s a pretty magnificent gap between it and the business-class Bold 9700 / 9780… so we’re pretty excited to see a new model called the Curve 8980 get FCC approval. Oh, and what’s more, the filing’s now got access to a user’s manual and external shots where you can definitely picture this as being a proper optical pad-equipped follow-on to the 8900 of old, complete with a 3.2 megapixel cam with flash and — if we had to guess — a high-res display adopted either from the 9780 or the 8900. No word on a release, but here’s the kicker: as far as we can tell from the filing, it’s EDGE-only just like the device it replaces, which is pretty inexcusable for a device that’d presumably be released in 2011. Add 3G, though, and they’ve got a desperately-needed new model to slot in underneath the Bold.
Rest easy, folks: we know it’s pointy at the bottom, but we’ve been assured this isn’t the BlackBerry 7100’s true successor. Instead, the so-called Empathy is the bizarre outcome of of a RIM-sponsored design project at the Art Center College of Design that touts its ability to detect the emotions of its user and his or her contacts. It’s not exactly clear how it’d do that, but one crucial element is the biometric feedback ring that communicates your frustration at the phone’s inability to properly sync IMAP accounts in real time. All of this anger and joy is displayed on a social map — colored rings indicate your contacts’ previous and current emotional states — which is presented on a full touchscreen that can become transparent when the phone’s not in use. Prefer the Bold to the Storm, do you? Turn the phone around, and boom, you’ve got one of the scariest looking portrait QWERTY keyboards the world has ever seen. We don’t really anticipate seeing this chiseled slab of bleeding-heart technology in RIM’s lineup any time soon… but we can definitely see the benefit to knowing when your BBM contacts are ready to put a fist through a wall. Follow the break for video.
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today’s movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com.
Whoulda thunk that the third time we’d see the BlackBerry PlayBook on video, it’d be in the hands of cube-headed dopplegangster Will.I.Shill? Not us, but we’re terribly excited to see the 7-inch tablet show off its augmented reality chops in the Black Eyed Peas’ latest music video. We’re not really sure what alternate reality hijinks turned the musicians into 8-bit portraits nor pixelated their world, but the BEP sure look adorable as Xbox LIVE-friendly avatars. Watch it after the break, or skip to 2:12, 3:16 and 3:54 if you just want to get your tablet on.
T-Mobile’s got an American lock on the Bold 9780 at the moment, but you know how it goes with BlackBerrys: they tend to go pretty much everywhere (Storm and Torch notably excepted) if you give ’em enough time. Sure enough, an AT&T-branded version just popped up… and if you’ve got $899 lying around and an undying love for unreleased RIM gear, it can be yours. The phone’s chilling on eBay right now with a prominent AT&T logo silkscreened at the bottom; obviously, it stands to reason these guys would want to replace their Bold 9700 before too long, so we’re not surprised to see it go down like this. Want a white version, though? Well, you’ll just have to wait for that.
“RIM became aware of a number of issues and customer concerns regarding the Kik app and service. Following discussions with Kik, the app was removed from BlackBerry App World on November 12. Upon further investigation, RIM concluded that Kik had breached contractual obligations. Based on the broad scope and seriousness of the issues and concerns, RIM terminated its agreements with Kik and withdrew RIM’s support for Kik’s service.“
Now, Waterloo is still being pretty coy about what exactly Kik did to rock the boat so badly, but there are two obvious theories floating around: one, that Kik’s contact harvesting was a big privacy no-no; and two, that the product came a little too close to BBM’s functionality for RIM’s comfort.
Hard to say what went down, and Kik’s official response doesn’t do much to clear up the situation. Though the company has thrown up a public response on its blog, it doesn’t clarify what transpired, what “contractual obligations” were allegedly breached, or what (if anything) Kik might do to attempt to smooth over the spat. Instead, the post is more of a PR play, praising the relationship Kik’s had with RIM in the past and saying it doubts rumors that BBM envy could account for the pull. It does say, however, that RIM has fully revoked Kik’s access to push notifications and the BlackBerry SDK, so it’s going to be tough for these guys to stay relevant on Bolds and Curves across the land unless RIM reverses its decision.
Why should iOS 4.2 users have all the fun? HP has announced a deal to bring wireless printing to select FedEx Office locations, Hilton hotels, Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounges, and PrinterOn guest printing locations via the ePrint app for BlackBerry. The whole affair looks pretty straight forward: Download the app from App World (or from the source link), select your email or attachment, select a location, send the print job, stop by Gadzooks for a chain wallet and a pair of JNCOs, and then swing by your ePrint site to grab your documents. Simple, right? What are you waiting for? Go, get!
As the everlasting debate rages on, and brains continue to / not to melt with every passing phone call, Casemate’s taking no chances whatsoever. By collaborating with Pong — a company that makes its ends by “protecting users of cellular telephones from the potentially harmful effects of radiation exposure” — the Bounce was born. For all intents and purposes, it’s a simplistic form-fitting iPhone 4 case (BlackBerry models are en route), available in a foursome of hues and tested to reduce normal cellphone radiation (SAR) by at least 60 percent. Purportedly, the case can redirect your phone’s electromagnetic energy away from your head… right into the brain of some lucky chap sitting next to you on the subway. But hey, at least it serves another purpose: solving that blasted iPhone 4 reception issue. Two birds, one $49.99 dent in your credit card. Propaganda vid is just past the break.
