JLatimer

Honestly I think they fell short on the announcement. Not because the device lacks but just because they didn't push the device enough. They didn't talk about the tech - they left everyone asking about specs. They totally skipped the speech recognition technology that is supposed to be next generation.

It left too many thinking that they are barely catching up when really it is an advanced phone. The browser is more advanced, higher performing. The QNX operating system is more advanced, higher performing.

The whole presentation left me asking 'is that all' at the end. Not good when so much is riding on the success of this device/OS.

Is this the 'swan song' though. I don't think so. There are loyalties that run too deep for it to be PalmPre/WebOS thing.

Ken1997TL

Well WebOS/Palm wasn't so much about loyalty of the fans (they're still there) as opposed to a jackass HP CEO who killed hardware development before being ousted. One of the most idiotic business decisions in the past decade.

Whiskers

WebOS wasn't that good where I think it would have survived the IOS / Android competition. Its only advantage was that it started its fight early on, before the others became more of an obvious choice.

Its really all about Apps. The more apps the platform has available wins. And yes, I know the argument that only a fraction of them are useful, but the average joe hears that Itunes has X amount of apps and Blackberry has X, the one with more x's will be more attractive. The OS itself is usually about a week learning curve, but they are all fairly polished at this point and really not that much different from each other (Icons, settings, mail, phones, etc). Until someone comes out with a radically different usable OS, it comes down to price of the device, software and amount of apps.

I think Blackberry will come out ok with all this, they have a nice user base and a lot of corporation support still. At the end, it will just be another usable OS on new hardware.

Whiskers

Played a bit with it. Looks like an Iphone 5. No physical home button (this is the one without the keyboard). Swipe up to exit, when it works. Slow boot up.

JLatimer

I got my work BlackBerry today. I have only been playing with it for a bit but I am liking it so far. I am not great at on screen typing. I find the device very fast and responsive. The gestures do have a bit of a learning curve. It is really good to see that blackberry has finally got the browsing experience fixed. The browser is dawn fast and renders well.

Whiskers

Played with it yesterday, its actually pretty quick and fluid.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/17455649/IMG_2856.JPG

For Yummy
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/17455649/IMG_2855.JPG

F-C

Reviving this thread for the

Whiskers

finally

doopstr

I wonder if my old BB will be worth something in 20 years, like Atari 2600 PacMan.

F-C

Yeah, it will be worth about $0.02.

AZuser

Slightly premature ? Blackberry's going to be outsourcing phone R&D vs doing it in-house. Phones will still be made (for who knows how long). And they plan to keep their iconic keyboard too.

BlackBerry plans to keep the QWERTY keyboard alive | TechRadar