“Apple has launched its new iPhone decisively into BlackBerry’s business market, by improving security, e-mail and allowing third-party software to run on its platform. But this is not a challenge Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry, is going to take lightly. Its most consumer-friendly phone yet, the Bold, could launch next week, while a multimillion dollar marketing campaign, ‘Life on BlackBerry,’ sees it make a more determined push beyond its corporate core,” Tim Bradshaw and Rob Minto reports for The Financial Times.
MacDailyNews Take: Besides blowing multimillions of dollars on marketing, here’s what RIM will be doing in the near future:
• Pretending that antique technology wrapped in an iPhone-like exterior is innovation
• Talking up physical keyboards over touchscreen keyboards until they finally produce a device with a rudimentary touchscreen keyboard to tout
• Like every other mobile device company and non-iPhone carrier, totally ignore and never mention Multi-Touch™, especially vs. their single-touch-screen offerings
• Trying to keep their central email server online up in Canada
• Watching their market share lead erode dramatically
Bradshaw and Minto continue, “Apple has set a target of selling 10m iPhone 3G devices worldwide, which could be tough in a weakening consumer environment.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple will easily sell significantly more than a mere 10 million iPhone units in 2008. iCal us. (Note: the actual goal is 10 million iPhones – original model and iPhone 3G – sold in 2008, not “10m iPhone 3G devices” as Bradshaw and Minto incorrectly report.)
Bradshaw and Minto continue, “Richard Windsor, analyst at Nomura, said BlackBerry’s attempt to crack the consumer market has ‘not been particularly competitive… The Apple experience on their device is second to none. Rim has a lot of work to do to catch up’ in scaling up its manufacturing and distribution capability as well as design, he added.”
Bradshaw and Minto report, “Nokia’s senior vice-president of devices, Søren Petersen, has been scathing about BlackBerry’s consumer push. ‘Selling to women is about more than making it pink,’ he told the FT in June, referring to a colourful edition of the BlackBerry Pearl, its device that’s most like a regular phone. But he also dismissed the iPhone’s security and business features as ‘not worthy of discussion.'”
“Andrew Brown, analyst at Strategy Analytics, thinks Nokia has failed to capitalise. ‘Apple is in a good position to slaughter the lot of them because they’ve kept it pretty simple and accessible,'” Bradshaw and Minto report. “Steve Jobs, Apple chief executive, has claimed Apple made $30m (£15m) from 60m downloads in the first month that the iPhone was available.”
More in the full article here.
As usual, Nokia sounds bitter, defensive, and scared, as well they should be. And, RIM simply does not have the chops to compete effectively with Apple, so they will try to make their inferior hardware look like iPhones, couple it with their totally outclassed software, and hope to market their way to an ignorant, nonsustaining user base. Note to RIM et al.: Those who are unable to distinguish between a real iPhone and a pretend one are much more likely to have far less disposable income than those who can.
I think nokias opinion is irrelavent considering their cash cow phones are not in the same market as the iPhone.
“• Trying to keep their central email server online up in Canada”
I don’t know if that can be a valid point from you until Apple achieves it with MobileMess.
• Trying to keep their central email server online up in Canada
“I don’t know if that can be a valid point from you until Apple achieves it with MobileMess.”
It’s a perfectly valid point: You can email to and from an Apple iPhone without using MobileMe at all, but all BlackBerry email goes through RIM’s central server that has gone out in the past, stopping all BlackBerry email.
Jobs has not claimed $30 Million from iPhone App sales. That is speculation from Wall Street analysts.
Jobs has reported 60 Million iPhone App downloads since July 11.
One advantage RIM has: You’ll probably be able to pick up a BlackBerry Bold without standing in line or placing an order with delivery sometime in the future. C’mon, Apple … get enough of these units out there for everyone who wants one.
Just look at all the competitors commercials, especially the latest BB fake baby talking gag – tired, old tricks, not targeting their customer base, shows nothing about the phone – the same attention is paid to their technology. Too bad the supporting players like Novell GroupWise don’t care to wise up to a better mobile platform.
