BlackBerry Torch: RIM's Attempt at a Comeback

About two weeks ago, I was spending a couple of nights at a fishing lodge in Northern Ontario, near Sudbury. The lodge was in a quite remote location, but nonetheless had a fair number of other guests. After about five minutes, it became quite clear that most of these guests where American. On my second day at the lodge, I noticed one of the guests had a BlackBerry Torch. (The Torch is currently only available in the United States on AT and T, set to be released in Canada in a few months.) I started asking him about it, and he even let me try it out for a minute. From this very brief encounter with a Torch, and all my knowledge collected by reading about it, I am going to try and explain why RIM (Research in Motion) is going to be relying so heavily on this device, and if I think that the device can fulfill what they desire.

The best place to start is first with a little history. The year is 2007. June to be precise. The Apple rumour mill has had quite a bit of activity in the past couple months. Apple Fanboys are all burning with anticipating as they wait for what they believe will possibly be Apple's largest new product launch ever. Apple doesn't disappoint. The iPhone is unveiled, and many are stunned at the "new" multi-touch display and what it can do. To other smartphone manufacturers however, the iPhone does not immediately pose a great threat. The phone's distribution limited only to the United States at launch, with the UK, France and Germany being added in November of 07, and Austria and the Republic of Ireland added the next spring. By the time of the iPod touch launch in the fall of 07, about one million iPhones had been sold. RIM was still sitting comfortably in their belief that they owned the business smartphone market. After all, the iPhone was a toy, and people wanted keyboards anyway, right?

Yes and no. The launch of the next iPhone, the 3G, introduced 3G internet speed and a launch in many more countries. In addition to all this, the new version of iOs (then called iPhone OS) included one feature that would very well boost Apple's iPhone success and change the entire smartphone market. It was the App Store. Apple had opened the floor to third-party developers to create their own applications and sell them over the App Store, much like music is purchased over iTunes. (Indeed, people bought these applications with their iTunes account.) All of these factors began what was to be the true start of the iPhone's success. A minor upgrade was unveiled in 2009, the iPhone 3GS, which featured a better camera with the ability to shoot video, and a faster processor. Companies like RIM were now starting to loose their customers to this newer, better-looking, and more innovative product. During their success, they had become complacent, and began to rest on their proverbial laurels. We have now come up to the summer of 2010. With the much hyped iPad having sold over one million units, Apple unveils the iPhone 4. It is this version of the phone that may have very well received the most hype, due to the fact that two iPhone 4 prototypes where found, one in California, near Cupertino, and another in Vietnam. Despite this, and an alleged "hardware flaw" that resulted in a loss of signal if you held the device in a certain way, more than one million iPhone 4s have been sold in the first couple of months. By this point, many have switched from whatever phone they where using before to the iPhone, despite a strong loyalty to phones like the BlackBerry. But the fact of the matter is that RIM is loosing it's market share. Their phone's aren't "cool" anymore. They are merely phones designed for the businessman and not the consumer. This loss of customers has forced RIM to change it's demographic. Which is where the BlackBerry Torch comes in. But the history of the storm is rooted in another device, the BlackBerry Storm.

The first version of the Storm was released in the fall/winter of 08. The device was the first BlackBerry to not feature a physical keyboard, and instead sported a multi-touch screen that had a "clicking" feature that forced the user to push the screen in when they wanted to type a letter, creating a odd crossover between a conventional keyboard and a multi-touch on-screen keyboard.

The reception for the Storm was not very good. Die-hard iPhone users claimed that the keyboard was inferior to the iPhone, and BlackBerry users where frustrated by the lack of physical keyboard and the odd functionality of the Storm's touchscreen. This forced RIM to head back to the drawing board. While they where marketing at Business' well, despite the fact that they where loosing some business customers to the iPhone, they had to think of a device that would also appeal to Consumer's. Touch-Screens where now what the general public wanted. But the touch-eneabled Storm had been considered an inferior device. This is how RIM has gotten to where they are today. The new BlackBerry Torch features the best of both worlds: a conventional multi-touch screen, and a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard for "hard-core" e-mailing and document editing. Alongside the launch of the Torch was also the launch of new software, the BlackBerry OS 6. BB6 featured a newer, more Apple-like way of browsing the internet, which had been one of the many growing complaints against RIM, in addition to other new features that brought the BlackBerry up to speed with other devices like the iPhone. In theory, it works. But what are the consumers saying?

