Blackberry Thunder – as good as or better than an iPhone?
Posted on 08 July 2008, at 12:00 am, by Wayne Schulz
BlackberrySync has some advance pictures of the Blackberry Thunder and its media player. According to the site, the Thunder will run a carrier music store (it’s a carrier music store ever better than iTunes?) to allow users to purchase songs. The display on the Thunder will reportedly sport a glass surface just like the iPhone (surprised?). And the media player will reportedly feature a portrait media player…you guessed it…just like the iPhone. Hit the jump for another photo showing a very iPhone like media player. The most important question is when the Thunder launches – will there be developers excited to develop for this platform or will most be in the midst of expanding their iPhone offerings?
Blackberrysync
Promotional photos always look good. However I think what’s going to count for Blackberry is:
1. The web browser : iPhone has raised the bar significantly and RIM must step up and meet the usability of the iPhone’s Safari browser.
2. Developers: There are bound to be lots of cool apps for the iPhone shortly after it’s July 11 2008 launch. Will development dollars follow the popular iPhone or will some of that development effort get spread around to Blackberry as well.
3. Multimedia Integration: iTunes is going to be one tough competitor to slay. I’m not sold that a carrier based music store will ever do anything than leverage the cell phone monopoly to sell subscribers songs that cannot be obtained for their specific device in any other way.
4. Device OS: Blackberry must step up to the plate and hit some home runs. If not home runs they need solid doubles and triples. Starting with html email (now available with OS 4.5) and extending to all those neat third party applications that people will see as being available for iPhone and want to use on their Blackberry.
Apple is going to be a tough competitor. Each week they seem to win more mind (and market) share with both their iphone devices and their line of computer hardware. For Blackberry to complete they need to be more than just another iPhone copy — they’ll need to be an innovator with features that are attractive to their users without being seen as mere copies of the iPhone.
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July 8th, 2008 at 12:34 am
What I wish RIM would stop doing is force people to sign up for a blackberry email plan. Without one the devices are limited because my AT&T curve was surfing along at GPRS speeds because in order to gain access to EDGE I needed to sign up for a Blackberry plan. I loved the curve’s design and mainly wanted it for texting, but forcing consumers to choose between a crippled device or a $40 email plan is kind of ridiculous to me. It might also turn off some of the consumers that RIM is trying to capture.
July 8th, 2008 at 3:50 am
I believe that is carrier dependent. I have the curve through T-Mobile and I just have their data plan. I opted to not use the blackberry service which is honestly geared towards big biz. Therefore I only pay for the standard data plan. Gmail works fine. So I note only surf with Edge, I also have wifi which I believe is not available on the AT&T Curve.
July 8th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I’ve seen a lot of people try to get around the mandatory Blackberry data plan — however it seems to take away a lot of functionality if you don’t subscribe. Push email isn’t active (the main claim to fame on the Blackberry) and some people have problems browsing the web.
While it’s true that there are users who completely forgo the Blackberry data plan and are happy — those seem to be in the minority.
I don’t have as much of a problem with the required data plan (all PDA devices usually require some type of plan) as I do with the extra point of failure for my email. Since ALL my email must travel through RIM servers — I’ve just added one more place where the data can be delayed by an outage or other issue.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Alas, another phone that wants to be “like an iphone.” I guess imitation really is flattering.
2 Issues.
1) This isn’t RIM’s sweet spot in terms of customer demographic or experience. They better have hired a whole new crew of people to design this things. Without a keyboard, what’s the advantage to an iphone other than not being forced to AT&T?
2) As wayne stated, Developers. BB never has had a huge 3rd party development commmunity. Always struck me as odd since it has such a large install base. Guess the SDK or licensing is difficult or expensive. I don’t think even Microsoft Mobile will be able to touch what the iPhone developer community is going to look like 12 months from now…
July 8th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Yeah I’ve pretty much noticed that the GSM carriers give you the option of signing up for the Blackberry plans, but with CDMA carriers it’s a mandatory add on except for Sprint because BIS is included in Simply Everything. I have the original curve and at the time Tmobile didn’t have it yet, but I did notice that Tmobile still does let you surf at EDGE speeds even without the add on plans. I’m still not sure who is the main culprit, but either way I don’t think it’s going to be good for RIM in the long run especially since they’re trying to attract more consumers to the Blackberry line.