Wow, that thing looks bleeding edge! Look at that sleek plastic keyboard! Plus a color screen and a joystick! Sign me up!
(btw I’m posting from 2004)
I thought Nokia made those plastic cell phones for kids that are filled with candy. What do they have in common with the iPhone’s target market?
I still don’t understand the animosity towards RIM.
“Trying to keep their central email server online up in Canada”
You know… this will be a lot easier now with RIM customers leaving for iPhone…
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Let’s look at it this way: people who buy RIM or Nokia phones today are a critical part of Apple’s future success. As soon as their two year plans run out, they, realizing they’ve been duped, will come crawling over to the iPhone, generating sustainable sales for Apple over many quarters into the future….
@ Sir Gill Bates
“I still don’t understand the animosity towards RIM.”
It probably isn’t real animosity. Like me, they probably feel some admiration for RIM but a lot more admiration for what Apple is accomplishing. The name of the game is that a new guy with bright innovation comes on the block and all the old guys are caught with their pants down shouting, “what happened, where did he come from?”
chanM,
I understand what you are saying, since I too admire all of Apple’s accomplishments. It just seems like I never heard anything bad about RIM until the iPhone came out. Now people are putting them in the same class as MicroSoft, and I simply don’t think that is very fair.
I gotta admit, I think it’s going to be close. I’m not sure Apple “will easily” sell 10 Million iPhones. I think they’ll make it, but I’m not sure they’ll blow away estimates.
So far this year, Apple has sold “over” 3,420,000 iPhones. That’s 1,703,000 between January and March, 717,000 between April and June, and “over 1,000,000” in the opening weekend of the iPhone 3G. This is a little over 1/3rd of their goal and that was 7 months into the year. Apple needs to sell 6,580,000 phones before December 31st.
One thing I’m curious about is whether Apple’s new deal with AT&T is going to hurt them at Christmas. One of the cool things about the iPhone last Christmas was you could buy one for a friend/relative/stranger. Now, if you buy an iPhone for someone else, you also have to buy them a calling plan (or spend $399). I’m not sure I’m that nice a person.
“It just seems like I never heard anything bad about RIM until the iPhone came out. Now people are putting them in the same class as MicroSoft, and I simply don’t think that is very fair.”
I agree.
Let’s see… BlackBerry locked once in 5 years due to too many e-mails. iPod Touch becomes unusable running Flashlight. Where do I sign up?
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I have nothing against RIM, or Palm for that matter.
But, I don’t like old technology either. As for RIm, I still believe they have the best Mobile Speaker Phone in the world.
And Palm: my last Tungsten bit the dust when it was 15 months old, and I paid Palm another $125 for a refurb from them. That bit the dust 9 months later. Enough for me. I LOVED Palm in the 90’s.
As for me? You bet your a_s I bought a 3G iPhone when it came out July 11th. It’s 10 times the phone I was expecting. It really IS a computer that happens to be a cell phone.
P.S. MDN: I loved your use of the word “chops”
I like the iPhone and some of it’s “Neat Factor” however, it cannot yet replace my Blackberry. My BB Curve is all business, syncs well with my mac and does all of the functions that I need quite well with no fuss. The iPhone is still a toy, yes I know there are some company’s starting to use it but in my eyes it’s still a toy like the Motorola Razr was.
Most of all, it is connected to AT&T;, the worst provider in my area, so for now I will proudly carry my BB and wait for the BB Thunder or Apple to realize that the iPhone needs to be cool, available on other carriers and that things like “Cut and Paste” are necessary in a phone OS.
I won’t give up the functionality and rock solid stability of the BB for the cool factor of the iPhone or any of the other “Cool Phones”.
