Not evil twin to Phone Different Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple's current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place -- best not to linger...). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!
RIM/Blackberry Outage Huge Success
After several weeks of failure, CrackBerry.com reports that RIM finally succeeded in taking down their network, as scheduled. Unlike previous outages, reportedly the result of failed upgrade attempts, this one required the pulling down of an overly large Looney-Toons-esque lever marked with a big, red "OFF" and stymied Waterloo based engineers for weeks.
Proving it's easier to succeed with failure than fail with success, once RIM restored their "push" to the legions of addicts, one CrackBerry.com commenter reported the service seemed slower.
Great. Last week they copied the iPhone design, now their copying the Microsoft upgrade model.
In Ur Fridge. Can has Push?
On April 1st, CrackBerry.com informed us that RIM, doubtless under heavy iPhone ActiveSync pressure in the board-room, was making the next logical move to expand both their product base and their waist lines: BlackBelly Kitchen Appliances.
According to the CTIA release, each fridge will come complete with enterprise-class "push" water and ice dispensers, and teeny, tiny little tic-tactile keyboards on the handles. No desktop-class browsers, however, are currently planned.
Staff who were on-scene overheard a RIM employee mumble: "@#$%ing Steve Jobs comes out with a multi-touch fridge and think we'll care? We'll just stop-and-run straight to the bathroom... Already got the SureType flusher working in the lab..."
Microsoft Releases Windows Mobile 6.6.6
Unlike the previous item, this one has April Fool's written all over it. Sorry, WMExperts.com, but we're not biting. Just how stupid do you think we are, really? There's no way Microsoft wasted the 6 months between Macworld 2007 and the iPhone release, and the almost 9 months that have followed, on this most incremental update of the beast.
Nice try, especially the Paint.exe'd up screen shots (mad skills there, Bohn!) and pitch-perfect spoof of a classically lame Microsoft presentation. If you'd thrown in a Steve Balmer "Mobile Developers!" dance, it might (might) have been a tad more believable.
As it is, even a die-hard Windows fan-pundit would probably react to this with:
Microsoft is failing badly here
Better luck next April Fool's!
Sony WinMob Reaches Xperia-tion Date
Take one Sony Ericsson phone and... throw it away. Then, In a touching vote of confidence to the industrial design force who crafted you everything from the PlayStation line to the Rolly, get HTC to build you a new kit. Finally, in a show of good faith to your longtime Symbian alliance partners, ditch your time-tested, world-dominating OS and shoehorn Windows Mobile 6.6.6 onto the device. And what do you have? The beginning of a Palm-esque downward spiral. (Can you downward spiral from the bottom? We don't know. We're mathlexic, remember?)
WMExperts.com brings us bitter-sweet first impressions on the last rights, in all their banana-slide-out gory glory.
Apparently the device is aimed squarely at North Americans. For a Japanese/Norfinwedish company, that's a pretty overt act of aggression. The minute RIM releases their international-only Symbian-powered Blackberry, it's payback time, fellas!
In Palm News
Treocentral tells us Mexico got a blue Palm Centro.
Yup.
Moving on...
And in No Other News
We blew the Norfinwedish meme already, so no N-Gage jokes from us this week (luckily Nokia supplied their own!). If anything else happened, like say if an Asian powerhouse took a page from RIM's playbook and proudly announced their entry into the iClone market we're blissfully unaware.
For reals.
Apple VP Deirdre O’Brien talks adjusting Apple Retail during the pandemic
O'Brien talked about the company's experience in adapting its business to the pandemic at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech virtual conference.
Julianna Margulies, star of 'The Good Wife,' signs on to 'The Morning Show'
Margulies, who has earned nominations for 10 Emmy Awards and 12 Golden Globe Awards, will star alongside Witherspoon and Aniston.
Cast your vote for the best products of the year for the Future Tech Awards
We’re asking iMore readers, to vote on the best products and professionals in multiple categories to help us honor the ground-breaking innovations at the Future Tech Awards.
Find love with these dating simulators on Nintendo Switch
Love is always in the air when you're playing a dating simulator game. Here are the best ones for Nintendo Switch.