Yesterday was BlackBerry big press event as their newest savior was revealed, now what? Some might ask especially those of us in the US who have to play the waiting game to actually buy one. Blackberry just initiated a battle with Microsoft to compete for the number 3 slot of smartphone platforms. Windows Phone has been having problems picking up traction thanks to a shallow app ecosystem and playing well with Google products/services.
From my observations, BlackBerry is off to a great start at their revival as a smartphone platform and as a company. But there are a few things that could make it all for nothing. Let’s discuss them, shall we?
The U.S. Launch
During their big press event yesterday, there was no carrier presence there whatsoever. One would think that this would mean the top four carriers are a little less enthusiastic about BlackBerry these days. But that didn’t happen due to individual carrier testing. It would have been nice for the US carriers to officially announce availability rather than landing pages for interested subscribers. Like they will support it for their enterprise subscribers but not offer that big push it deserves.
“With BlackBerry being tardy to the party, they have their work cut out for them moving forward.”
What we do know thus far is that we can expect a mid-March release for some of the US carriers while those in the UK can buy theirs today and Canadians have to wait until February 5th. We have about a month of waiting to do (possibly longer). During that time, leaks for other devices like the HTC M7, Galaxy S IV, and the iPhone 5S could persuade buyers before launch.
To avoid any confusion, let’s break down each carrier as not all of them will offer both the Q10 and Z10. Only AT&T and Verizon are offering both BB10 devices because they can afford to. While Sprint is focusing only on their enterprise subscribers by offering the Q10 only. T-Mobile is only carrying the Z10. Also, Sprint & Verizon’s Z10s have yet to be cleared by the FCC.
With AT&T and Verizon being the big dogs of the carriers, $$$ is no object. While the smaller two (Sprint and T-Mobile) have an even bigger problem: recent deals to offer the iPhone. Sprint entered a $15.5 billion four-year deal to offer the iPhone back at the end of 2011. The deal requires Sprint to sell a certain amount of iPhones per year and could put BB10 on the carrier’s low priority. Late last year, T-Mo’s parent company Deutsche Telekom made an undisclosed deal to for the 4th place carrier to sell the iPhone sometime this year. Their iPhone marketing could also put BB10 on the back burner. Already BB10 could possibly not get two out of the four carrier’s full attention.
The App ‘Problem’
BlackBerry announced over 70,000 apps in their newly renamed, Blackberry World, with many notable apps available at launch . Which is a great start for an app ecosystem of a revamped OS. But my question is: Where are all of the good apps? Don’t get me wrong, there are many key players present but not enough to promote the large number of mediocre apps suggested. After perusing through the BlackBerry World, I found a lot of knock-offs of popular apps seen on Android & iOS. Anyone who has a PlayBook knows exactly what I’m talking about.
“Don’t get me wrong, there are many key players present but not enough to promote the large number of mediocre apps suggested.”
Netflix, Instagram, Spotfiy, YouTube, Hulu, Temple Run and many other popular aren’t there…yet, anyways. Microsoft has the same issue with Windows Phone, another competitor for the #3 spot, in providing its users with a wide variety of apps to choose from. Both platforms have great apps but pale in comparison to the top two platforms. BlackBerry has some time to offer a more robust app selection before the US launch and analysts declare it a failure.
Despite my rant, I’m still rooting for BlackBerry 10 to be successful as a whole. Being my first real smartphone love with the Curve 8320 and then on to Bold 9700. I have yet to demo BB10 software or a Z10 but still looking forward to doing so. With BlackBerry being tardy to the party, they have their work cut out for them moving forward. Hopefully the public and developer community will continue to back them up as done in the past.
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