Rim if you are reading this you could take some lessons from Safari on the iPhone though, I find myself waiting till I have a wifi hotspot and using my iPod Touch instead of the BB…..
so fun to see the fanboys rant on and on to make them feel better disregarding and excusing shortcomings in the iphone. you guys are completely insane to believe RIM has had its best days. ical this, put it on your bulletin board, tattoo it on your body, i don’t care – just rememebr this: RIM will dominate the mobile landscape in the coming years along with Apple. I could educate you on economics and bandwidth capacity, but it would go over your heads. The Blackberry will continue to flourish. Believe it or not, it’s a fact. ok, now you can jump all over me. love to antogonize!
You gotta love the titles that MDN comes up with.
I’ve been on an iPhone since the original a year ago and have the 3G now. I still can’t type as fast as I could on any of my previous 5 blackberrys. And they were a lot snappier than the new FW2.0 on the iPhone. But I would trade back period, web and apps are just too good. I hope Apple fixes the new pauses in address book and the dropped calls with 3G.
Bradshaw and Minto continue, “Apple has set a target of selling 10m iPhone 3G devices worldwide, which could be tough in a weakening consumer environment.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple will easily sell significantly more than a mere 10 million iPhone units in 2008. iCal us.
Umm, MDN even you blew this one. Steve Jobs promised to sell 10 million iPhones by the the end of 2008 not 10 million iPhone 3Gs as Bradshaw and Minto imply.
Only one reason I don’t have an iPhone. The service plan. My brother-in-law works for Sprint so my wife and I are on the employee plan and we get unlimited data and 1500 minutes a month for a combined $54. Kind of hard to drop that. Plus my Centro works ok. I don’t really use it for browsing. Mostly for checking email on the road. And one advantage it has is I can use it as a modem for my laptop. Would I like an iPhone? Sure. But until Sprint gets it or my brother in law changes companies I won’t see one anytime soon.
@ Sir Gill Bates
Maybe you weren’t listening closely enough. Pretty much all of these phone manufacturers RIM included were blasting Apple’s efforts and throwing heavy skepticism on Apples offering before and during generation one launch. I suspect that is where the animousity came from. A standard industry practice is to blast your competitors efforts especially if you are totally out classed until you can make an effort to try and pull even. M$ used to do it all the time.
@Brocktoon,
That’s what the Best Buy deal is for.
As for gift buying, by the time Christmas rolls around, the iPhone might be available legally in enough markets that Apple and AT&T;can go back to at-home activation.
It’s so tiring reading over and over about the iphone and how it’s going to just take over everything in the mobile landscape. At the moment the 3G is having all kinds of issues, MobileMe is up and down (definately NOT like exchange) and they can’t seem to make enough devices so I don’t call that a fantastic business plan.
You can bet while Bold and other upcoming devices won’t perhaps have the Cool / Sexy factor iphone has earned the device will be rock solid. Apple would jump at the chance to have anything like the NOC (which MobileMe basically is). Apple is going to find offering a supporting a mobile platform is a heck of alot different then selling ipods and music via Itunes. There are things just outside their control (carrier, signal etc) so while their other products can be totally controlled the Iphone has to become more open to truely explode. I think people will quickly tire of the locked down attitude and jailbreak is not the answer for the majority of users.
No doubt the iphone brings a whole new factor to mobility and the possibilities are exciting but Apple has enough things to work on and so does RIM with new devices, new BES etc.
The first mobile company that can take mobility and make it dirt cheap (read free to no cost for the device) and pay as you go options for data will be the big winner .. and who has that coming? Blackberry. People like options and Blackberry is going to have 3 price points, along with multiple carrier options so it’s offered in more places = more revenue.
What and note whatever you want MDN.
By God, this is what RIM and Nokia should be a fearin’…..
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ggR18cBzd8I
When you say “iPhone is still a toy”, your argument immediately loses credibility as a serious one. Technically, iPhone CAN be a toy (if one downloads a game from an AppStore), but all the reviewers, far too numerous to mention, have agreed that it is now a serious business tool. The new software provides practically everything you can functionally get using a Treo (or WinMobile) and advantages (mostly on paper, in the form of bullet points) that RIM has in terms of some security features, etc., are of little consequence for vast majority of corporate buyers.
