RIM's iPhone Killer: Not Terrible! But No iPhone

"it lacks Apple's (AAPL) powerful OS X"

What can the iPhone variant of OS X do that it can't? How about the reverse?

First time I have ever seen a bb in action. It looks like 10 yr old tech compaied 2 iPhone.

iJah420 says RIM has some work to do.

Why is RIM so afraid of the concept of a touchscreen? I have nothing against the company, but their unwillingness to adapt just makes using their product way more complicated and less intuitive than it should be.

Does this mess with anyone else's head as much as it does with mine?

Supposedly they are working on one. No idea what's taken them so long. (Then again, if you look at how slowly they've evolved the Berry, it's no surprise.)

Did I see a keyboard and little biddy screen on that "old" looking phone??

Why the hate for keyboards? Me likey.

Is this a toy? What a lame excuse for an interface. Short Rimm

I have to ask. If this is an update to bring it to a higher level than the iPhone, why is the UI so bland? Monochrome looking. The UI still looks outdated..... Sorry to point it out, but as someone expecting an iPhone Killer device, this 9000 doesn't seem to come even close to matching the iPhone pre 2.0 version.

They will have a touchscreen some day, and the same with the rumor "slide-out keyboard" for the iPhone. They all will listen to their customers and their competitors and evolve.

"Short RIMM" - it's pretty clear that you hate the BB, but wanna put your money where your mouth is? They keep releasing one or two new phones every year with improvements and sell and sell.

That interface is absolutely labyrinthine. It really shows just how difficult this stuff is to do. RIM can't hold a candle to the work being done by HTC on top of Windows Mobile, much less what Apple is doing with the iPhone.

@Steve, I really wouldn't want to own RIM stock right now. After the iPhone's first six months on sale, they were already at 28% of the North American market compared to RIM's 41%. By the end of this calendar year, Apple will have either tied or surpassed RIMs N.A. market share, and once RIM is no longer perceived as the market leader, things can snowball downhill very quickly.

Keep in mind that RIM has almost no presence outside of the US and Canada. If they lose this market to Apple (and they are), they lose the whole ball game.

Feel free to short RIMM ....oh by the way you will never here Mr Jobs say anything bad about rim....why don't you go ask him, come on danny boy give him a call.

iPhones are like those $600 shoes women wear, they work great for sitting on a bar stool surfing the crowd / web, but if you actually need to quickly tell somebody to fix a contract? Give me a blackberry with a keyboard.

@David Dugan

We were talking about shorting RIMM, nothing about owning it. There's a big difference there. That thing can pop 20-30 points a day easily, with low short interests. It has huge momentum with earning beat after beat. I sold my long position few weeks back, but doesn't mean I want to short it.

"RIM has almost no presence outside of the US and Canada"? You're certainly on crack about this. The BB phones are available in 200+ countries.

Ok, RIM does have 11% of the worldwide smartphone market, sorry... I shouldn't have said *no* presence, I should have said *minor* presence.

Hang on a sec [takes a hit from the crack pipe].

Considering that RIM is--as you say--in 200+ countries, the fact that Apple already has more than half their worldwide smartphone marketshare (6.5%) while being in only five non-US markets is not something that I would crow about too loudly.

I'm not saying that Blackberry sucks, or that RIM is going out of business, blah blah blah. I'm just saying that their position as the market leader in this category is in grave danger. Ergo, I wouldn't want to own their stock. I understand that's not the same thing as "shorting" the stock. Point taken, thank you.

ah davey you know this is apple's 2nd. try at the smart phone market.....so maybe we could cut the BS about iphone killer. RIM in "grave danger" now that's funny.

@jay, I've spent about two minutes trying to parse your statement in an effort to make any sense out of it, but I fear I'm just not up to the task.

Let me type very slowly for you. I didn't say that RIM was in grave danger (in fact, I specifically said otherwise). What I did say is that their *position as the market leader* is in grave danger. Can you discern the difference between those two statements?

sorry david your right.

mark asked: Why is RIM so afraid of the concept of a touchscreen? I have nothing against the company, but their unwillingness to adapt just makes using their product way more complicated and less intuitive than it should be.

I hate to tell you all, but the touch screen was available on Palm Pilots years ago. And they were a nightmare when they finally failed, leaving you unable to do anything at all. You see, the touch sensitive feature was also sensitive to heat and cold (i.e. leaving it in your car in the winter or summer often meant having to reset the touch sensitive screen, then reset it again after the heater/air conditioner - or your pocket - brought it to a less extreme temperature).

They also didn't do well if they got cracked. Once again, your data was inaccessible.

I'll take the keyboard on my Blackberry any day thank you!! You call can stick with your iPhone.

Good point PDQ. You're right.

On a completely unrelated note, I once had a sweet Yugo with an automatic transmission, but when the tranny locked up I couldn't drive anywhere! It was crazy!

You all can stick with your fancy automatic transmissions... I'll take the manual four-speed on my UPS truck any day thank you!!

PDQ Replied: "I hate to tell you all, but the touch screen was available on Palm Pilots years ago. And they were a nightmare when they finally failed, leaving you unable to do anything at all. You see, the touch sensitive feature was also sensitive to heat and cold (i.e. leaving it in your car in the winter or summer often meant having to reset the touch sensitive screen, then reset it again after the heater/air conditioner - or your pocket - brought it to a less extreme temperature).

