5 ms·

David Pogue: Blackberry storm downgraded to a depression

38 points by auston 18y ago

martythemaniak 18y ago
"Maybe R.I.M. is just overextended. After all, it has just introduced three major new phones — Flip, Bold, Storm — in two months, each with a different software edition. Quality-control problems are bound to result; the iPhone 3G went through something similar." The simple explanation is that the consumer market is more than willing to tolerate bad quality for the latest and greatest. As everyone will remember iphone OS 2.0 shipped with many similar problems yet Apple still sold many millions of iPhone 3Gs. RIM is obviously well-aware of the issues people are having, but that won't change the fact they too will sell huge number of these this holiday season.
- ericsilva 18y ago
  I don't think that the iPhone 2.0 software had "many similar problems." It had some minor ones, but nothing like what Mr. Pogue described in this article. I have not used a Blackberry Storm, but it the article makes it clear that there are a number of fundamental problems with the user interface. There were a few hickups, crashing, etc. with the iPhone 2.0 software, but nothing significant has changed about the UI design (only the underlying system).
  - martythemaniak 18y ago
    What he mentions isn't fundamental, but half-baked, like not having bouncy scrolling or flicks or being laggy. Something can't be fundamentally broken if it can be fixed with a simple update in a few months. Other things he mentions are personal opinion (ie he doesn't like suretype very much) or are things present on the iPhone, for example: "It can take two full seconds for the screen image to change when you turn it 90 degrees, three seconds for a program to appear, five seconds for a button-tap to register" Take your iphone, open up contacts and count how many seconds it takes from the tap to being able to scroll or click. ~5s on mine, and I remember it being worse with OS 2.0. And what about switching orientations in ipod? At least a second unless it happens to get stuck and not rotate at all.
    - unalone 18y ago
      The difference here is one of perception. Apple loads their program IMAGE instantly, so it looks like things are going smoothly even when it's taking time. It was a smart move on their part. Does rotating really have lag? It's pretty much instantaneous for me on a Touch running 2.1.
- ardit33 18y ago
  The Storm is good hardware wise, but crappy software wise. It uses BB OS 4.7, which is the 4.x code base with some improvements, basically a 4+ years old OS, NOT designed for multimedia and the average consumer in mind. Giving Rim's history, I wouldn't be suprised if they are working on a brand new 5.0 OS, and they will release it for the current phones (BOLD and STORM). After all they did the same, where many devices with 3.6 could upgrade to 4.0 for free.
ericsilva 18y ago
This is another example of how hard it is to make a good user interface.
sanj 18y ago
"A BlackBerry without a keyboard is like an iPod without a scroll wheel." Um. http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/ http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  It's more like an iPod without a headphone jack.
- jm4 18y ago
  The iPod touch isn't exactly a big seller. I don't know a single person who actually likes it. I re-gifted the one I got for Christmas last year. My theory on the iPod touch is that it's a scheme to further cement in people's minds the association between the iPod and the iPhone. I don't think they ever expected it to be a cash cow. If they did they probably would have killed off the classic iPod. After all, Apple consistently makes products that consumers aren't necessarily clamoring for and then tells us it's exactly what we want. The iPod Touch is kind of an oddball in the iPod line and they treat it like one. You've got the classic iPod with scroll wheel and hard drive. You've got the smaller one with scroll wheel and flash memory to compete in that market. Then there's this touch screen thing that's basically an iPhone without the phone and it's called an iPod. The capacity is low. The battery life is abysmal. It's just as big and expensive as the iPod classic. I don't have a clue what's compelling about that. But people see the iPhone and think "it's just like the new iPod only it's a phone too."
  - Shadowlayer 18y ago
    So you're a RE-GIFTER!
    - jm4 18y ago
      It's not as bad as it sounds. A friend's iPod broke and I told her she could have the Touch since I didn't like it. I went back to my old one. The best part is that a few weeks later she was like, "I really appreciate you giving me the iPod but this thing sucks." She doesn't use it anymore so I don't have a clue what happened with it. It's probably still getting passed around like it's radioactive. It's pretty bad when people won't use your product for free. :)
