Yesterday, I received the digital tablet that I won in a drawing at the recent IABC World Conference in San Diego. No, not an Apple iPad…a Blackberry Playbook.
My expectation that this would finally replace my long-dead and missed Palm T/X was soon shattered. Turns out that the Playbook doesn’t offer a contact/calendar feature that I thought would be standard on these tablets.
No, to get those, I would need to use the Blackberry Bridge software to add the contacts and calendar items from my Blackberry smartphone.
Trouble was, I didn’t have a Blackberry smartphone. Neither does 99.9% of the world’s population. This seemed like either a real oversight by Blackberry, or a misconceived plan to attract tons of new business on the strength of the Playbook’s appeal.
In my case, it kind of worked. Rather than hand my new Playbook over to my teenaged daughter, I looked into my AT&T contract, and saw that, for an $18 fee and 2-year recommitment, I could get a refurbished Blackberry Pearl smartphone.
So I did that this morning, and expect the “new” Blackberry Pearl to arrive sometime next week.
I hope that Blackberry hasn’t gone out of business by then, based on the bad news that I read later.
This is another reason why Apple continues to dominate. Its competitors keep shooting themselves in the foot, while Apple methodically churns out nice products that people buy in droves. Unless those people get stuck with the leftovers, like me.
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August 2nd, 2011 at 9:39 am
You are very quick to declare the demise of RIM….!
Perhaps the problem is that the tablet was given as an individual prize, rather than to RIM’s key market: enterprise.
Are you on Google+ yet, Tom? I was telling some of my Circle peeps about a conversation I had recently with my cousin’s eldest son, who works in the R&D division of RIM.
August 2nd, 2011 at 11:05 am
Well, I’m quick to point out the struggles that RIM is facing, both in its finances and product development. I’m awaiting delivery today of my refurbished Blackberry Pearl, and hope to report success with (finally) having the ability to sync my work and home calendars and contacts.
RIM has a newer operating system on the Playbook, and the majority of its smartphones are on its older system. I’m not the only person to question RIM’s market speed when it takes so long to move its product line to the new software. Again, Apple’s product and software upgrades, while not without bumps, doesn’t attract as much concern. Rightly or wrongly, this supports my contention that Apple has an advantage over competitors like RIM.
Regarding Google+, I’ve only dipped my toes into the water. I have an account, but have been busy with other things, and so haven’t set up my Circles. I’d love to hear more about your conversation with your cousin’s son, if it wouldn’t get him into trouble with RIM.
To be clear about the source of the Playbook that I won: It was a prize offered by a vendor at the IABC 2011 World Conference. The vendor has no connection to RIM; it simply offered a nice item to attract conference attendees to the booth.
August 2nd, 2011 at 11:23 am
Judy, I also wanted to mention the difficulty that I had trying to moderate your comment through the Playbook. The smaller screen, combined with my fat fingers, made it very difficult to press the ”approve” link. This is more of a general observation of digital tablets. Regardless, it reflects on the product’s usefulness within an enterprise.