They also didn't do well if they got cracked. Once again, your data was inaccessible.

I'll take the keyboard on my Blackberry any day thank you!! You call can stick with your iPhone."
____________________________

You do make some strong points, but aside from leaving a phone in a burning hot or freezing cold car (which you really shouldn't do anyway), there's really no downside to having the touchscreen.

Also, just because there's a touchscreen doesn't mean they need to make their OS any different. I think they should leave all of their controls exactly the same - so you could still have full use of the phone in the event that the touchscreen failed. Just giving the option of touching the screen, however, really opens up so many doors to convenience.

Now please, don't get me wrong, I'm not putting down the company or the product. I'm also not comparing this to the iPhone. I do have an iPhone, but I will be the first to admit that it does have several major flaws, and I really wish that it did have a physical keyboard. I did, however, have a treo 650 from the time they came out until the time the iPhone came out - a period of a few years. Not once did I have a problem with my treo's touchscreen. That was an AWESOME phone. It had the touchscreen and the keyboard. In fact, I think palm is really under-rated. If RIM, however, added a touchscreen, I think they would steal the majority of Palm's marketshare.

Again, I'm a fan of RIM. They make a great product, and it certainly is commendable that they are keeping their keyboard. They just really need to add a touchscreen, because it would make their product much more useful, user-friendly, and convenient.

iphone= Gold Plated Desert Eagle .50
BB= HK MP5K

I have been using BB for 7-8 years now, my first worked on, i think, the motient radio network back in 2000, the product has been evolving every year and it just plain WORKS. My girlfriends iphone...what a piece of crap, she has had if for 6 months now and is about to switch back to her BB. The BB's make you more productive, the iPhone makes you look like a slacker......becouse it cant do anything productive as fast as the BB can. NO, i cant watch Youtube like on the iphone, sorry....and no, it doesnt have a touch screen......

Short RIMM? Put your money where your mouth is. Apple has burned through the initial fan boys and fashionista's, notice all the new ditribution channels (EU) are non-exclusive?? I knew the intial run was over when Apple raised the limit from 2 iphones to 5, they knew to keep sales up they needed to sell units that were going to be unlocked and shipped overseas.

S

iphone= Gold Plated Desert Eagle .50
BB= HK MP5K

I have been using BB for 7-8 years now, my first worked on, i think, the motient radio network back in 2000, the product has been evolving every year and it just plain WORKS. My girlfriends iphone...what a piece of crap, she has had if for 6 months now and is about to switch back to her BB. The BB's make you more productive, the iPhone makes you look like a slacker......becouse it cant do anything productive as fast as the BB can. NO, i cant watch Youtube like on the iphone, sorry....and no, it doesnt have a touch screen......

Short RIMM? Put your money where your mouth is. Apple has burned through the initial fan boys and fashionista's, notice all the new ditribution channels (EU) are non-exclusive?? I knew the intial run was over when Apple raised the limit from 2 iphones to 5, they knew to keep sales up they needed to sell units that were going to be unlocked and shipped overseas.

S

woooah Chris - I am not a fan boy, but the iPhone is not crap, it is a great device. Current capabilities are not set for enterprise use, but will soon with SDK. I work in a corporate environment, and I do see people from lower to high level execs with them, not slackers at all. And with Apple becoming non-exclusive and increasing phone limit, they would be stupid not to, since everyone wants it. The BB is a good device, and so is the iPhone. They both have limitations now, but things will change.

I certainly wouldn't call a man a slacker if he was carrying a Gold Plated Desert Eagle .50.

OK, OK, i take back the term slacker.

Good choice, I thought that dude was really gonna shoot you!

Two terms, enterprise servers and push mail. An i-phone for the vast majority of the corporate world is a no-go. Show me one large company or law form that supports the i-phone. According to my IT department, it will be a long long time before that ever happens. That leaves me with the 9000, and I can live with it. Plus count me among those who like the real keyboard.

Will,

Those two terms will shortly (June) be the backbone of Apple's iPhone thanks to version 2.0 of the software and the developer SDK. Don't fool yourself into thinking RIM can even compete with Apple's innovation of the iPhone, it can't.

The iPhone's market share and audience is growing exponentially because of its ease of use and powerful feature set. With the addition of enterprise solutions RIM will be pissing their pants long into the night.

find me a big company that acutually uses mac products. name one bank that runs mac. i ONLY use macs, i have 8 of them... but i know that BB and their windows friendly setup will never die in the corporate world. people who want iphones are not even their target audience. what company will buy its employees iphones knowing that they can watch youtube videos (and do all manner of fun things other than work) on it? its just not going to happen. no employer has ever bought thier employees ipods.

personally my thumbs are just too big to use the virtual keyboard. i was so excited about the iphone but the first time i tried one i was in shock at how slow and akward that virtual keyboard is. i think its better suited for my daughters hands. i tried to use a friends i phone while driving and it was impossible... you HAVE to keep looking at it... you cant just feel your way around.

please jfk , do not text and drive you may hit an apple cult member......rimm new alltime high , 3 percent short....up 66 percent from the lows of this year so far. aapl up 66 precent from lows of this year so far, 2.2 of float short.....aapl new all time high in june? henry give us some of that analyst stuff your knowen for....should we bet the farm?

Its tooooo wide!