wayne 18y ago
Hate to be a hater, but I don't take anything David Pogue writes too seriously. He pretends to write impartially, but he's definitely very very pro-Apple. Aside from his article about the Mobile Me fiasco, I don't think I've ever seen him write anything bad about Apple or anything nice about its competitors.
- pxlpshr 18y ago
  Not trying to sound like a fanboy but perhaps that's because -- aside from Apple's minor faults that any armchair critic can pick out in retrospect -- they are truly one of the few consumer technology companies driving the market forward aggressively.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    Maybe it's because Jobs has a firm policy of shutting off access to anyone who reports anything bad about them. Combine that with their continuously releasing hot new products and using a humongous (and well-spent) marketing budget to whip America into a fever over them, and you've got a situation where reporters have financial incentive to be biased toward Apple. People tend to follow their incentives, and Pogue is one of them.
    - unalone 18y ago
      I know we've had this argument before, but you know, it's possible that Pogue just really likes Apple products. For what it's worth, I've never read a review of his that didn't make good points on both sides. If Pogue's in Apple's pocket, he's doing a very good job of being fair to both sides.
      - mattmaroon 18y ago
        I won't disagree that Pogue likes Apple products. I just disagree that it's reasonable to expect Jobs's perverse incentives to not impact journalists, or to not be suspicious of anyone that tight with them. Any reporter given the sort of access he has is in a feedback loop where bias begets access which in turn begets bias. To pass it off as "Apple just rocks and Pogue knows it" is naive.
flashgordon 18y ago
i am wondering if Blackberry made the wrong move by positioning itself as a reactor to the iphone? what i mean is blackberry's position in the market (enterprise market anyway) has been solid and well understood (if not appreciated). for example, people (again atleast in the enterprise world anyway) wanted the keyboard and had gotten used to certain "ways" of using the blackberry.. by trying to create products to compete with the iPhone, blackberry has essentially conceded that their brand is inferior to the iPhone... this i think was unnecessary.. blackberry, with their "me too" products i think has now essentially acknowledged the iPhone as a potential player in the iphone, without actually (as yet) making a dent in the consumer market that iphone enjoys... this is not new but amazing how it happens again and again by a big player in a certain market reacting to a potential threat..
- jmackinn 18y ago
  by trying to create products to compete with the iPhone, blackberry has essentially conceded that their brand is inferior to the iPhone.. Wait, What? How is competing at all the same as conceding? The opposite is true in fact, not competing is conceding. RIM is going after a market of people that enjoyed their Blackberry's but loved the 'trendy appeal' of the touch screen iPhone. This doesn't mean that the people who want an actual keyboard can no longer use a Blackberry. They can stick with the Bold, which I'm sure will not be the last real keyboard phone that RIM ever makes. The Storm will serve to keep plenty of already existing customers from switching to the iPhone or G1 because they like the Blackberry system, or it's standard for their companies. It will also likely drive new customers who want the professional appeal of a Blackberry with but still dream about the iPhone. In plenty of industries iPhone's are regarded as a tech toy, not a business tool. RIM has also already deviated from the full keyboard with the introduction of the Pearl, which was targeted as a more consumer phone to compete with Motorola and Nokia and this has been a great success.
  - flashgordon 18y ago
    i am sorry.. i wasnt clear there.. you are right competing doesnt mean conceding defeat... but its the way you do it.. my only point was that the range of products that RIM brought out were more along "me too" line rather than ones of true innovation... here i was talking purely about the bold and the storm lines... agree pearl is no way in direct competition with iphone or any where close but i was only referring to blackberry's response with its bold and storm lines... but having said that it can be argued that if the market demands iPhone-like phones then creation of a new brand (ie with the storm and bold) may be an answer...
kiplinger 18y ago
the YC headline is 10x better than the NYT headline