While MobileMe was clearly a mess (and some of it is still being mopped up), it is irrelevant to the iPhone’s enterprise functionality (no enterprise would ever need or want to use MobileMe).
Single biggest advantage over BlackBerry is the lack of a single point of failure (“the server in Canada”). IPhone will be as (un)reliable as is your Exchange, IMAP or POP3 mail server.
There will always be some people who will be (very subjectively) put off by iPhone’s radically different (multi)touch user interface, and they will be perfect customers for RIM (or WinMobile). As we all know, once we go beyond the objective, measurable usability and into the territory of “cool” or “sleek”, personal tastes begin to play an important part. Clearly, though, Apple has been consistently able to hit the mark when it comes to the emotional, subconscious response to industrial design. Legendary attention to detail shows everywhere, from hardware, to UI. Professional reviewers have testified so much.
I have no doubt that, with the remaining countries coming online in a few weeks, Apple will have no problem selling 10 million new 3G phones, let alone 10 million total for 2008.
If you want to buy somebody an iPhone just give an Apple gift card and have the iPhone set aside for them.
MobileAdmin,
I wouldn’t be so sure that the Bold is going to be “rock solid.”. RIM is finally venturing into territory they haven’t been in before. That’s why the Bold was suffering from power management issues and might still have a few kinks. The Thunder is even less of a sure bet.
It’s real easy to be “rock solid” when all you do is regurgitate the same junk over and over year after year with some new icons here and a white trackball there. I mean the Bold (their first 3GSM device mind you) has been in development for years and it’s not even all that great.
Those days are over for RIM and now we’ll see how they do when they’re actually forced to innovate with Apple breathing down the back of their necks.
@Towertone: I can not believe you made me waste 42 seconds of my life. That interface is just totally horrible. Why does the guy have to touch it several times before it works?
Personally, I’m waiting for someone to make an iPhone workalike that looks NOTHING like an iPhone. If the functionality is great, but the ugly design makes children cry, I’ll buy one.
(I’m narcissistic like that… even though I don’t actually know what narcissistic means.)
“MobileMe is up and down (definately NOT like exchange)”
true.
even with the poor mobileme showing, it is far outperforming most exchange servers…..
Apple should release a phone to challenge Nokia in its ordinary, non-Smart phone segment, i.e. something like a iPod touch with phone, but no ability to surf the web. That would put the fear into Nokia.
The iPhone and Apple are Microsoft of the 90’s. Just wait for the next decade when everyone pulls ’em apart like they are with MS now. Fanbois should invest in Kleenex stock.
RIM wouldnt be getting shots here if they had not copied the iphone appearance. That smacks of fear and bandwagon jumping, which are not attractive traits.
RIM have done a good job, but finally there is a challenger.
Now its up to RIM to solidify their position or chase Apple.
We will see what happens.
However, ALL the other phone companies that have been selling TOTAL CRAP for the last 10 years deserve to get eaten.
@ Roger
Good idea of a simple iPod phone, no wifi, etc. That would destroy the Nokias et al, because getting your phone to play music then take a call, then back to the music seamlessly and load all your music seamlessly, just does NOT happen with the trash they put out.
@ itouchmyself
We have to wait DECADES for your prediction?
Live today buddy, next frickin’ decade is a long way off…..and by then M$ may be the M$ of the 90’s.
Or something.
The iPhone touch keyboard sucks for all but light emailing. It’s just so slow (if you wait for the popup to see what key you hit) or if you don’t, imprecise compared to a mini physical keyboard.
@Mail Phones Need Real Keyboards
Your assertion is so not true. I type extremely fast onthe iPhone, as fast if not faster than I ever did on the Blackberry.
I cannot (ironically) touch-type on the iPhone, I have to keep my eyes on the keyboard, but there is no loss of speed. I typically send very large e-mail messages on the iPhone.
The trick to the iPhone keyboard is just accepting that far more often than not it will correct your errors accurately, and not stopping to correct your mistakes.
@Sir Bill Gates…
Really? You don’t understand the animosity toward RIM?
