Apple may get all the press, but the venerable BlackBerry is untouchable when it comes to sales. Three of the top five best-selling smartphones in the first quarter of the year were BlackBerries, according to research company The NPD Group.
So why aren’t the devices better? Sure, BlackBerry users rely on their physical keyboards to pound out e-mails, as they always have, and Research In Motion’s longstanding support for push notification and corporate mail servers means you’ll never miss an urgent message from the boss.
But even though BlackBerries have been adding gee-whiz features like multimedia playback and touchscreens, the devices still seem like a mishmash of undercooked ideas. Here are five things RIM needs to fix if it wants to maintain its lead.
Browser: Take a poll among BlackBerry users about what they don’t like in their phone and the poor browser comes up every time. Unlike the iPhone or the Palm Pre, the BlackBerry does not display web pages just the way your PC would. Instead, Blackberry users have to contend with a stripped-down, mobile version of a web page that is decidedly 1990s in its look. BlackBerry users also complain about the slowness of the browser.
RIM isn’t oblivious to the complaints. Last month, the company bought Torch Mobile, which makes the Webkit-based Iris browser. Webkit is the layout engine that is also used by the iPhone, Android and Symbian mobile operating systems.
But there’s no word yet from RIM on when the company’s own devices will start getting Webkit-based browsers.
Touchscreen: BlackBerry Storm. Need we say more? RIM introduced its first touchscreen phone last year but was a lackluster debut, to say the least. Though some die-hard BlackBerry users like it, the Storm’s touchscreen pales in comparison to the iPhone and the Palm Pre. RIM’s decision to introduce haptic feedback by making the whole screen click down whenever you pressed a virtual key just didn’t help: Ironically, it made typing on the Storm slower than on either an iPhone or a BlackBerry with a physical keyboard.
But this is one problem the company seems ready to fix quickly. The Storm 2 is expected later this year and leaked videos online suggest that it will sport a new, improved touchscreen. This time around, RIM will not just have to do better than the first generation of the Storm but also beat the benchmark that the iPhone touchscreen has set in terms of responsiveness and ease of use.
App store: Over the past decade RIM is estimated to have sold more than 65 million phones. The company has about 56 percent share of the U.S smartphone market. It sold 26 million phones in just the 12 months ending February 2009. By comparison, Apple said in June that it has sold 40 million iPhones in the two years since the device debuted. With millions of users more than the iPhone, there’s no reason the BlackBerry app store should lag behind the iPhone’s so much. Apple’s iPhone App Store has about 70,000 applications available while the BlackBerry marketplace has 2,322 apps in it, according to Medialets. Even the Android marketplace, so far available on just three phones in the United States, has 9,148 apps available.
The success of Apple’s App Store has shown that consumers like the idea of easy-to-use, fun applications that take the phone beyond just voice and data. Even if they don’t wind up actually using many of those apps, the mere presence of 70,000 possible ways to upgrade your phone is a powerful incentive to go with an iPhone. But RIM seems to have embraced that idea only half-heartedly. It launched its app store in March but the company has done little to get consumers excited about the apps in it. While Apple has made its catchphrase, “There’s an app for that,” part of pop culture punchlines, RIM is still riding on the glory of push e-mail — which it no longer claims exclusively.
Sure, there’s a difference between the Apple and the Blackberry audience. While the iPhone is almost completely a consumer product, RIM is a favorite of business users. That’s not to say BlackBerries are not popular among celebrities and general users. Nearly 45 percent of RIM’s subscribers last quarter were non-business users.
If RIM wants to grow that user base, it needs to make the BlackBerry more fun to use. The company will have to court developers and put its marketing muscle behind its app store. Catching up to Apple may be tough but at least beating Android should be easy.
Wi-Fi: Research In Motion clearly bills itself as a premium handset maker. Then why would it have smartphones that come without Wi-Fi connectivity? Wi-Fi has become an immensely popular feature among mobile phone users and even telecom carriers recognize that. Earlier this year, AT&T bought Wi-Fi services provider Wayport for $275 million. In so doing, the company added about 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots to its network. Overall, AT&T has about 80,000 hotspots worldwide.
Sounds great, except for BlackBerry Storm or users of the recently released BlackBerry Tour. Both the Storm and Tour offer 3G connectivity but don’t have Wi-Fi. RIM reportedly plans to release another model called Essex that will essentially have all the features of the Tour, plus the addition of Wi-Fi. It can’t come soon enough. Meanwhile, why doesn’t the company have Wi-Fi in all its devices?
Desktop software: Even the most loyal of BlackBerry users are quick to fess up to how difficult it can be manage their music and data through the company’s software. The BlackBerry desktop software runs on the PC and is ostensibly designed to make it easier for users to transfer files, music and data. But the software needs a rethink. Online forums are filled with users who can’t get the software to work as promised. The system also significantly lags Apple’s relatively seamless setup process. If RIM’s going to play in the consumer space, it needs to overhaul the software and make it as easy to use with the BlackBerry as iTunes is with the iPhone.
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Photo: peyri/Flickr
