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Tablets iPad vs. Playbook
- Thread starter Jackintosh
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I use apps, I also use AirPlay and recently getting the hang of iTunes Match. I don't have a real need for multitasking on my Tablet.
If that's all you need it might be worth considering.
It's not just the forums. It's everywhere in real life. A lot of people derive their personal sense of worth from the brands (and not just products but other aspects of life as well) for whatever reasons. IMO buying a product is not the accomplishment that fanboys make it out to be.
Further, a lot of people apparently can't see past their own subjectivity. It's either what they prefer/want or the highway as they're concerned. Their loss.
You should let the NY Times know then - they think RIM is in trouble and that they reported ~250 million. This is with a $485 million write off for the playbook losses. They wrote off more than they made last quarter if I'm reading that correctly.
Play book was good hardware when released a year ago, but they are just now pushing software it should have had at launch, the hardware is now outdated and they are indeed in trouble as a company. No one company wants to pay for a BES server when they can use iPhones and droids for the cost they have already spent on exchange.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/business/rims-quarterly-profit-falls-71.html
It's bizarre... but people also cheer for their college football team decades after they graduate college... I personally am not "brand loyal" just product loyal... if you make a good product I'll like it. I personally hated the first 4 generations of the iPod because it was completely closed and some were limited to Firewire Only... a port my computers didn't have.
That said... I pretty much have all Apple products now because they all work seamlessly.
But I do think the RIM Playbook is probably not going to survive the Tablet Wars... unless somehow they're making a profit at selling them for 199 either they will pull out of the game or go to a plan B. What they should do is practically give them away to the business market and hook them in with software like they did with the Blackberry.
They were talking about this on crack berry but the mods and their inferiority complex closed it.
Time to bring back this blog post written a year ago by someone who knows a thing or two about death spirals, the Director of Mac Platform Marketing back in the 90s.
http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-really-wrong-with-blackberry-and.html
http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-really-wrong-with-blackberry-and.html
Some of it describes where I've been impressed with Apple over the past couple years. Apple has held onto a huge number of developers with the iphone.
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Keeping the base loyal. This is transcendently important to a platform company. As your market matures, more and more of your sales will come from replacement devices sold to the installed base. You'll also depend more and more on a base of developers who add value to your products. If you can keep these people happy, you'll have a steady stream of replacement sales that you can build on. It won't be enough to produce the growth that your investors want, but it'll be a great foundation.
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I have a lot of friends who work for RIM and I would hate for them to lose their jobs.
I really don't see why so many of you seem happy that RIM is doing poorly right now (not Nebrie specifically, but the general tone of many responses here)
It lessens competition in the mobile market which could stifle development all around and worse, I think many of you forget that there are thousands of employees who are real live people that are affected by layoffs and cut backs.
I think in this current climate we would all rally around North American companies and hope they thrive rather than fail.
I have a lot of friends who work for RIM and I would hate for them to lose their jobs.
I really don't see why so many of you seem happy that RIM is doing poorly right now (not Nebrie specifically, but the general tone of many responses here)
It lessens competition in the mobile market which could stifle development all around and worse, I think many of you forget that there are thousands of employees who are real live people that are affected by layoffs and cut backs.
I think in this current climate we would all rally around North American companies and hope they thrive rather than fail.
You would think that a company like RIM would have a board of directors that would have fired those two idiot CEO's by now, instead of letting them drown the company in utter stupidity. RIM hasn't down anything you could call innovative in years. They have been slow to adapt and slow to compete against the likes of Google and Apple.
Just because they are a north American company you believe we should give them a pass and spend money on ***** products, that are overpriced?
RIM needs to take the Steve Jobs handbook for bringing a company out of the depths and making it profitable. First thing is fire those two morons in charge. Second and third is hire someone like Tim Cook to run the company and someone like John Ivy to create your products. Dump all the garbage that doesn't sell and update your core products.
I feel sorry for the people that work at RIM. You can be sure another round of firings is coming next year. Possibly the entire company!
I think you'll notice I never said buy their products, I said Rally behind them and hope they succeed.
If they put out decent products and have positives look to those positives instead of trying to focus solely on the negatives.
I am a big Apple supporter but that doesn't mean I want other companies to go under or people to lose their jobs.
My point is that we shouldn't be happy when a large company fails and we also shouldn't kick people when they're down. A lot of people are jumping all over RIM right now like a bully picking on a weak and injured prey.
Didn't say I was happy RIM is failing. Everyone and their mother has been telling RIM to fire the co-CEO's. No one is going to rally around RIM until that is done, first and foremost. My wife used to have a Blackberry since it is easier to type on a keyboard with nails. It was the biggest pos I have ever seen. Shoddy material and craftsmanship, OS was junk, had to use a little push mouse button to navigate, locked up constantly and took an hour to reboot. She finally got rid of it and bought an iPhone.
