The word "finally" is so overdue, that it is hard to use it without shaking one's head. RIM has finally released its BlackBerry Playbook OS 2.0 update, including features that many said should have been included in the tablet's initial software load.
BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 now includes a native e-mail client with a unified inbox, along with built-in calendar and contacts applications. Indeed, for a device coming from a company that's all about messaging and PIM, it's hard to understand why these were not released at the very start, although technical issues between BES and the QNX platform that RIM switched to for the new device were reportedly tough to overcome.
That said, there's still a big missing piece, and it's one that keeps the company's smartphones popular with some groups: BlackBerry Messenger, which allows users to securely instant-message each other, but which is restricted to BlackBerry-only devices, is still MIA.
BlackBerry Bridge, which allows users to connect their BlackBerry smartphone to their PlayBook, has been updated to include a remote control feature, allowing owners to use their handsets as a wireless keyboard and mouse.
Interestingly enough, folks have played around with the new Bridge functionality and discovered it can be used on non-BB hardware, as well, including Android devices and PS3s.
Finally, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 includes support for "some" Android applications.
Can a single person save a formerly indispensable brand? Or will public perception and a rocky recent history overwhelm even the most competent executive?
Research in Motion's (RIM's) fall from state-of-the-art communications device maker to tertiary player in the mobile market was so sudden and so pronounced that it warrants a detailed explanation, and a turnaround specialist who works quickly. Instead, RIM promoted from within after its co-chief executive officers recently stepped down.
What happened, and how to fix it? Enter Thorsten Heins, a Siemens lifer and its former chief technology officer, who left to join Research in Motion five years ago. Despite his best intentions and his earnest appearance, the overwhelming consensus opinion is that the task ahead of Heins is impossible.
comScore's latest U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share numbers for Q4 2011 are in, and the newest report from the market research firm shows Android closing in on 50 percent market share, while slightly increasing its lead over iOS.
Android is up 2.5 percentage points from September, to 47.3 percent market share, while Apple, continuing in second position, grew 2.2 percentage points to snag 29.6 percent of smartphone market share. Everyone else saw drops, with RIM at 16 percent share dropping 2.9 percent, followed by Microsoft at 4.7 percent, dropping 0.9 percent, and Symbian at 1.4 percent dropping 0.4 percent.
It means Android grew its lead over iOS very slightly, but everyone else aside from the two most popular smartphone platforms was a loser.
In terms of overall cell phone (both smart- and non-smartphones) manufacturer market share, Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (unchanged from September), followed by LG with 20 percent share (a slight drop of 0.6 percent) and Motorola with 13.3 percent share (a drop of half a percent). Apple was the sole OEM in the top five that increased its market share, rising 2.2 percent to 12.4 percent. RIM dropped again, from 7.1 to 6.7 percent.
Smartphone use continues to climb. 97.9 million people in the U.S. used smartphones during the three months ending in December (up from 91.4 million people in the previous comScore ranking).
That number represents 40 percent of all mobile subscribers.
In terms of mobile phone use, comScore's survey showed that 74.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers text messaged in December, up 3.2 percentage points. 47.6 percent of mobile subscribers downloaded applications, up 5.1 percent. 47.5 percent of subscribers used Web browsers on their devices, up 4.6 percent.
31.4 percent gamed on their devices, up 2.6 percent, and 23.8 percent listened to music on their mobile phones, up 2.9 percent.
In a positive note for those waiting for Facebook to go public (as opposed to its S-1 filing on Wednesday), 35.3 percent of mobile subscribers accessing social networking sites or blogs during the period, up 3.8 percent.
It was a pretty "positive" comScore result, with the losers being LG, Motorola, Microsoft, RIM, and Symbian, and with Android and Apple continuing to rise.
A recent Nielsen report showed that iPhone sales skyrocketed in Q4 2011, meaning that although market share continued to go the way of Android, that might change. Much of that recent sales rise was driven by the iPhone 4S; it remains to be seen if the recent Android introductions (Galaxy Nexus, RAZR, RAZR MAXX and the upcoming Droid 4) will reverse that trend.
Is RIM really the UK's top-selling smartphone vendor? That was the message the company put out earlier this week, announcing that "the latest results from data firm GfK show that BlackBerry was the No.1 selling smartphone in the British market for the second year running. It continues to dominate the market, grabbing 26.3% of December sales and averaging 27.7% through 2011."
This seemed a remarkable set of statistics for a company which has (meanwhile) been seeing US share drooping, according to another research company, Nielsen, which said that its share of the US smartphone market there dropped below 6% in December.
It's even more remarkable because GfK is famously protective about its figures; companies aren't meant to hand them out, and especially not to use them for public competitive comparisons. The company reckons that it covers about 80% of the consumer space - but doesn't try to measure sales in the enterprise or business space.
Is RIM really the UK's top-selling smartphone vendor? That was the message the company put out earlier this week, announcing that "the latest results from data firm GfK show that BlackBerry was the No.1 selling smartphone in the British market for the second year running. It continues to dominate the market, grabbing 26.3% of December sales and averaging 27.7% through 2011."
This seemed a remarkable set of statistics for a company which has (meanwhile) been seeing US share drooping, according to another research company, Nielsen, which said that its share of the US smartphone market there dropped below 6% in December.
It's even more remarkable because GfK is famously protective about its figures; companies aren't meant to hand them out, and especially not to use them for public competitive comparisons. The company reckons that it covers about 80% of the consumer space - but doesn't try to measure sales in the enterprise or business space.
RIM has taken an axe to the prices it charges for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablets in the UK - again.
