Summer 2011 BlackBerry Bold 9900/9970 pictured on top of the summer 2010 iPhone 4.

Fitting, given that when the original BlackBerry Bold 9000 launched, the design was widely seen as having been inspired by the original 2007 iPhone.

[Engadget]

Apple is suing Samsung, in part for copying the look and feel of iPhone and iPad for their Galaxy S line of phones and tablets. The suit involves both patents and trademarks. This has led to some questions and some backlash.

Should Apple not compete rather than litigate? Patents exist to offer protection; trademarks must be defended or they’re lost. Apple is a public company that has to represent the interests of its shareholders. While Apple has previously brought patent litigation against both HTC and Motorola, this is the first time they’ve sued for trademark infringement, the first time they’ve alleged that their look and feel has been stolen.

Didn’t Apple copy the look and feel of Samsung’s F700? No, of course not. While the F700 was announced at CeBit 2006, it wasn’t shown until after the iPhone debuted at Macworld 2007. In any event, devices like the 2005 Palm LifeDrive predate both, and other devices used rows and columns of icons, and handheld formats going back further still. Apple’s suit isn’t about a rounded rectangle with a grid of apps, it’s about a multitude of design decisions that they believe, taken together, cross the line into infringement.

What about Steve Jobs saying great artists steal? Jobs didn’t say that, he quoted Picasso who said that. Neither were referring to copying, however. They were referring to ideas. “Make it simple” is an idea worth stealing. “Make it look like X” is not. Inspiration is one thing, the tiny details of execution another. Neither Apple nor Picasso were known to work in tracing paper.

Looking at the Galaxy S line and the TouchWiz UI skin, it’s hard to argue Samsung didn’t deliberately try to make their devices look like Apple’s. “Knock offs” are a common strategy in many markets and across many product types. They work. Sometimes people even prefer them to the originals. However, they sometimes run afoul of the law.

Is the Samsung less a Captivate or Fascinate and more a Replicate or Duplicate? That’s what the courts will have to decide.

Phil from Android Central — whom I adore down to his robotic little socks — just loves to torture me by sending over links to stuff like Android-based iPad knock-offs that get a hands-on courtesy of one of his readers.

So what we’ve got here is a Chinese Android MID. It has four buttons — the home button on the front (like the iPad’s), menu and the volume rocker, and a power button.

It has a pair of speakers, one microphone, one microSD card slot, and one USB port.

The tablet has 1GB of internal storage. Not sure about RAM or ROM. It’s built on Android 1.6. the kernel version is 2.6.29-00236-g4f8dbbb-dirty, and the Build number is 1.7.2. It has no market, but it has an “Apps Store.”

Check out the link below for a photo gallery. Go on, I dare you.

(Hopefully when real Android tablets hit the market they’ll be a little more differentiated than this…)

[Android Central]

I watched WMExperts‘ coverage of Microsoft’s big Windows Phone 7 Series keynote at MIX10 yesterday and while I once again wasn’t wowed by the hyperactive quadrilateral tiles of the home screen, the workflow/funflow of moving through the panoramic hubs continued to impress. While Microsoft deserves a lot of credit for creating one of the few new, post-iPhone user experiences/interaction models, however, it’s interesting to note that they’re pretty much copying entirely Apple’s closed iPhone App Store model.

That’s right, free developer tools (like iPhone), no app distribution outside the market (like iPhone), except for beta and enterprise (like iPhone), which means no side-loading (like iPhone), and little-to-no multitasking (like iPhone… at least until iPhone 4.0), and push-notifications to handle alerts (like iPhone). (They do, however, claim they will be far more transparent than Apple has thus far been with the App Store approval process).

On one hand that’s a huge compliment to Apple’s highly successful, if sometimes controversial App Store model. On the other hand, users of previous Microsoft handsets up to and including the most recent Windows Mobile 6.5.x have seen open app installation and ubiquitous multitasking as bragging rights over the iPhone going on 3 years now. The mainstream consumer Microsoft is obviously targeting with WP7S will no doubt find it simple and clear. The traditional base of tinker-happy, ROM-cooking, power users? Likely not.

What think you, is Apple’s App Store model something Microsoft should have emulated?

Our public frenemy number 1, CrackBerry Kevin, tipped us to RIM revealing details of their latest “innovation”, the BlackBerry App Store (and no, we’re not jaded that the company that once said touchscreens were a non-starter is now high-five’ing themselves silly over winning the self-awarded “breakthrough” prize for the Storm’s SurePress at Mobile World Congress — iSigh).