Apple’s found itself in market cold wars with many tech companies, most notably Microsoft, Adobe and Google. But things are really heating up with smartphone maker RIM. In the last 24 hours, RIM has attacked Apple’s technical chops and software philosophy.
First, RIM’s Playbook team posted a video (see below) comparing its forthcoming tablet’s mobile browser to the iPad’s. Interestingly, the video highlighted not just the iPad’s lack of Flash (which everyone knows about), but also its slow page-loading speed, lack of pixel-by-pixel rendering fidelity and lack of support for high-quality JavaScript and HTML5 video.
The implication is clear: Steve Jobs has said that Apple isn’t putting resources behind Flash so it can focus on HTML5 and other open web standards. But the iPad’s implementation of those standards is far from perfect. RIM is now claiming that it has been able to put together a faster browser with better HTML5 performance — and, as a bonus, support for Flash — even though Apple’s had more time to get its browser right.
RIM’s HTML5 emphasis is key for its second attack on Apple, which CEO Jim Balsillie voiced at Tuesday’s Web 2.0 conference: Apple’s highly-touted app marketplace really just masks iOS’s subpar web performance.
“You don’t need an app for the Web,” Balsillie said. Since many iOS apps are just frontend clients for web properties — stores, games, media companies, social networking sites — and RIM’s app strength is in documents and productivity, it’s a clear contrast.
“There’s still a role for apps, but can you use your existing content?” Balsillie asked web companies. “Can you use your existing web assets? Do you need a set of proprietary tools to bring existing assets on to a device, or can you use known tools that you use for creating websites?”
As for Apple catching up to Blackberry in the smartphone market, when asked what he would tell Jobs if he were there, Balsillie simply said, “You finally showed up.”
This isn’t the first time Balsillie has shot back at Jobs and Apple. After an October earnings call where Jobs crowed about passing RIM in quarterly smartphone sales and denigrated 7-inch tablets (a class that includes RIM’s Playbook) as overexpensive underperformers, Balsillie took to the official Blackberry blog, questioning Apple’s numbers (RIM’s fiscal quarters are slightly different from Apple’s), its software philosophy and Jobs’s treatment by the media.
“For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field,” Balsillie wrote, “we know that 7-inch tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience.” He added, “We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple.”
It might be surprising that Balsillie taken such a hard line against Apple, considering that Android smartphones are arguably taking a bigger bite out of RIM’s core smartphone business, while Windows Phone 7 is trying to peel away customers too. But targeting Apple makes a lot of sense.
First, no company in technology is more visible than Apple and no person in technology is more recognizable than Steve Jobs. Shooting down Apple and the iPad is news, and doing it on the basis of HTML5 and web support is a strike at the heart of what Apple has staked its claim on. It’s like Pepsi beating Coke in a sip test.
Second, the iPad surprised everyone — including Apple — by its adoption rate among business users. RIM, which has traditionally been very strong in the business world, is eager to stop that trend in its tracks, before companies that were RIM-only decide to go iOS-only.
Finally, Blackberry offers a lot more smartphone models, at different price points and in different form factors, than it did when the iPhone was announced. It’s rebranding itself in the consumer market as a company that’s all about the web and communication. This week’s attacks were aimed at driving that point home.
No more of what Jobs once called “the baby web” for baby-sized smartphone screens. Email, Messenger, text entry, and the full web: that’s the space Blackberry wants to occupy in the customer’s imagination.
RIM has released a video pitching the upcoming PlayBook tablet against the current iPad, and it’s pretty impressive. Clearly the tests were chosen to favor RIM’s own device, but even so, it beats the iPad handily in each one.
Loading a regular webpage, for example, sees the PlayBook finished with everything, rendering and all, while the iPad still ticks along. Next, it’s on to Flash, which the iPad doesn’t do at all. Smartly, RIM chose to use a non-video serving site (in this case Adidas) as most video providers offer iPad-compatible streams as an alternative to Adobe’s proprietary plugin. Even so, the animation on the Flash site stutters noticeably (this is probably Flash’s fault, not the PlayBook’s).
Then we move to Javascript and HTML5, and while the example shown clearly favors the PlayBook, there are plenty of sites where the iPad works great.
Still, the raw rendering speed of the PlayBook’s browser is obvious, and the Flash support will make it useful for browsing restaurant websites on the go (why do all restaurant sites use Flash?). RIM must be proud. It must also be aware that the PlayBook won’t be out until next year, when it will be up against the iPad 2, not the current iPad.
RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie actually declined to show off the his company’s tablet today on the Web 2.0 Summit stage, but in private he was more than kind, treating us to a nice long glimpse at the BlackBerry PlayBook in a quaint hotel hallway. We only got to heft the one-pound slate for a few seconds, but we got the basic feel of the device in the hand — warm to the touch, solid if a little plasticky, with a responsive glass touchscreen up top and a bottom that’s mildly rubberized. Balsillie didn’t bother to locate the “module cavity” for us, but he did try to explain where those 5300mAh lithium ion cells might hide — we suspect the CEO exaggerated only slightly when he told us “it’s all battery and glass inside.” He then wrenched the device forcefully from our unprepared hands (at least that’s how we like to think it went down) and proceeded to let us film a brief film showing off the QNX and Air-based OS juggling a spreadsheet, photo gallery and some beautiful underwater footage all at the same time. Hit the break for that hastily-shot video.
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