I was reading my blogs this evening and I notice Mark Evans writing about the phone wars between Apple and RIM. He feels RIM is losing its foothold to Apple and mentions of a user friendly web browser like the iPhone has. “While RIM has aggressively pushed into the pro-sumer market and enjoyed success with the Pearl, it has been puzzling that it hasn’t done much more to launch a user-friendly Web browser and a solid music/video player.” You can read his whole post at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarkEvans/~3/428496182/
I am thinking Mark should be listening to the rednecks on the Kingston country music station more often. A couple weeks back the morning guys were discussing the new Blackberry Storm which is launching on the TELUS network later this year. Features include:
- 3.25 inch high-resolution touch screen
- 3.2 mega-pixel camera (with video capture)
- A CDMA world phone that can be used in other countries.
- Stereo Bluetooth technology
- 1 gb internal memory and expandable up to 8 gb with a microSD slot.
The touch screen is supposed to be revolutionary in that when your press down on the keys on the screen, its supposed to feel like your pressing down on a keyboard. I am interested in seeing how this works and if it will be more accessible to those who have troubles pushing the little keys on the blackberries now. (i.e., those with arthritis). I have a few people at the office who have troubles with using their Blackberries for that reason. Also the high res screen is going to allow fully html rendered emails and webpages, which means the web will look like the web, not a watered down, mobile version of the web. This is where Mark feels RIM is behind and this is how RIM plans to address that downfall.
It is going to have a 3.2 megapixel camera which is hard to believe, considering the first digital camera I had was 640X480 and stored images on a floppy disk. Nice extra’s include the bluetooth support for stereo headsets as it will be able to play MP3s, which you can store more of with a microSD card up to 8gb in size. It will also play YouTube videos and do the usual stuff like Facebook, Twitter and MSN.
I am a big fan of my Blackberry, it works well for me and is very rugged. My Blackberry has been dropped more times in the parking lot at work then I can remember (and care to admit), but still keeps on kicking. I don’t know if an iPhone would stand up to the punishment I give my mobile devices. My iPod has a rubberized skin on it, which has saved it’s on several occasions but it hasn’t taken the beating of my 8703.
Will RIM lose its foothold, hard to say but I feel it having the NOC is definitely a huge advantage, but time will tell.