Them new CrackBerry App Store details? (And no, we’re not going to call it the CrApp Store, thanks you very much!) No themes allowed, which are apparently quite popular (not that we non-Jailbroken iPhone owners have any idea what they are, right Apple?). WebApps will be showcased alongside native apps, which is interesting given how WebApps on the iPhone have languished in terms of the Apple spotlight since the iPhone App Store launched.

Unlike Apple’s free SDK or $99 registered SDK with tethering, RIM will charge devs $200 per 10 apps submitted to the store. How the effects free apps (or rejected/re-submitted apps?) is unknown. Like the iPhone App Store, support will be the responsibility of the developer, which some hope will encourage more stable code (and not just less supportive developers).

Also important to remember in all this, however, is that while an iPhone can hold up to almost 16GB of Apps, BlackBerry’s are severely limited — only onboard app storage can be used, after the OS takes its share. We’re talking a 30-100MB at most (and single iPhone Apps can be bigger than that).

So what do we think? Dieter wanted Apple to copy-back the Ovi Store’s recommendation engine. Anything Apple should copy-back from RIM? WebApp category?

One of these things is just like the other; one of these things is exactly the same…

Wow, we just got through listing the various ways Micrsoft is iCloning our beloved iPhone and its services, and now this? Bad enough they’ve taken the old hex grid from our AD&D days, but the iPhone Phone App, all green and rounded and gradient like?

We’ve got to think this is some customized icon, like a contact photo or something, because there’s no way Microsoft includes it in even an official beta build, is there? Still, having Apple’s graphics highlighting the latest viral Windows Mobile 6.5 leaks can’t be good for anybody. Ugh.

Speaking of ugh, bonus points to anyone who can tell us what that background picture is before it hatches baby aliens and begins consuming us all…

First they clone the handsets. Then they clone the App Store. Then they clone MobileMe. (Not to mention Windows 7′s “dock” block…) What’s left for Microsoft to clone? The Apple Retail Stores, of course.

Enter: the Microsoft Store!

We’ve already heard how Apple Stores are retail juggernauts, and are being re-focused to lure even more switchers, all driven by the experts Apple got on board and hired from GAP and Target, and the Genius’ they but behind the bars.

How’s Microsoft going to compete? Tasteful “Zune Brown” decor? No, apparently by hiring someone from… a movie studio and putting Guru’s on the floor. iSigh.

Of course, the bigger challenge will be: what can Microsoft sell? Windows, Office, Xbox, Zune, and…? What exactly? Doesn’t seem like a very compelling retail experience to us, but what do we know, we never thought Vista would be a blockbuster success (and we’re still on the fence about Songsmith…)

How about you? Any shopping itch you think only mighty Microsoft can scratch?

Android Central (via Gizmodo) brings us the latest in a long — long — line of… er… iPhone inspired smartphones. This one, however, will be running the Google mobile OS:

The OPhone is 1mm bigger than the original iPhone, has a dedicated camera button, 5MP camera, flash, microSD slot and 3.5mm headphone jack. Yeah. Sounds pretty flippin’ sweet to us too.

TiPb will reserve judgement until it launches, but it will be interesting to see Android on hardware other than the slider-trackball-touch G1. Won’t it?

Stephen Fry, the British comedian and technology commentator who was once partner to TV’s Dr. House, Hugh Laurie, recently annihilated RIM’s BlackBerry Storm on Twitter, and now is back to give an even grander beat down to the mobile industry in general, a 4 star Bold review, a 1 star Storm review, and an iPhone OS 3.0 wish… er… demand list. Daring Fireball, however, points us a couple paragraphs of particular interest:

Apple have shown that there is a huge demand for exciting, innovative, lovable and imaginative consumer devices. All the rivals have to do is to … is to what? To produce cut price lookalikes or truly to pioneer and innovate? Well, the latter is what they should do, but the former is what most of them will do of course, because these dumb firms never ever learn. They are afraid to be good. They will blame stockholders, consumers, anyone but themselves.

Don’t you sometimes long to be CEO of a company like Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia or Microsoft? So that you can say to your coders, your designers, your development teams and your software architects: “Not [redacted] Good Enough. I haven’t said ‘Wow’ yet. I haven’t gasped with pleasure, amusement or admiration once. Start again. Not [redacted] Good Enough.”

Can’t say I’d do any different were I blessed/cursed with being such a CEO. How about you? Any advice for our iCompetitors?

Moments after Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld 2007, Nokia showed off the “Tube“, an iClone so convincing some thought they’d simply managed to score a demo unit. While the “Tube” eventually faded into a “comes with music” device, and Nokia has now zigged instead of zagged with the N97, BGR has just come across a slide that shows Nokia’s iClone plans may still be alive and unwell.