Many feel that despite the fact that the Torch is a great product, it still cannot compare to the iPhone for multi-touch features and the wide-array of applications. In the case of multi-touch, I would have to agree through my brief experience with the Torch that RIM's product is not as fluid as an iPhone. However, I do not agree with the notion that the Apple App Store is superior to RIM's Blackberry AppWorld. While it is true that Apple's App Store has considerably more Apps, most of these Apps are absolute dribble. In the case of Applications, I believe less may be more. I would rather have fewer, more useful applications, then having to root through thousands of applications that merely waste my time, energy, and money.

Will RIM win back it's market share with the Torch? I believe, to some degree. I do not think that the Torch will win many iPhone fans over. I believe it will however keep many of it's BlackBerry users that may have considered switching to iPhone, and possibly win back some who have switched to iPhone. BlackBerry users can now experience the security and unmatched communications features the BlackBerry has to offer, while still having other entertainment features that work very well, despite the fact that they are not fantastic.

Re: Harper Flunks Political Math; Globe and Mail, August 19th, 2010

Original Article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/brian-topp/harper-flunks-political-math/article1678488/

I'm not going to bother summarizing what Mr Topp has already said. I'm going to cut right to the chase.

First off, our electoral system is not an "undemocratic perversity". These days we have far to many people saying this. But the truth is, our electoral system is actually one of the most democratic systems in the world. Now if you twist your viewpoint and look at the system in terms of the country as a whole, if may seem "undemocratic". But the system is not meant to be looked at in this manner. Rather than focusing on 35 million people at once, our system seeks to narrow down where our focal point is. We instead choose to focus on a much smaller number, of about 150,000 people, the average number of people in a Canadian federal riding. Each of these people is given the opportunity to send one person to parliament to represent them and their specific needs. Is the economy poor in your riding? Then it is the elected representative's job to bring this to the house of commons. Obviously however, there are going to be several people who want this job as representative. Originally, people merely voted for these people on the basis of who they were and what they stood for. When the representatives reached parliament, they segregated themselves into two sections with other like-minded people. One side would take the right side (the more conservative side) and the other the left side (the more liberal-thinking side). Eventually people took note of this and developed official parties under which candidates would run, at the same time creating a new system for electing a Prime Minister. Because of the formation of these parties, we have over time have begun to focus on the parties as a whole more, even merely voting for someone because of their party. This is unfortunately not the way the system was meant to work and has caused us to rather then want an individual represent our individual needs, to have a party as a whole elected and bring forward their general values to our government. Perhaps this is just a testament to how people these days just want an easier choice. Rather then pay attention to our own debates happening in our own ridings as candidates discuss things that will affect us very personally, we pay more attention to the party and the party leader. This has over time caused a great shift in focus and thinking.

So how does this proposed alternate system work, one that is evidently more "democratic" then our existing system? All 35 million people from all over Canada would be able to vote for the party and respective leader. The party with the most votes would form the government. The party leaders would then choose any people they wanted to form the government. These people could be absolutely anybody, from relatives to friends to teachers to Joe X off of the street. Suddenly Canada is run be a large portion of people who are unconnected and completely unknown to the Canadian population.

I'm not saying our system is perfect. It is with our system that the Bloc dominates Quebec as a whole. Under the alternative system, we wouldn't have this problem. The Bloc would likely gain little to no seats whatsoever. But this problem, despite the fact that it threatens the very productivity and efficiency of our government, is still extremely insignificant when compared to the alternative system.

You can see I've hardly gotten into Topp's article and I've found already what I believe to be a serious fallacy. However, let's move on to what I believe is his next problem. This is his accusation of Harper being "unfair" towards citizens through his actions, and thus the citizens are now disinterested in him and his party. I will agree that the media has caused people to think that Mr Harper is quite "unfair", however, I believe that this is merely because the media buy and large, including Mr Topp, is largely liberal. Which comes down to why I believe this article is largely flawed. Topp goes on to list what most liberals usually slam conservatives over: the prorogation of parliament, the gun registry program, the census issue, the Afghan detainee issue, etc. etc. Most of us have heard all of this by this point. When one looks into these issues individually, they will find that they are not nearly as flawed as the media makes them out to be. I don't have time to go into each and every one of them now, as my response to this article is dragging on long enough as it is. I believe that these "hot-button" issues show the truth that Canadians can't find anything legitimate to blame the Conservatives for. Why do the people want to find fault in the tories? Because quite frankly, the Tories are not the fun party. They, in complete contrast to what Mr Topp says, are responsible. They don't promise as big and grandiose expenses like the Grits do, because they know they, or anyone, can't deliver these expenses.

If any wishes to defend the Liberals, I welcome it. I however, believe there is not much to defend. The scandals of Chretien, the ineffectiveness of Martin, the immaturity of Dion, and the disinterest of Ignatieff are only the most recent examples of why this party isn't in power anymore. The fun is over. Now, the serious and difficult time is restraint has come.