Touchscreen BlackBerry details leaked Details of the BlackBerry Storm have been leaked around the internet, apparently coming from internal documents and one video presentation, showing how RIM plans to take on the iPhone. The handset, previously rumoured to be called 'Thunder', will apparently be exclusive to Verizon in the USA and features a touch screen with …
The iPhone is impressive because:
1) it commercialised multitouch, and is built near-exclusively around direct manipulation
2) it has a GPU
Single touch interfaces don't allow you to do things like zoom in and out as direct manipulation; therefore they make the user feel more distant from the thing they are manipulating.
The GPU lets it do the fast panning, zooming and spinning that is easily attacked as eye candy but also provides a whole lot of context for less technical users. It's all about building a more convincing metaphor.
It's not clear if this BlackBerry misses the point on the former, but from the video it clearly misses the point on the latter. The difference between icons moving swiftly off the screen and the CPU doing a pained three frame animation of icons vanishing behind an 80s-style video transition is that the former makes you think about a spatiality inside the machine and breaks down the modality of your tasks, the latter just makes you aware that you're working with a piece of hardware that's got some weird transitions.
Obviously it's a BlackBerry, so it's still much more suitable for the enterprise on any technical evaluation. They'll probably sell millions of them.
This handset will sell to a lot more to the consumer in the US, but in the UK Blackberry consumer sales are on the up as well. RIM is slowly gaining sales with UK consumers, and don't forget the celeb backing. When it does come to market in the UK I think Vodafone will be first to stock this device, and depending on my handling it I may well buy one.
@ Thomas:
The transition may be customisable or set by theme.
Paris because she'll probably loose one with some incriminating photos on it.
>the former makes you think about a spatiality inside the machine and breaks down the modality of your tasks, the latter just makes you aware that you're working with a piece of hardware that's got some weird transitions.
Please can I have the same mushrooms he has been eating ? Or is it Kool Aid....
Strange coz the overall impression of the Bejaysus phone seems to be one of 'weird transitions' designed by Fisher Price on an oversized piece of hardware, they'll probably sell millions of them.
The vid is locked down now with the text:
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To access this Website configure your browser to use a Proxy Server. Contact your Network Administrator for more information.
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Actually, Thomas has a point. If you knew anything about what you're attacking, you would know that this field, known as Human Computer Interaction, is all about how to abstract the working of a device to a point where only the intuition of the user is required, rather than having to learn the mechanics of it operation. This is pretty much where the iPhone has truly shined.
It has been a considerable focal point for most consumer electronic and software firms since the dawn of mass electronics, multi-touch input and guestures itself being the in-vouge with giants such as Microsoft, Apple and TI, (mouse) gestures also pioneered the known browser vendor Opera amongst others. These are, of course, intended to be analagous to the action being performed, and thus far more intuitive.
And at least Thomas provides critical thought and an actual argument, rather that spouting fuzzwords such as 'Whalesong', 'Kool Aid', 'Bejaysus phone'* and just sounding like a general (anti-) fanboi prat.
Though, James' comment had me in stitches. Boffin icon, as we should all at least **try** to engage brain before mouth, and (IMO) unconsidered irrationality should be frowned upon.
* JesusPhone tto you and me.
I have to agree with Thomas here. Watching yesterday's Android demo it was painfully obvious how poor the user experience on an interface with single touch would be if you were used to the joys of multitouch.
RIMM is going to have to do something really spectacular to compete with Apple. I don't see it happening.
@AC: RIMM's total sales may be growing but that's only because the smartphone market is growing as a whole. In terms of market share everything I have read about RIMM recently shows them losing market share to Apple and Nokia.
Everyone else has tried to jump on the touchscreen bandwagon so why not the RIMmers? What gets my goat is all these super duper phones being restricted to single networks. That's a bandwagon that RIM could have happily not jumped on. It's OK if you are already there but change providers to get the latest shiny thing? Each to their own I suppose. I guess the network handed some cash to RIM.
Apple did a great job getting a multitude of people on to AT&T but that was with something that was quite special at the time (love it or no, the iPhone had the x-factor and brand recognition that made people want to switch). How many punters are really going to change carriers for the latest B/Berry I wonder.
I'll reserve judgement on the phone itself until I see one, but for now I'm happy with my Luddite's special, £9.99 Nokia 2610.
Black Helicopter because it may be there but it doesn't really bother me.
This funky leak lets Crackberry believers think an iPhone killer is in the works when it possibly isn't a killer, and isn't soon. By making it an "accident" they don't have to say anything more.
As pointed out by others, an intuitive interface isn't easy, especially for a company coming from a glorified pager device.
RIM is the worthiest competitor for Apple, but despite the iPhone's problems, it's still a very hard product to come close to.
@ David Kelly
Very true that the market is a factor but it must be considered that RIM has a lot of corporate, government and military customers. As well as it's increasing consumer base.
The security and granular IT policy as well as reporting is what makes BlackBerry so popular to such organisations, windows mobile devices and Apple iPhones can't currently come close. For a while yet I think RIM will lead in these sectors due to the policy and security requirements of some businesses.
@ sleepy
If you read BB.com you'll soon see they've come a long way from the original remote engineer/sales pager system they developed. Although its their own have a look at this for instance: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/ataglance/security/government.jsp.
I do think there will be some software issues, maybe even hardware judging by the new Bold. Hopefully the obligatory firmware upgrade should iron these out as with most RIM handhelds. Hardware will obviously remain to be seen.
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