What is it? When will we see it? Since the N97 isn’t even shipping until June-ish 2009 (likely just in time for a WWDC launch of the iPhone 3.0 — iPhone HD?), who knows when we’ll see this new device. All we can hope for is that is doesn’t cosign itself to mindlessly cloning iPhones past, but actually tried to innovate something more for the future.

If they do, what you want to see on the Nokia next-gen touch?

No, it’s not Deja Vu. No one has reset the Matrix (we think…) It’s just another Apple follow-along. To paraphrase Bertrand Serlet: Waterloo, start your photocopiers!

Not content with merely iCloning the iPhone look with the Bold or touchscreen with the Storm, during the Blackberry Developer Conference today, RIM basically repeated Apple’s iPhone SDK Roadmap Event announcements from back in March, note for note.

App Store? Check. Push Notification Service? Gotcha. Integrated Development Environment? Why not! iFund? App-solutely!

Scott Forstall, was that just the sound of you flinging your iPhone 4G through the screen of your 30″ DisplayPort Cinema Display? I think it was.

Check out the live blog now at Crackberry.com, and if you miss it, they’re sure to have all the news and roundups shortly thereafter.

We’re never going to let Crackberry Kevin, editor of our sibling site Crackberry.com live this down. Never EVER.

And if you think that’s bad, wait until Steve Jobs gets finished giving the WuShi finger to the advertising geniuses over at Vodafone and RIM. We’re talking the greatest mellow harshening “Skidoosh!” in the history of the tech industry, no doubt.

Whyzat? Said genii decided to advertise the iClonic Blackberry Storm as an actual iPhone, complete with Home screen and Mobile Safari browser.

Was this the last, desperate surrender to iPhone envy? Were the guilt-laden strings of Marimba playing over and over again in their psyche, forcing them to confess themselves to the world?

Sadly, once the images get yanked, the cronies blamed, and the incident swept under the blogs, we’ll never know for sure. But they’ll still be hearing endless Marimba in their dreams…

Meanwhile, Engadget and Gizmodo got their hands on the little whole-screen-is-a-button-and-has-cut-and-paste-but-no-WiFi monsters, and they seem pretty happy with the solid Blackberry foundation gaining a little iPhone inspired tech. Our view? Anything that forces Apple, and the industry, to stay competitive and keep on innovating is a boon for all of us.

Right?

WMExperts just relayed the following: looks like HTC won’t be releasing the Touch HD in the US. What kind of illogical, inexplicable, incomprehensible BS is this?

sad news, US. we looked into it- by the time we could bring Touch HD to the states, it would be old news. we do have other cool stuff coming

Shenanigans, we call! They have like 37 other Touch sub-brands landing on earth (and who knows what other planets!), and this was the one device we hoped would really push Apple — in its biggest market — to ramp up the screen size and media playback abilities of the iPhone for rev 3.

Memo to HTC brain-trust: next time build a world phone from the get go, b’okay?

Now excuse us as we go talk Dieter out of burning his Diamond in protest…

Reader Reptile writes in with the tip, and the pithy title inspiration. Seems like our friends to the frozen north (no, not Canada, Nokia-land!) finally released their iClone… er… Tube… er… Xpress Music.

The device, which started life as a complete rip-off proof of concept roughly 3 minutes after Steve Jobs revealed the iPhone live on the Macworld 2007 stage has taken a long — looooooooong — time to come to market. Was it worth the wait?

Well, in targeting the iPhone, it’s already placed itself squarely in the “follower” camp, and not the “leader” position Nokia should not only enjoy, but command. Strike one. Also, if as Reptile suggests, no one (outside the gadget blogsphere and — maybe — Europe) noticed, can it even really be considered launched? Strike two.

As long as there’s the iPhone, every other “me too!” device will be an iClone, simple as that. Want a real iPhone Killer? Do what Apple did and drop a device no one sees coming, and revolutionize the industry in your own, innovative way. That’s how you’ll kill the iPhone.

Absent that. Strike three.

Video link via Engadget

Confession: My secret, innermost desire for the iPhone 3G was a 420p display. I knew Apple wouldn’t do it yet — there was nothing in their simultaneously released SDK to support any other resolutions — but still… I wants-ded it!

