Research In Motion Goes Into Slow Motion In Q1. What Smartphone do you use?

Three years ago, I was envious of the Blackberry phones my siblings had. They were impressive, denoting success and technologically advancement. Today, I pity those shackled to carrying a Blackberry. They suggest antiquated corporate policy and technological stagnation.

 

Those whose work succeeds or fails on Blackberry connectivity and its vaunted keyboards view it as a productivity tool foremost: those belt holsters aren't fro quick Angry Birds access! But got personal use, I can't fathom spending money on a BB. I prefer the iPhone, but I'd buy anything (Android, WP7, Pre) before an Blackberry.*  It may have long and successful life in the enterprise, but as a consumer brand it's increasingly disdained. I still know, and hear of, the individuals that want an "email" phone and buy a Blackberry. But I think they're rapidly decreasing in numbers; moreso as email and messaging is replaced by SMS on free, full-keyboard "feature" phones.

 

 

I have a friend working at a formerly great, now dying, tech company. He's talking with RIM about a new job. There's a lot to be said about that career change, but I hope it's not out of the frying pan and into the fire.

 

* I chose not to accept a free Blackberry from work and waited a year to buy an iPhone instead.

I will admit, I have been (and remain) a blackberry loyalist.   The reasoning is pretty simple, I haven't found a single other phone with a keyboard I like.   I don't really get into "apps".. I do have the iPad2 and an iPod touch for that, after hours stuff, but day in and day out, I need a keyboard.. it's THE only killer app that is mission critical for me.   I can't make a touch phone work for me.   Ever try to type one handed in a golf cart while driving across holes?   Shoot out email while running?   Damn hard on any touch phone.   I've tried several, Android, Apple.. I love the look and feel of them.. but they just don't work for me.

Frankly, while I am OK with the current Bold, I really miss the 8700G.. which to me was probably the pinnacle of phones that did what I wanted.. nice wheel on the side so it didn't ever screw with my typing, great wide keyboard, and very readable text.   *shrug*   But I grasp that I am in the minority view on that.

It's funny, I love almost all gadgetry and I work in a field based on it.   I go through gadgets and gizmos on a daily basis.. but as far as phone, I have two basic requirements: a kick ass keyboard and a kick ass speakerphone.  If it can't do those, then I just can't be swayed.   I don't need apps, not interested in music on it, don't care about being able to watch a movie on a 4" screen.    But a keyboard and a great speakerphone.. critical.

The thing is, Matt, you have a very limited number of tasks you want from your device, and the BB fits you to a T.  But most people are looking for an all in one device -- a music player, messaging device, phone, web browser, and a good camera.  And apps.  Gotta have the apps.  

 

Personally, I probably use the messaging components the least.  I can bang out and email or reply to a text pretty quickly with Swiftkey (and one handed while making my way down 7th Ave).  Especially work emails where I consistently use the same phrases, Swiftkey fills in 50%-60% of what I'm typing (sometimes, it will pick four words in a row -- it's like creating a chain combo in a puzzle game).  But I digress.

 

I have a friend who was forced to swap out his iPhone 3G for a BB for work, and he just hates it.  Actually, he had a lot of complaints about his iPhone, but now he's forced to carry both,  He uses the BB to keep up with emails and such, but he's not big on messaging and he finds his BB to be utterly worthless otherwise.  The thing is, once you step outside of messaging, the BB is embarrassingly antiquated.

biPhoners - see them at the airport juggling their BB & iPhone.

Not that I golf, but if I am doing something recreational and pull out my phone, it's either to look something up on the internet or take a picture, two things the BB does very poorly.

 

And for that, RIM is probably not going out of business anytime soon. There are enough people like you that live and die, professionally, by mobile email.

 

But it's now known that for most of us, especially the personal buyers but increasingly the business buyers too, email is but a piece of the puzzle (and increasingly secondary to SMS). If RIM wants to grow its corporate fortunes, it seems it must acknowledge and create a product for people like my wife that care as much about Angry Birds and Amazon as email.