38 points by auston 18y ago

"Maybe R.I.M. is just overextended. After all, it has just introduced three major new phones — Flip, Bold, Storm — in two months, each with a different software edition. Quality-control problems are bound to result; the iPhone 3G went through something similar." The simple explanation is that the consumer market is more than willing to tolerate bad quality for the latest and greatest. As everyone will remember iphone OS 2.0 shipped with many similar problems yet Apple still sold many millions of iPhone 3Gs. RIM is obviously well-aware of the issues people are having, but that won't change the fact they too will sell huge number of these this holiday season.

ericsilva 18y ago
I don't think that the iPhone 2.0 software had "many similar problems." It had some minor ones, but nothing like what Mr. Pogue described in this article. I have not used a Blackberry Storm, but it the article makes it clear that there are a number of fundamental problems with the user interface. There were a few hickups, crashing, etc. with the iPhone 2.0 software, but nothing significant has changed about the UI design (only the underlying system).
- martythemaniak 18y ago
  What he mentions isn't fundamental, but half-baked, like not having bouncy scrolling or flicks or being laggy. Something can't be fundamentally broken if it can be fixed with a simple update in a few months. Other things he mentions are personal opinion (ie he doesn't like suretype very much) or are things present on the iPhone, for example: "It can take two full seconds for the screen image to change when you turn it 90 degrees, three seconds for a program to appear, five seconds for a button-tap to register" Take your iphone, open up contacts and count how many seconds it takes from the tap to being able to scroll or click. ~5s on mine, and I remember it being worse with OS 2.0. And what about switching orientations in ipod? At least a second unless it happens to get stuck and not rotate at all.
  - unalone 18y ago
    The difference here is one of perception. Apple loads their program IMAGE instantly, so it looks like things are going smoothly even when it's taking time. It was a smart move on their part. Does rotating really have lag? It's pretty much instantaneous for me on a Touch running 2.1.
ardit33 18y ago
The Storm is good hardware wise, but crappy software wise. It uses BB OS 4.7, which is the 4.x code base with some improvements, basically a 4+ years old OS, NOT designed for multimedia and the average consumer in mind. Giving Rim's history, I wouldn't be suprised if they are working on a brand new 5.0 OS, and they will release it for the current phones (BOLD and STORM). After all they did the same, where many devices with 3.6 could upgrade to 4.0 for free.

ericsilva 18y ago

This is another example of how hard it is to make a good user interface.

sanj 18y ago

"A BlackBerry without a keyboard is like an iPod without a scroll wheel." Um. http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/ http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/

mattmaroon 18y ago
It's more like an iPod without a headphone jack.
jm4 18y ago
The iPod touch isn't exactly a big seller. I don't know a single person who actually likes it. I re-gifted the one I got for Christmas last year. My theory on the iPod touch is that it's a scheme to further cement in people's minds the association between the iPod and the iPhone. I don't think they ever expected it to be a cash cow. If they did they probably would have killed off the classic iPod. After all, Apple consistently makes products that consumers aren't necessarily clamoring for and then tells us it's exactly what we want. The iPod Touch is kind of an oddball in the iPod line and they treat it like one. You've got the classic iPod with scroll wheel and hard drive. You've got the smaller one with scroll wheel and flash memory to compete in that market. Then there's this touch screen thing that's basically an iPhone without the phone and it's called an iPod. The capacity is low. The battery life is abysmal. It's just as big and expensive as the iPod classic. I don't have a clue what's compelling about that. But people see the iPhone and think "it's just like the new iPod only it's a phone too."
- Shadowlayer 18y ago
  So you're a RE-GIFTER!
  - jm4 18y ago
    It's not as bad as it sounds. A friend's iPod broke and I told her she could have the Touch since I didn't like it. I went back to my old one. The best part is that a few weeks later she was like, "I really appreciate you giving me the iPod but this thing sucks." She doesn't use it anymore so I don't have a clue what happened with it. It's probably still getting passed around like it's radioactive. It's pretty bad when people won't use your product for free. :)

wayne 18y ago

Hate to be a hater, but I don't take anything David Pogue writes too seriously. He pretends to write impartially, but he's definitely very very pro-Apple. Aside from his article about the Mobile Me fiasco, I don't think I've ever seen him write anything bad about Apple or anything nice about its competitors.