You can now pick up the 16GB version of just £169. It was priced at £399 at launch, and yesterday would have set you back £249. That's roughly a third off in 24 hours.
The 32GB now costs £199, the 64GB tablet £249, down from £479 and £559, respectively.
A variety of retailers, including Carphone Warehouse and Dixons, have just applied the new prices.
RIM knocked £150 off the original prices in October 2011 in a bid to boost demand for the 7in tablets. Punters have not taken to the machine.
It didn't do much good, and just as October's cut followed a big price reduction in the States, so this latest round of reductions comes after RIM discounted again over there.
RIM and that it has "never" been interested in buying the BlackBerry maker, according to a Bloomberg report.
James Chung, a Samsung spokesman, told the news outlet that the Korean company and RIM, based in Canada, haven't had any contact regarding a purchase deal.
Chung also told Bloomberg that Samsung isn't interested in the rumored software licensing deals that RIM has been reportedly exploring as well.
On Tuesday, stock in RIM rose $1.30, or 8.04%, to $17.47 per share after the tech news site BGR ran a story, citing unnamed sources, stating that Samsung was the "front runner" to purchase RIM.
Of course, Samsung hasn't been the only company that has been rumored to be interested in buying RIM. Among the other potential suitors with speculated interest in RIM are Nokia, Microsoft and Amazon. RIM shares jumped 10% in December on news of possible takeover interest from Microsoft and Amazon.
This also isn't the first time that Samsung has come out and denied rumors of its interest in a smartphone property. Last September, Samsung declared its lack of interest in buying the WebOS operating system from Hewlett-Packard.
After months of trying to figure out what to do with WebOS, HP eventually decided to retain ownership, open-source the software and then move forward on developing new tablets (but no new smartphones) running the operating system.
iPhone 4S has narrowed the gap between the two rivals, according to NPD data released yesterday at CES.
Analyzing last year's smartphone market, NPD found that iOS's share surged to 43 percent in October and November from just 26 percent in the third quarter, thanks largely to demand for the iPhone 4S. Though Google's mobile OS maintained its lead, its share dropped in October and November to 47 percent from 60 percent in the previous quarter.
With Apple and Android vying for the top spot, other smartphone players have lagged far behind, "turning the OS battle into a two-horse race," according to NPD.
In third place was RIM's OS, which steadily dropped market share over the past 12 months, falling from 19 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 to just 6 percent in October and November of last year. Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 also struggled, each grabbing around 1 percent of the market toward the end of the year.
Microsoft is counting on Nokia to give Windows Phone a much-needed shot in the arm. The Finnish phone maker unveiled its new Lumia 900 at CES yesterday. Slated for AT&T, the Lumia 900 is Nokia's first 4G LTE device to sport the Windows Phone OS.
Some analysts believe Windows Phone could climb its way to third place in the global smartphone arena ahead of RIM, helping both Microsoft and Nokia. Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha sees Windows Phone as the key to reviving Nokia's sluggish sales and falling market share. But both companies face an uphill battle in a landscape currently sewn up by iOS and Android.
iPhone 4S has narrowed the gap between the two rivals, according to NPD data released yesterday at CES.
Analyzing last year's smartphone market, NPD found that iOS's share surged to 43 percent in October and November from just 26 percent in the third quarter, thanks largely to demand for the iPhone 4S. Though Google's mobile OS maintained its lead, its share dropped in October and November to 47 percent from 60 percent in the previous quarter.
With Apple and Android vying for the top spot, other smartphone players have lagged far behind, "turning the OS battle into a two-horse race," according to NPD.
In third place was RIM's OS, which steadily dropped market share over the past 12 months, falling from 19 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 to just 6 percent in October and November of last year. Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 also struggled, each grabbing around 1 percent of the market toward the end of the year.
Microsoft is counting on Nokia to give Windows Phone a much-needed shot in the arm. The Finnish phone maker unveiled its new Lumia 900 at CES yesterday. Slated for AT&T, the Lumia 900 is Nokia's first 4G LTE device to sport the Windows Phone OS.
Some analysts believe Windows Phone could climb its way to third place in the global smartphone arena ahead of RIM, helping both Microsoft and Nokia. Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha sees Windows Phone as the key to reviving Nokia's sluggish sales and falling market share. But both companies face an uphill battle in a landscape currently sewn up by iOS and Android.
If you've taken advantage of RIM's $299 BlackBerry Playbook sale, and come to the realization that there is an annoying dearth of apps on the darn thing, you might be in for a long wait for your favorite Android app to be repacked for BlackBerry App World. If you don't want to wait that long, there's a way to get the Android Market on the Playbook, although it does involve rooting the device.
To be clear, the procedure is rather involved, and not every Android app is going to run correctly on the Playbook, anyway. The aptly named site CrackBerry has all the instructions, although the site's name comes from the old "addiction to your BlackBerry" term, which has ceased to be as popular, just as BlackBerrys themselves.
Once the Playbook is rooted with DingleBerry, you can then use an application called DDPB to sideload the Honeycomb Launcher (HCL) app to the Playbook. You then need to get WinSCP connected to the Playbook, which is a long process by itself, and after that, you use WinSCP to copy the Cyanogen Google Apps to the Playbook.
A few more steps, and you'll have the Android Market on your Playbook. You'll need to reboot the device and then start the HCL Updater which will itself start the Android OS on the Playbook. In the Android environment, you'll see Apps on the upper right hand side, and when opened, you'll find the Market in the list of available apps.
It's hardly the easiest thing to do, and it's definitely time-consuming, but at least you won't have to wait for a developer to repackage his app, and that's assuming he even bothers to do so.
Of course, rooting your Playbook, while legal, will likely void the warranty.
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