Ah.  I get that.   Because of one client, I haven't had a phone with a camera on it in.. well, a very long time.  You get caught on those premises with a camera, and outside of losing your job there, the potential fines would kick you in the ass.  You're right, it's people like those that do matter..

 

In regards to Camera, the wife's iPhone4 has a great camera, so you're right there.. but holy shit, does the iPad2 have a crap camera.. it's terrible.

 

The iPad camera is the same one on the iPod touch 4 -- it's 960 X 720 resolution for "not really HD" video capture and you can take snapshots with it, but they're the same awful resolution.

I don't know if it's just the resolution, the optic on it seems "eh".. I would say a fluke, but it's the same on every one I've tried, photos come out grainy, looking washed out, and just in general crap.

If there is one big upgrade that they need for an iPad3 it's to at least give it the camera quality of an iPhone.   Because it's a great potential to take and frame photos with, but it takes such shitty looking ones.   Out of all the proposed things I see people rumor, that's the one that would make me think hard about upgrading.

 

 

The optics are in the "good enough" category for video.  They are crap for photos.

I've never figured that out though; I wonder if the camera component is that spendy on the iPhone.  You'd think even if it was more, they could at least discount it out if they put the same camera on everyone of them.  It's the one thing about the iPad I found really disappointing.   (which before we get into gasps, the iPad2 is still IMHO, the best consumer tablet; and compared to the Xoom, which is frankly terrible and the Galaxy, it's hard to see why to consider either of those)

 

iSuppli estimated the 5MP camera at $10 in 2010. they estimate the iPad 2 camera at $4. Apple would reduce profits by ~$5 per unit if the iPad2 had the 5MP camera for the same price points.

 

http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/iPhone-4-Carries-Bill-of-Materials-of-187-51-According-to-iSuppli.aspx

http://www.isuppli.com/PublishingImages/Press%20Releases/2011-03-12_iPad2_BOM.png

 

And the iPad 2 is not going to be widely used as a point-and-shoot camera; not like a phone is. It's not surprising Apple would de-prioritize the camera to put money into other components. (I'm more surprised the iPod Touch doesn't get a better camera.)

Techincally, the entry iPhone is the priciest of the bunch.  It streets for $600 while the iPad is $499 and the iPod touch is $229.  I think that they pulled the nicer camera out of the iPod Touch to make the iPhone feel more premium and out of the iPad2 so the iPad3 can get a camera upgrade.  

That was precisely my situation.  I jumped into Android when a good phone became available for a prepaid plan.  I don't talk enough on a cell phone to justify paying for a full plan (it's also nice not to have to deal with a contract), and my prepaid plan has unlimited text and data.   I'm still amazed at how much apps increase the flexibility of the thing.  I keep thinking I always have a very powerful HP calculator, a full function GPS device, and a book reader with me, and that barely scratches the surface of what it can do.
 

There is a subset of smartphone users for whom messaging is the most critical component.  But for most people, messaging is a fungible thing.  Maybe back in the day when BES was the only game in town for exchange support, phone "keyboards" were just number pads, and before GMail offered exchange like server email for all, BB was the go to device for email.  Now?  Not so much.

 

I can make a list of all the functions I use on my Evo that get more play than messaging:

 

Camera

Web browsing

Games

Video

Music

Podcasts

Kindle reader

 

Can the BB do any of these?  Some, but not very well.  

 

 

My eyesight must be terrible.   I can't imagine trying to read a book off a four inch screen.   I know people do it, but I think I'd have a headache in minutes.

 

Have you ever actually tried it?    I just finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo, which is about 1300 pages long.  The experience was at least as comfortable as reading a book.  The font size and background illumination is adjustable.  The app remembers the last page you read, you can do searches, etc.  It's great!

 

http://www.asymco.com/2011/06/27/capital-bg-nobody-wants-to-buy-rim/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Asymco+%28asymco%29


"RIM had begun to move away from a business image already in 2005 or so when it started its “Pearl” brand and a consumer-oriented strategy. The company probably foresaw that business customers would not be enough to maintain the growth they had become accustomed to. The strategy has led to a growing popularity in Latin America and other regions like the Middle East where the product is used as a low-cost alternative to SMS for avid texters. Even in the US, many teenagers use Blackberries instead of iPhones because they can use it for the BBM service (at a lower cost). I believe that it is not coincidence that iMessage was launched.