Imagine my fanboy chagrin, then, when HTC goes and not only makes a device in exactly the same dimensions as the iPhone 3G (obvious much?), but slaps a monstrous 800×480 display on the beast! (Not to mention a 5(!) megapixel camera)

The HTC Touch HD (which we’re pretty sure means “Hi Dieter!” — see the afore-linked WMExperts for why…) represents the next expansion of HTC’s Touch brand — something spread so thin Asus’ Eee marketeers are wincing. It may seem questionable to show the HD off this early (it’s not expected to land until 2009, and doesn’t even seem to support US 3G frequencies yet) since, frankly, who’s not gonna put off Osbourne-ing a Touch, Touch Duo, Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, etc. when this baby’s around the bend, but we’re guessing the announcement was aimed more at Apple’s gut than any potential customers’ wallet.

And in that regard — ouch!

Sure, it doesn’t have the Apple/iPod ecosystem behind it and it’s still using TouchFLo 3D to try to hide the UE (user exasperation) that is Windows Mobile 6.1, and multiple layers of OS are never a Good Thing, but this is the first iClone that’s actually got us worried.

Apple, you’ve got almost four months until Macworld 09, and we’ve got three newly urgent words for you: iPhone HD, b’okay?

The iPhone shook up a very complacent smartphone world, but if we think it exists in a vacuum, if we think the other big players won’t respond (no matter how embarrassingly long it might take them), and if we don’t hope that they do — hardcore style — to prevent Apple from one day getting just as complacent, then we’re not doing our jobs as bloggers or consumers.

With that, splinter-like, in mind, witness RIM launching the Blackberry Thunder, their first touch screen device. If you ever wondered how brilliantly Apple handled the release of the iPhone, from Steve pulling it from his pocket to the first videos and commercials, wonder no more. RIM’s shows us by way of terrible — near Microsoft’ian — example, how badly that could have gone… (Though Mike Lanman certainly makes a convincing Doby to Lazaridis’ Gollum…). Couldn’t have hired them Virgin folks again?

We’re still not sure about the whole-screen’s-a-button approach. And the newly launched GDGT podcast is right on when they say RIM needs new software and they need it now (and tell a very funny story about how RIM’s co-CEO really doesn’t get that… scary…)

Head on over to Crackberry.com to watch the full video.

The. Whole. Screen. Is. A. Flipping. Tic. Tac. Tile. Button.

Seriously. We kid you not (though RIM could be kidding us all?). Sister-site Crackberry.com has all the deets, but…

Seriously? Who’s the usability wizard who came up with this one? Who came up with the single-click point of failure concept? The one mechanism to break it all?

We get that haptics are hard, but the iPhone pretty much showed the industry how to do Touch, and rather than just add the Blackberry messaging powerhouse to that buttery goodness, RIM went and grafted on an mechanic straight out of every 1980s playschool game?

Bravo for challenging Apple (they certainly need it). And kudos for being brave enough to push the metaphor, to take the next step, to propel technology forward. But — seriously? — we hope the feel is light-years beyond the look on this one, and not just for Crackberry Kevin’s sake… Otherwise most annoying gadget innovation of the decade awards beckon…

We guess a certain internet dead-pan funny man was right on the “button” when he said:

THERE’S a reason that R.I.M. is averse to the iPhone’s glass pad. “I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it,” says Mike Lazaridis, R.I.M.’s co-chief executive and technological visionary. “It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.”

Presuming he was really talking about the ThunderStorm…

This one is for our very own Dieter Bohn… For those of you who do not know, and it pains me to say this, Dieter loves his Windows Mobile.

It seems like the tables have turned here for this edition of “Send in the iClones”. I suppose it is only fair that we as iPhone owners have the tables turned on us sometimes. What we have here is called iPhoneFLO. It is a simple theme you can use if you have Summerboard on your Jailbroken iPhone. To find it go into the installer.app and search for iPhoneFLO. Be sure to have Summerboard installed as well, which can also be installed via the installer.app.

For more information please visit our section of the forums devoted to Jailbreaking. Anyone going to give this a shot and Jailbrake simply for this theme?

[Via MobilityToday & IntoMobile]

By now I’m sure you are all tired of seeing other companies try to follow in the footsteps of Apple’s success. Well Meizu has been working on the M8, eh… ok it’s a iClone, for some time now. The following video was posted by the founder of Meizu, J. Wong, showing it off running a highly customized version of Windows Embedded CE 6.0 (the underlying core beneath Windows Mobile 7.)

Still with no firm release date, it does sport a 3 megapixel camera along with 8 gigs of storage. I suppose it does not look too bad for a WinCE device. Does this peak anyone’s interest or are we all sick of these clones?

[Via Electronista]

Sure, the iPhone 3G launch is tomorrow. Consider this an amuse bouche. Or the opposite of that, an annoy bouche. Whatever. Something salty to make Friday taste all the more sweet!

