It’s no secret that RIM doesn’t exactly agree with Steve Jobs’ characterization of the company’s prospects, and Jim Balsillie has some more to say on the Apple vs. RIM front, particularly where it comes to apps. It’s hard to imagine RIM catching up with Apple’s 300,000+ apps, but Jim doesn’t think that’s the point: “We believe that you can bring the mobile to the Web but you don’t need to go through some kind of control point of an SDK, and that’s the core part of our message.” The statement was made at the Web 2.0 Summit a couple days ago, and on further prompting Jim made it clear he rejects Apple’s “appification” of the web. RIM’s strategy is obviously riding on highly portable Adobe AIR apps and Flash support in the browser (much like Microsoft’s Silverlight app strategy for Windows Phone 7), and we look forward to seeing just how well that playbook plays out in the PlayBook. Of course, “there’s not an app for that, but our browser is fully capable of performing that functionality” isn’t quite so catchy…
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.
He unfortunately didn’t have one on hand (or at least on stage), but RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie did make a bit of news about the BlackBerry PlayBook at the now-happening Web 2.0 Summit. The first is that the tablet packs what Balsillie described as a “module cavity” — the most obvious use for which would be to add WWAN capabilities to the WiFi-only model (something Balsillie himself suggested), although the possibilities certainly extend far beyond that. Balsillie also later mused a bit about NFC capabilities, stating that “we’d be fools not to have it in the near-term, and we are not fools.” That’s obviously in relation to BlackBerry phones in general and not just the PlayBook, but it does seem like a prime candidate for that aforementioned “module cavity,” which we really hope is not the final name.
We’ve only ever seen brief glimpses of the BlackBerry PlayBook in action so far, but a new video posted up by RIM comparing its tablet’s web browsing performance to the iPad certainly has us hungry for more. Seriously — PlayBook pretty much run laps around the iPad while loading pages, and even its Flash performance seems decent, which is a first for a mobile device in our experience. Of course, the video was made by RIM and we’re sure the specific pages were picked to make the PlayBook look as good as possible, but that’s fair enough — now if we could just get our hands on one to verify these claims for ourselves, we’d be happy as clams. Video after the break.
Blackberry’s Playbook tablet will go on sale in the first quarter of next year for “under $500″, according to Blackberry co-CEO Jim Balsillie. Speaking to Bloomberg, he said that the 7-inch tablet “will be very competitively priced.”
$500 seems to be the limit for non-Apple tablets, and if this is a real price and not just a spoiler to stop be-suited business-types from buying an iPad in the next few months, then it will join the Samsung Galaxy Tab in the marketplace for undersized tablets. This $500 is actually a surprise, as Blackberry is selling the Playbook as a business machine, and we were expecting a high price to match.
The trouble is, $500 is still too much. How can you charge essentially the same price as Apple does for the iPad, but for a machine with a half-sized screen? Worse, Blackberry isn’t exactly known for it’s third-party apps, and choosing the horrible Adobe Air runtime won’t help.
The Playbook might support Flash, but that is increasingly irrelevant as more sites switch to where the money is and serve iPad-friendly HTML5 video.
It’s getting hard to see who will buy the Playbook. And remember: by the time it actually limps into stores, the iPad 2 will be either available or imminent.
RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie finally gave us a crucial bit of information about the BlackBerry Playbook this morning: price, or at least a threshold. According to a Korean interview, Balsillie said that RIM’s 7-inch tablet will be “very competitively priced” with Bloomberg quoting the man saying that it will be “under” $500 when it hits North America in the first quarter of 2011, expanding globally in Q2. A price that should at least match the 9.7-inch WiFi-only iPad (16GB) and undercut the 7-inch 3G Galaxy Tab which goes on sale on Verizon tomorrow for $599.99. Thing is, by the time Q1 rolls around we’re going to be looking at many, many more viable tablet alternatives including a likely Apple refresh.
It’s the year of the tablets as electronics makers rush to get one of the hottest gadgets of the year into the hands of users. Acer is the latest to announce it will launch a new line of tablets.
The devices will be introduced in New York on November 23 and will be priced ranging from $300 to $700, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report.
Acer tablets will join a crowded and extremely competitive market. Since the launch of the Apple iPad in April, most major electronics makers have announced their own devices to take on the iPad. So far, Apple has sold more than 4.3 million iPads.
Separately, T-Mobile has said it will offer the Samsung Galaxy Tab for $400 (after a rebate) and with a two-year service agreement. It is similar to Sprint’s pricing for the device. Verizon has said it will sell the Galaxy Tab for $600 without a contract.
Acer might try to ink a similar deal but it will have to do more in terms of product features to stand out. Acer hasn’t said if the new tablets will be based on Windows or Android OS.
But one thing’s likely–Acer is going to find it hard to see the same kind of success in the tablet market that it has with netbooks.
Maybe Flash on a tablet isn’t as bad as Steve Jobs says it is. That’s what Adobe and Research In Motion want you to think after watching the video below.
Taped at Adobe’s MAX conference this week, the segment shows the BlackBerry PlayBook running media apps coded in Adobe Air, which is based partly on Flash. The video also shows YouTube.com playing a video with Flash 10.1 player.
“We’re not trying to dumb down the internet for a small mobile device,” says Mike Lazaridis, RIM’S CEO, during the PlayBook demonstration. “What we’re trying to do is bring up the performance and capability of the mobile device to the internet.”
Though there is no mention of Apple in the video, the comments about dumbing down the internet appear to target the iPad, which does not support Flash. In a famous blog post published April, Apple CEO Jobs explained why Apple was leaving Flash out of its mobile operating system, citing issues such as application crashes and battery drain. Later, when Flash debuted on the Android OS, some independent tests found that Flash was causing crashes on Android devices and that performance was sluggish, but battery drain was not significant.
The BlackBerry PlayBook will ship early next year. RIM has not announced a price.
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