The company’s salvation is not in branching into new markets but in establishing a credible platform. When Nokia announced that they would be the “third option” after the iPhone and Android ecosystems, they did not even mention the Blackberry. The fact that Blackberry is not seen as an ecosystem is the root of the problem."

Regarding RIM: Holy COW!
http://www.bgr.com/2011/06/30/open-letter-to-blackberry-bosses-senior-rim-exec-tells-all-as-company-crumbles-around-him/

A few notes:

 

(1) His analysis of Android is spot on; as the platform grows, it shows issues that give someone an opportunity to fit in.   RIM has so focused on some clients that I can see where it pisses off others.   I admit, I am a fan of RIM.   But, again, it' for specific reasons.  There are things I don't like about it.   But let's take a client I have (We'll just say ABC Healthcare Co)  When the Playbook was coming, RIM went out of their way to meet with them repeatedly on how they could integrate medical management software into RIM as a means of HCFA billing.   Flat out, it's a killer app.   FOR THEM.   And it guaranteed Adoption.. By THEM.    But that's a few thousand people.   I've thought about this a lot since then, and it's also stupid.   If RIM didn't do it, and all that was out there that was tablets that didn't offer it, eventually market pressure would force that company to develop their software for some platform.  RIM could say "Well, it's too easy to port their software to something like WIndows 8 tablet.."   Yes, that's true.   But guess what?   They will do that anyway, and that's a year away.

 

(2) RIM does need a major shakeup in the development end.   There is a longstanding rumor that two years ago, RIM was close to a sale to MS.. and the RIM ownership wouldn't do it.   In retrospect, that was a mistake.  His analysis of "we are competing with Apple, Google, MIcrosoft" is right.   RIM's saving grace is BES.   But here's the problem with BES now.. with things like Office365 and Microsoft hosted Exchange, as well as offering out linked Exchange to WP7,the dazzle is realy coming off of BES.  

 

As much as I LOVE LOVE LOVE blackberry because of the keyboard, give it a year.   I've spent time playing with MS's speech to text and Google's Speech to Text and both are close.   Then RIM will find themselves wit a real problem.

I don't think text to speech will EVER find wide adoption. Dragon works great now on PCs, people still hate it. I hate hate hate hate talking to machines on the phone for stupid things like banking and moviephone, last thing I want is my own phone to conspire against me making me work that way for my own tasks.

Sam, I would say the same.. but maybe not.  I've used Voice Dictation software since IBM was sending me Dragon Dictate software in the mail in the early 90s.  And it has improved drastically since then.   But the speed at which both Google and MS's text to speech system works in some implementations is pretty startling, it makes anything I had worked with in the past look outright braindead.    The moment I can talk into a bluetooth and say:

 

"Email Mark.

Subject: Client ABC

 

Mark, thanks for the meeting today.   I need you to go over those reports on the cooling options for the server storage on the second floor.  If you can attach those and send them to me, I'd appreciate it."

 

Done. 

 

Make it that easy, and it won't be the PITA that early dictation systems were

Interesting thing about phones: people are used to talking to them. Turns out they're purpose-built for audio input. :) Unlike a desktop PC which has no mic, and requires custom, costly software for voice input.

 

I really want Apple to give me Android-like voice control (because the current voice thingy stinks). I want to dictate a text while driving. I want to do voice searches, so I don't exacerbate RSI issues with thumb typing. And because I see reg'lar folks loving their Android voice input.

 

 

 

 

That was a fascinating article. the most damning line is:

That's a corporate culture five years out of step with reality.

RIM responds

http://blogs.blackberry.com/2011/06/rims-response-to-open-letter/

 

Whoever is handling their crisis management PR completely sucks.
 

 

/SadTrombone
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/09/29/playbook_price_cuts_stock/

Wah wah waaahhhhhhhhh