The subject of today’s battle royal? Nope, not iPhone vs. Blackberry. That’s old. This time it’s Blackberry vs. Blackberry, Blog vs. Blog, over the iClone to end all iClones: the touchscreen Blackberry Thunder!

Says our sister site Crackberry.com, 10th degree Blackberry belts and reigning world champions:

Touchscreen BlackBerry Thunder Keyboard To Utilize Haptic Technology… AMAZING Implementation! [...] Leave it to RIM to CRACK the touchscreen keyboard nut.

Says Boy Genius Report, craftiest of all mobile blogsphere Ninja:

The keyboard is incredibly annoying to type on, and the screen actually shows ripples even when pressed ever-so-lightly. [...] Most of the people who have handled it thinks it’s a joke.

Read on for round 2!

Of course, Crackberry.com ain’t going down without a NERD FIGHT:

Screen is glass. YEP, It’s Multi-touch!!! [... RIM has] apparently been caught flat-footed by the 3G iPhone and its native support for Exchange and the whole Apple ‘aura of goodness’, in the sense that they don’t have the Bold yet ready for comparisons and show’n'tell sessions, media comparisons, etc, so both as a platform-to-platform and device-to-device stakes RIM is feeling the heat from Apple’s iPhone wave, thus they’re putting serious effort into accelerating the Thunder.

But it’s a quick tag to Mike Lazaridis for the RIM CEOh-Snap 180 turn-around KO:

THERE’S a reason that R.I.M. is averse to the iPhone’s glass pad. “I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it,” says Mike Lazaridis, R.I.M.’s co-chief executive and technological visionary. “It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.”

D’oh! Guess he had no idea about the Thunder at that point either…

Softball sarcasm aside, what’s my take?

Technology is hard. It took Apple a reported 2.5 years to get an iPhone ready to ship (and then, arguably, just barely with firmware that was soon updated), and that’s on top of its rumored prior iTablet development efforts. So, my guess is that the truth lies somewhere in between the hype and the hate: RIM’s working their apps off to get this thing tasty as soon as possible, but that soon won’t be that soon.

Either way, all us smartphone lovers benefit. RIM is making the Thunder precisely because the iPhone has put the pressure on, and if the Thunder is a home run, that pressure shifts to Apple to make something even more astounding for the iPhone v3.

Prior to the iPhone, the industry was complacent. Now its moving again. And that’s a good thing. (Even if it would be a better thing to see less iCloning and more differentiation and innovation from the other manufacturers, b’okay RIM?)

Ouch. Seems Samsung and Sprint tried to bring an Instinct to an iPhone fight. At least that’s how venerable Wall Street Journal columnist and “D” All Things Digital tech yoda Walt Mossberg made it sound in his iClonic “review” (to be fair, the still unreleased iPhone 3G gets more attention — and love — than the unfortunately release-timed Instinct).

How does Mossberg sum up his feelings, some several paragraphs and umpteen iPhone mentions, references, and comparisons down?

If you’re a devoted Sprint customer, or want to avoid AT&T, the Instinct is an OK choice. But it’s no iPhone.

Read

Pop Quiz: You’re the brain trust up at RIM and Samsung. You know that Apple might just be dropping something hawt today, and last time they did that they set your profitable if complacent industry on its ear, and your execs scrambling to clone catch up. So, your on the precipice of the WWDC 2008 Steve Jobs Keynote — the only thing anyone has been talking about of late — what do you do?

If you answered stay quiet and wait for the hype to pass, you’re now officially smarter than either RIM or Samsung. Absent something innovative and decidedly non-Apple of their own to announce, better not to announce anything at all.

Which, of course, is why the RIM all Touch-screen, all the time Blackberry Thunder iClone “leaked” via Boy Genius and and the Samsung’s i900 iClone is all over Engadget.

Nice try, but buying a cheap knock-off of the prom queen’s dress and showing up before her at the dance won’t hide the fact that you’re hairy dudes with three-piece clone-suits on underneath.

Overly harsh? Maybe, but it’s an iPhone blog on Jobsnote day. They shoulda know betta. In fact, they shoulda saved their energy for their soon-to-be-launched iClone 2.0 initiatives…

(Though they did get some press, eh?)

Confession: The real reason I can’t wait for the iPhone 3G to drop? So that at long last the rest of the smartphone industry will have something new to copy!

Today’s offender is the Samsung SGH-i900, and boy does it run the iClone checklist: rounded rectangular slab? Check. Glossy black facade? Check. Silvered trim? Check. Job dropping interface or any sense of pride in innovation? D’oh! Not even close.