pxlpshr 18y ago
Not trying to sound like a fanboy but perhaps that's because -- aside from Apple's minor faults that any armchair critic can pick out in retrospect -- they are truly one of the few consumer technology companies driving the market forward aggressively.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Maybe it's because Jobs has a firm policy of shutting off access to anyone who reports anything bad about them. Combine that with their continuously releasing hot new products and using a humongous (and well-spent) marketing budget to whip America into a fever over them, and you've got a situation where reporters have financial incentive to be biased toward Apple. People tend to follow their incentives, and Pogue is one of them.
  - unalone 18y ago
    I know we've had this argument before, but you know, it's possible that Pogue just really likes Apple products. For what it's worth, I've never read a review of his that didn't make good points on both sides. If Pogue's in Apple's pocket, he's doing a very good job of being fair to both sides.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      I won't disagree that Pogue likes Apple products. I just disagree that it's reasonable to expect Jobs's perverse incentives to not impact journalists, or to not be suspicious of anyone that tight with them. Any reporter given the sort of access he has is in a feedback loop where bias begets access which in turn begets bias. To pass it off as "Apple just rocks and Pogue knows it" is naive.

flashgordon 18y ago

i am wondering if Blackberry made the wrong move by positioning itself as a reactor to the iphone? what i mean is blackberry's position in the market (enterprise market anyway) has been solid and well understood (if not appreciated). for example, people (again atleast in the enterprise world anyway) wanted the keyboard and had gotten used to certain "ways" of using the blackberry.. by trying to create products to compete with the iPhone, blackberry has essentially conceded that their brand is inferior to the iPhone... this i think was unnecessary.. blackberry, with their "me too" products i think has now essentially acknowledged the iPhone as a potential player in the iphone, without actually (as yet) making a dent in the consumer market that iphone enjoys... this is not new but amazing how it happens again and again by a big player in a certain market reacting to a potential threat..

jmackinn 18y ago
by trying to create products to compete with the iPhone, blackberry has essentially conceded that their brand is inferior to the iPhone.. Wait, What? How is competing at all the same as conceding? The opposite is true in fact, not competing is conceding. RIM is going after a market of people that enjoyed their Blackberry's but loved the 'trendy appeal' of the touch screen iPhone. This doesn't mean that the people who want an actual keyboard can no longer use a Blackberry. They can stick with the Bold, which I'm sure will not be the last real keyboard phone that RIM ever makes. The Storm will serve to keep plenty of already existing customers from switching to the iPhone or G1 because they like the Blackberry system, or it's standard for their companies. It will also likely drive new customers who want the professional appeal of a Blackberry with but still dream about the iPhone. In plenty of industries iPhone's are regarded as a tech toy, not a business tool. RIM has also already deviated from the full keyboard with the introduction of the Pearl, which was targeted as a more consumer phone to compete with Motorola and Nokia and this has been a great success.
- flashgordon 18y ago
  i am sorry.. i wasnt clear there.. you are right competing doesnt mean conceding defeat... but its the way you do it.. my only point was that the range of products that RIM brought out were more along "me too" line rather than ones of true innovation... here i was talking purely about the bold and the storm lines... agree pearl is no way in direct competition with iphone or any where close but i was only referring to blackberry's response with its bold and storm lines... but having said that it can be argued that if the market demands iPhone-like phones then creation of a new brand (ie with the storm and bold) may be an answer...

kiplinger 18y ago

the YC headline is 10x better than the NYT headline