I believe this will make it more clear.
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1135b.html
Steve needs to bounce around at Apple, throw a chair, and shout, “QUALITY QUALITY QUALITY QUALITY QUALITY…”
Just saying.
Perhaps RIM and NOK need not be too concerned about the 15m iPhones sold in 2008…
But they NEED TO PANIC about the 50m that will sell in 2009…
“I still don’t understand the animosity towards RIM.”
If it exists, the reason for it is the dismissive nature of RIM’s response to Jobs’ original iPhone announcement and subsequently.
We are delighting in the fact that Apple had it right and RIM have their trousers/pants around their ankles.
It’s funny if you’re on the right side and RIM are ugy enough to take a bit of flack.
And Tommy Boy… you are surely not still banging on about 10m in 2008 or by end of 2008 are you? This has been done to death a thousand times and no matter what you think the vast majority are happy it is 10m IN 2008. Please, no more………
Nokia don’t care because they sell about 10 times as many smartphones as Apple do a quarter, including the N-series which crushed the iPhone in terms of sales volumes in the UK, Germany and France.
Nokia don’t have a big presence in the US but since they have about 50% of the global smartphone market and over 40% of all mobile phone sales worldwide they’re not really bothered with minor players like Apple.
Reality hurts, eh?
“I still don’t understand the animosity towards RIM.”
From MDN? Well the clue to that one is another comment about where RIM is based…in Waterloo. MDN staff have probably been combing the British phone books, maps and google earth to find out where it is and have been totally unable to locate it.
Maybe someone should tell them it is down the road from London and heck you can drive there from Paris without taking a tunnel or a boat. That would make more sense from a Napoleonic perspective.
By the way Sir Gill, thanks for the reply the other day, I responded with great appreciation just in case you missed it. Nice seeing you here.
“One advantage RIM has: You’ll probably be able to pick up a BlackBerry Bold without standing in line or placing an order with delivery sometime in the future. C’mon, Apple … get enough of these units out there for everyone who wants one.”
Apple NEVER has enough inventory to meet demand. It makes the devices exclusive for the first couple of weeks (months?) though, adding to the hype.
So what, the iPhone has some issues.
So do all the others.
The major difference is – Apple is at the beginning of their roadmap and the others have had to change direction mainly because of the iPhone.
If the way forward was truly the RIM, NOK, or Palm model etc….there would be no iPhone.
Apple has shown over the “Jobs management years” that they only go into markets where innovation is needed and they can offer up that innovation.
The iphone is a COMPUTER…
and because of Apple…
COMPUTERS are now MOBILE.
Being a mobile phone is not what the iPhone is about and eventually the platform will compare to other mobile devices the way The Macintosh platform compares to other computers.
“The trick to the iPhone keyboard is just accepting that far more often than not it will correct your errors accurately, and not stopping to correct your mistakes.”
That feature’s just irritating and slows you down more. I don’t type something right to have Apple think I meant something else and have to tell the phone not to substitute it, or go back and correct it if I hit space before it pops up.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t like replacing correctly spelled words with others it thinks you’d like better.
it also likes replacing words with one character wrong that you could go back and correct later with something totally different requiring a bigger edit to fix.
it reminds my of Rim’s retarded 2 letters to a key predictive system (In that it’s retarded and slows you down using the phone as an email device).
I hear you can turn it off by putting the keyboard in Korean mode, might have to try that. Perhaps 2.02 software could include a “Disable auto-correct” switch.
“The iphone is a COMPUTER…
and because of Apple…
COMPUTERS are now MOBILE.”
Welcome to the revolution, a few years late, but then I guess you needed to see Apple ship a handheld computer before you became aware they exist.
In RIM’s defense, they do make very sturdy, solid hardware. I had a BB Curve before switching to the iPhone 3G and can say that the BB was a workhorse. Does the curve look as good as the iPhone? NO…but it was designed to be a great tool for emailing on the go with great battery life..way better than the iphone.