Sister site WMExperts.com offers up the usual suspects specs:

[O]ne of the upcoming batch of über-Windows Mobile phones – 6.1 Pro, 240×400 (weird) screen, 1500mAh battery, FM Radio, TV out.

Way to stand out from the crowd!

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the first ever live demo of Google’s new Android platform… and it’s on the iPhone!

[Er... That's the HTC Dream.]

What? Sigh. Okay.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s a proof of concept. Maybe it’s because of the Diamond. Maybe it’s just a hormone thing. But does all the innovation have to lead back to Cupertino these days? Does it?

So, another week, another iClone, and more specifically another HTC iClone. (At least they’re giving RIM a run for their Bold, Thunder, Storm money for the official iClone volume title…)

Still, it’s nice to see Android. As I mentioned in the Top 5 Things the iPhone Could Learn From the Competition, the cloud looks to be the future, and Google currently owns the cloud. Never mind their CEO is on Apple’s board of directors (he reportedly recuses himself from iPhone discussions to avoid a conflict of interest), the industry needs the drive Google can provide, even if they wrap it up in a horribly derivative package for now.

Check out the video after after the break!

More videos and images:

Read

The Bold. The Storm. The Thunder. One iClonic product after another. How does Blackberry do it? Mole in Apple guru Jonathan Ive‘s ultra-secure design studio? Unlikely. Telephoto lens from Waterloo? Impractical. So, what is the secret to all of RIM’s post-iPhone Blackberry’s looking (and soon-to-be-functioning?) so much like Apple’s little pocket universe-dent’er? According to RIM CEO, and noted internet deadpan funnyman, Mike Lazaridis, it’s a simple combination of technology right out of Apple’s (and this blog’s!) back yard:

[W]e have a time machine somewhere, or some kind of magic crystal ball or something.

Apple Time Machine + TiPB Crystal Ball = Blackberry Bold?

To be fair, Lazaridis’s full context was that the Blackberry Bold DIDN’T copy Apple, but had been independently designed 3.5 years ago by RIM, and any similarities (such as the glossy black facade and chrome trim) to Apple’s iPhone were purely coincidental.

Of course, Apple has a long history of design, including the use of just these types of form factors and materials, leading up to, including, and past the iPhone (hello, iMac!), whereas RIM has… none. Nada. Zip. Zilch. So while it’s possible the Bold just happened to be independently conceived of prior to the iPhone going public (yet released nearly a full year after…), how likely is it?

Frankly, with the way Lazaridis seems to lust after talk about it, the iPhone very well could be RIM’s “precious”. And given the nearly obsessive amount of (disjointed and reactionary) response RIM’s displayed post-iPhone, my guess is “not very.”

What do you think?

Read Via

Ah, comedy, thy name is Lazaridis!

What, you may ask, makes the CEO of Blackberry manufacturer RIM so knee slapping-ly funny? Deadpan Setups (on April 27th) like this:

THERE’S a reason that R.I.M. is averse to the iPhone’s glass pad. “I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it,” says Mike Lazaridis, R.I.M.’s co-chief executive and technological visionary. “It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.”

Followed by absolutely killer punch-lines (on May 13th):

The BlackBerry Thunder, as it is codenamed now, (all you “reporting” on it as the Storm are incorrect) will launch in Q3 of this year. It is a full touchscreen BlackBerry — no slide out keyboard

Please. Ouch. My ribs. I can’t take it…

Ahem… Okay. So, if RIM is now iCloning a touchscreen of their very own, is it really that Lazaridis and his friends can’t type on a touchscreen, or that they just can’t type?

(Would go a long way towards explaining those tic-tactiles, wouldn’t it?)

Another day, another iClone! This one comes courtesy of the fine folks at Philips, and Gizmodo shares the duplicative details:

PC World China is saying that the upcoming Xenium x800 will have an “e2e” screen— that’s an edge-to-edge touchscreen, apparently. From the photos it looks like it’s got an orientation sensor, Wi-Fi, a browser, a curved design and a bevelled metal edge. Sounds a little familiar?

It sure does. It sounds just like the Samsung Instinct, Nokia Tube, RIM (and RIM), and HTC Touch Diamond, and every other device trying to be the iPhone in imitative form rather than revolutionary spirit.

How about iCloning that?

[Note: This a a Wait-A-Thon post! Comment on this post -- or any post tagged "Wait-a-Thon" -- for your chance to win a $100 iTunes Gift Card!]

Usually we wait for This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude to mock review the competition (such as it is), but if they bring the hype, we’ll bring the satire, special-edition style.