I really don't give a **** about RIM. They exit the industry, someone takes their place. Nor do I hope they fail. I'm just not very sympathetic with idiots who have a clear path to not being one, but don't take it. They've been producing crap, when they didn't have to. Everyone is seeing this, and everyone is scratching their heads over it. And that's the gist of most of my comments about RIM.
RIM needs to either pick up the pace or clear out of the market. And there's really no need for consumers to wait around. Why support an organization that no longer cares to offer you the best of the best, the best of themselves, the best of available technology? And by the looks of it, RIM doesn't even care anymore:
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-16/tech/30523846_1_rim-blackberry-bold-mike-lazaridis
http://www.slashgear.com/rims-black...e-2012-hints-at-dual-core-4g-device-15202731/
If they can't survive, then let them go. Falling prey to a leaner, meaner, faster competitor is just the nature of the industry. So let nature take its damn course.
RIM did this / is doing this to themselves. It's not kicking someone when their down if someone posts here asking if they should spend their money on an outdated, nearly appless, poorly supported OS from a company that is basically walking dead. Investors are dumping stock because RIM has no vision.
Get a Samsung Note or an Asus Prime and join Android in style. Get an iPad 2. Or, wait for an iPad 3. But, don't waste your money on tablets without a future.
The device is fine. I like it well enough. But, we all know there is more to a tablet than hardware, and the OS and app environment are crucial.
Which goes to the heart of this thread. If the Playbook is a good deal only at a price where RIM loses money selling it, it isn't a platform with a future. Sure, buy the Playbook knowing you're getting cut rate hardware, but understand that you're picking over the bits left over after the bomb went off. The Playbook failed in the market place and is sold at the price it is because RIM wants to cut its losses. What was proven is that this platform cannot compete in the market.
What on earth does "rally behind" a company mean if you aren't buying their products? This isn't a sports team. This is a corporation that exists to produce profit. If it cannot do this, there's no reason to cheer, but aside from sympathy for the displaced employees, it's not something to particularly mourn either.
For what purpose? Especially when their products don't merit it. "Rallying behind them" and moral support at this point only encourages their half-assing. RIM needs a major shake-up - the kind of wake-up call that comes from the threat of impending collapse, not a pat on the back.
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I have a lot of friends who work for RIM and I would hate for them to lose their jobs.
I really don't see why so many of you seem happy that RIM is doing poorly right now (not Nebrie specifically, but the general tone of many responses here)
It lessens competition in the mobile market which could stifle development all around and worse, I think many of you forget that there are thousands of employees who are real live people that are affected by layoffs and cut backs.
I think in this current climate we would all rally around North American companies and hope they thrive rather than fail.
People losing jobs sucks but watching a company build the same phones year after year while other are spending money and resources to build a better product makes watching them fail ok in my book. No one likes a cocky person and that's what rim is.
Playbook just got angry birds. They are probably giving each other free hummers over on crack berry.
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I picked up a Blackberry Playbook because I couldn't resist the fire sale prices. For the price I paid, its an excellent value and I ended up liking it more than I thought I would. I've loaded it with movies and games and the smaller size makes it easy to cart around. I'm running the beta OS and surfing the web is quick and flash works very well. Although I know HTML5 is the future -- certain types of websites that I visit regularly still cling to Flash for now. The screen is great and has a higher PPI then the current iPad--nice and sharp.
That being said, the Playbook is a low cost stop gap measure until the iPad 3 comes out for me-- which I may buy if it gets the retina display. I couldn't justify buying an iPad 2 at the end of its product lifecycle. I'm not going through the hassle of selling an iPad 2 along with the masses when the next version is out.
I can't believe RIM thought they could get away with charging iPad prices for these though. If they had *introduced* the Playbook at the sale prices then I think it would have done very well.
That being said, the Playbook is a low cost stop gap measure until the iPad 3 comes out for me-- which I may buy if it gets the retina display. I couldn't justify buying an iPad 2 at the end of its product lifecycle. I'm not going through the hassle of selling an iPad 2 along with the masses when the next version is out.
I can't believe RIM thought they could get away with charging iPad prices for these though. If they had *introduced* the Playbook at the sale prices then I think it would have done very well.
If they had sold it at the sale price, they would've have lost money because they would've been selling it at loss. Once you start selling it at $200, the market becomes really difficult because people will now consider that to be the "right" price for the product category.
Personally I think 7 inch tablet market as now will be struggling because it'll be difficult to convince users to pay more for their tablets over Nook or Fire. Plus the most fitting role for 7" tablets IMHO is book reading anyway because the screen is a bit too small for tablet-style (e.g: two pane mail) apps and a bit too big for phone-style apps.
Playbooks are great machines just no apps. for it. It is like owing a sports car with only 3 wheels. It could be a fantastic machine if RIM had not put that Bridge junk on it and had native email, contacts, and calendar on it. They really missed the boat on this one and it could have been one of the best out there.
If you don't need email, calendaring, contacts, and tons of apps from your tablet, I guess it's a viable alternative.