Apple owns in product/software design and it is a device designed to appeal to everyone..to provide a more complete mobile experience. This is the reason Apple is winning everyone over to the iPhone.
RIM has a lot of work to do to catch up in the consumer sector but I have to say, the Bold is a good step in the right direction! I have tested the unit and have to say my experience with it has been good. The UI has greatly improved but still not on par with the iPhone.
With that said, will I ditch the iPhone 3G for the Bold? Nah..the iPhone is superior to the Bold. Would I ever switch back to the RIM? I may if RIM can produce a unit that I feel is better than the iPhone.
The greatest thing that comes out of all this is the fact that Nokia, RIM, Samsung and everyone else is striving to innovate to produce better products for us all
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There is going to be some MAJOR buyers remorse when the average joe get’s home and un-boxes his blackberry to find it’s little more than a chunky RAZR with an email app…
Oh how they will look upon their friends’ iPhones with regret..
I have first gen. iPhone and love it. But I do worry that larger corporations might have some reticence in giving employees iPhones to replace a BB. The bean counters may not see past the vision of their people playing Monkey Ball and having Light Sword fights in the hall. And if the iPhone is not a secure as BB, that gives them another excuse.
@HMCIV
“I’m narcissistic like that… even though I don’t actually know what narcissistic means.”
LOL. I needed the humor. Thanks
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I find the transition from .Mac to MobileMe to be a fascinating step. Was this just a fortunate convergence for Apple, or did someone have a plan years ago that contained this seed? The AppleTV ‘hobby,’ as another example, recently took the next step in terms of functionality, solidifying its function within the Apple vision for a digital home. Given the way that Apple products tend to work together, it certainly makes one curious about Apple’s current forward plan…
I also wanted to point out that Apple *generally* responds quickly to major issues like the MobileMe problems. Apple is far from perfect, but better than many other companies. And I believe (realistically or not according to your viewpoint) that Apple is honestly trying to supply superior products while still, of course, making a healthy profit.
I also wonder greatly about the validity of comparing MobileMe to the RIM functional architecture, since MobileMe is very new. Clearly Apple could and should have done better, but I am willing to cut them a bit of slack for a new product. Does RIM offer all of the functions of MobileMe? Can anyone relate their experiences with the first few months to a year of Blackberry service in terms of functionality and reliability?
Many people are routinely highly critical of Apple, and I suppose that the intense scrutiny and high expectations are burdens that Apple has to bear. But I am frankly very tired of the negativity. Relax, take some time off and don’t get so emotionally tied up with the latest (or pending or rumored) Apple product release. It will either work well or it won’t. It will either do what you want or it won’t. And it will assuredly cost more than you would like to spend (doesn’t almost everything?). And, if you really want to make a point, vote with your dollar and not your mouth.
Road Warrior (NLI),
Thanks buddy.
I’m finally back to work after being on sick leave for eight weeks, thank goodness. I don’t have much time to blabber now, and I’m too darn tired anyway. Hold the fort R.W.
theloniousMac,
Yeah, that was one JoTs best.
“Those who are unable to distinguish between a real iPhone and a pretend one are much more likely to have far less disposable income than those who can.” MDN.
Just curious what the hell is this!!!! I cannot believe that some one would write this garbage. Or is MDN turning into an elitist only club. I suspect that MDN has some growing up to do. I have been an Apple supporter since 1991, but if RIM came out with a contender I would look at it. Since I live in Canada and will not deal with Rogers. Apple has not left me with alot of options. That does not make me poor, uneducated or (add what you will). Apple has produced something wonderful with the iPhone, but it is useless without a carrier, maybe an iPod touch.
“RIM plans iPhone lookalike-not-workalikes”
After all reports of iPhone hardware and MobileMe software issues that sounds like a compliment to RIM.
“RIM simply does not have the chops to compete effectively with Apple”
It has wider selection of their flagship device models than Apple does. It caters to different tastes yet keeping same blackberry experience.
There are things iPhone does better than BlackBerry but it wasn’t blackberry killer a year ago and it does not today.