Samsung, Nokia (yeah, I’d forgotten about them as well…), and RIM (and RIM) have already sent in their iClones, and now it’s HTCs turn to make mid-2008 look like early 2007 all over again… Ludites and gentlemen, the HTC Touch Diamond.

(At least I think it’s the Diamond, they’ve pre-announced like 100 different Touch trademarks lately, so it could be the Pro or the Cruise or even the Cubic Zirconium for all I can tell…)

Speaking of 2007, as we all know when Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld and pulled the iPhone from his pocket, it’s form factor was exactly like every other Palm, RIM, and WinMob device out there, with a tiny screen, application independent tic-tactile keyboard, always unstylish stylus, and and OS and interface straight out of 2001.

Wait, no it wasn’t. El Jobso unveiled a revolutionary new device with a giant, hi-res screen, multi-touch input, and an interface the likes of which the industry had never seen before. But they (and we) have certainly seen it since — reflected funhouse mirror-like in almost every signature device from every company released post-iPhone.

Read on!

Now HTC does deserve some orientation-sensing, hardware-accelerated props (assuming they cough up non-crippled drivers this time). According to WMExperts.com and HTC CMO John Wang, they’ve replaced Pocket IE with Opera (imagine Dell doing that with Firefox on the Windows desktop…), improved on the default virtual keyboard to the point of earning an official Engadget “messy”, and very wisely done everything they can to hide Windows Mobile, even though the device sports the latest, greatest (all things being relative) version 6.1. (And boy must that have the furniture flying around Ballmer’s tiny office…)

Instead, they’ve layered on custom interfaces to “Multi-Touch Cover Flow”… er… single “TouchFLO 3D” their way through photos, put little green numbered dots to count down emails on their envelop icons, and in a myriad other ways joined the “inspired by Apple in Cupertino” crowd. Still, it’s actually, you know, a decent interface, and the animation is borderline gorgeous (or it would be if the demo unit didn’t sport the responsiveness of a 386 running Vista).

Want to do anything more than the slicken-ing veneer allows, however, want to tweak a setting to access the fabled power of the platform, and its straight back to Windows Mobile 6.1.

Surprise, surprise, if you pile whip cream atop a turd sunday, all that shiny sweetness is meaningless the first time you dig in and really take a bite.

The eponymous touch screen is the old school, resistance type (oh, stylus, where art thou?) but the paltry (and already Apple abandoned) 4GB internal storage capacity is probably sufficient, what with Microsoft creating and abandoning user-unfriendly content services like MSN faster than you can say PlaysNoMore. And it’s a good thing since there isn’t much to watch on that beautiful, if cramped, 2.8″ VGA screen, given the positively tiny 900mAh battery guaranteed to last through a full day of absolutely no use anyway. (For the truly masochistic, of course, a micro-SD expansion will allow an extra moveable part to break and the comforting knowledge that all pressure data is safely stored on something the size of a pinky nail — no chance of losing that! UPDATE: turns I miss-spec’d myself — HTC to consumers: no SD expansion for you! 4GB is all you get!)

On the plus side, however, at least HTC didn’t copy the iPhone’s hardware design. Nope, this baby draws straight from the Zune! Want to zoom a photo, just swirl(?!) your finger around the squirle!

I get the feeling that when Steve Jobs said it would take the competition 5 years to catch up to the iPhone, he was being uncharacteristically generous. While spec-for-spec the HTC Touch Diamond offers a few huge leap ahead in pure smartphone power, it’s horribly out-dated OS, lack of interface innovation, and design straight out of Microsoft’s failed X-Mas 2007 music player book is still too little, too late.

Like Nokia, RIM, Palm, and pretty much every other device maker on the planet, HTC really needs to get in the game, and that doesn’t mean just trying to throw as many specs as possible at a device and hoping some cohesiveness sticks (it never, ever does), or out-innovating each other in iCloning the iPhone. It means having a unique, cohesive visual from the get go, and it means out-innovating Apple. Sadly, the only one proven capable of either these days is Apple. (Soon to be witnessed yet again when they drop the all-but-announced iPhone 3G later this year.)

[Digg link]

Will the Diamond pull folks away from the iPhone?

Rumors recently swirled about a super-secret RIM development project affectionately dubbed AK (for Apple Killer) that would help Blackberry not only retain market share in face of the iPhone juggernaut, but regain mind share which has wholly become the property of Apple as of late:

..two independent developers writing software for coming R.I.M. devices say that a touch-screen BlackBerry is in the works, and that R.I.M. engineers privately refer to it as the A.K. — for “Apple Killer.”

Would it be another iClone like the 9000? Would it be the fabled touchscreen Blackberry?

Turns out RIM’s Apple Killer might just be… er… the iPhone?

Apple Insider highlights a new “confidential” job posting way up Waterloo way:

“As part of a newly-created team, you’ll influence the development and design of BlackBerry software. This is a very confidential brand new team and a senior position within RIM so I can’t provide too many details. I guess you can figure out what it might be about though.”

While the position itself calls for Objective C, Cocoa, UI, AJaX, BT, and USB experience, and some have speculated that it could be a serious attempt by RIM to bring some 1st party, Mac native sync capabilities to the email monster, the more interesting rumor-mongers are rumor-mongering RIM apps for the iPhone SDK: Blackberry Connect anyone?

Personally, I don’t see RIM losing the one advantage they have, Crackberry addictive “push” email by giving the keys of the kingdom to Apple (though they have made Blackberry Connect for other platforms). Besides, they’re already copying the design and flirting with the touchy-feely interface, so why go developer now? Then again, Canadians are a polite people, so who knows?

What do you think?

When the iPhone was introduced, Nokia’s first official response was the corporate equivalent of a raspberry (the spitting kind, not the fruit!). Their second official response was to demo a device which so closely mimicked the iPhone that it quite possibly was one.

“If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s Executive VP & General Manager of Multimedia.

Well, proudly copy it they have! The final device, bewilderingly code-named “Tube” is ready for prime-time (or whatever time it is they relegate programs that knock off last season’s hits).

Is Nokia worried about the iPhone and it’s popularity? Not according to Tom Libretto, vice president of Forum Nokia (who must be auditioning for a shot on iPhone JEOPARDY!):

“We’ve done [the iPhone's sales numbers to date] since we’ve had dinner on Friday.”

We would hope so! Since the global sales leader with a complete range from cheapo handsets to high-end convergence devices available in almost every country, on every carrier, on the planet is comparing numbers to a single (albeit revolutionary) iPhone available in only a handful of places on a single carrier each. And Fake Steve claims to be mathlexic! (N95 to iPhone numbers in the US anyone?)

That Nokia has adopted the increasingly popular “if you can’t beat them, copy them” strategy — a strategy that, if Apple had adopted it, there would be nothing for RIM, Samsung, Microsoft, or Nokia to be copying right now — is disappointing to say the least. But it once again highlights that if Apple hasn’t achieved market share, it’s certainly achieved market leadership.

Do you want a world where there’s the iPhone and every other manufacturer’s knockoff of same? Or would you rather see the other companies innovate and revolutionize and differentiate their offerings? What do you think?

(via Engadget)

Pop quiz, hotshot:

You’re the top dog in smart phones with “push” email technology so killer people have likened it to crack. But last year a new kid showed up with a glitzy multi-touch interface and media to die for, and sucked all the buzz out of your room. What do you do? What. Do. You. Do?

If you answered, out innovate them, come up with next year’s “it” device, you’re correct. You’re also clearly (and unfortunately) not the brain-trust at RIM.

We’ve already talked about Apple licensing Microsoft’s ActiveSync, looking to eat into RIM’s Blackberry business dominance. We’ve even made fun of the new old-look Blackberry 9000 (yep, that’s the new BB pictures above. What, you thought it was the Meizu?). But this cuts deeper into the industry.

For years Palm pushed out tepid evolutionary designs. RIM, while having copied a little Palm look-and-feel at times, has made tentative flirtations, for good or for ill, with innovation in devices like the Pearl. For the most part, however, everyone has been content to regurgitate and duplicate. Everyone but the iPhone.

When Steve Jobs pulled the iPhone from his pocket at Macworld 2007 it was unlike anything we’d seen in smart phones before, but also instantly Apple. It was a revolution.

Palm needs to do this so badly the company hinges on it.

RIM does as well. Sure, they’re in great shape. They move tons of units to an enormous, addicted user base. They own the market. But they no longer lead it.

Copying Apple’s design is superficial but it’s a sign that RIM is following. They are going where Apple has been. They are surrendering mindshare and, in doing so, surrendering leadership of the market.

Sure, Apple competes with Apple. They cancelled the mega-popular iPod Mini only to release the super-mega-popular Nano. And they’ll push themselves on smart phones all alone if they have to. But every industry needs competition.

WinMob 7 is still vaporware and is also targeting where the iPhone was. That’s Microsoft’s MO. Palm’s Nova needed to be out 2 years ago, if not earlier. They’ve long ago lost the drive that made them the original innovator. That leaves RIM (and perhaps Nokia).

Hotshots, you need to do better.