Mike Lazaridis sat down for an interview with BBC Click to talk about the PlayBook and when the conversation turned to questions about RIM’s presence in the Middle East and India, the interview was abruptly canceled. The issue was that the interviewer, Rory Cellan-Jones, said that RIM had a “security issue” which clearly disappointed Mike L. We’ve been hearing Mike L talk about security for years and you can see the pain and frustration in his eyes when the interviewer used the term “issue”. Lazaridis responds with “we don’t have a security issue” and says that RIM is just being singled out because of their success worldwide. It’s too bad that Cellan-Jones botched the interview because they could have had a really interesting conversation about the PlayBook and what it means for the BlackBerry smartphone.
At CES 2011, Mike Lazaridis confirmed again that we will be seeing QNX-powered Super Phones as part of RIM’s 10 year plan to stay competitive in the market. The upcoming BlackBerry Super Phones (wasn’t that a term coined by Google?) will be based on dual-core processors, the QNX OS and the UI will look very much like a shrunked-own PlayBook. The new Super Phones will support three types of apps: Java, Adobe Air and native apps using OpenGL.
The downside to all of this is that we won’t be seeing these devices in 2011, and probably not even 2012. The plan for BlackBerry Super Phones is part of a ten year plan and there are a few To Do’s before we can see these implemented. The next generation of BlackBerry smartphones needs to be optimized for battery life, size, weight, thickness and cost. Another interesting tidbit when it comes to RIM’s smartphone plans, is that Mike Lazaridis doesn’t see a point in 4G BlackBerrys, something we’ve been expecting for some time.
One interesting point that Lazaridis made about the PlayBook which we’re hearing more about is how the PlayBook stores data. Apparently, nothing is kept on the device and if you lose the PlayBook, nothing will remain on the device. This sounds like it could be great for security but hopefully it doesn’t take long for all the data to sync up.
During the interview, AllthingsD asks a few times if a BlackBerry will run Android. This seems like a strange question given the QNX acquisition was obviously intended to leapfrog the competition. Overall, this interview seemed to go much more smoothly.
The above video shows you some interesting highlights from Mike Lazaridis at the Dive Into Mobile conference. Generally, the interview was pretty tough as Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher inundated Lazaridis with questions about where the platform is going and how RIM is going to keep up with the competition. Mike L didn’t do the best job of answering their questions, but it must be hard when every question starts with “so, your brand and phone is terrible…”.
While Mike L wanted to focus on the PlayBook and discuss how powerful it is, Walt, Kara and the audience, wanted to know about the smartphone. Sure, the PlayBook is cool, but what about the actual smartphone? The answer seems to be that RIM is moving in the direction of multicore, QNX OS smartphones, but it won’t be overnight. RIM is definitely working on multicore products, but consider this: the average BlackBerry has a 2 year development cycle, and RIM only acquired QNX this year. It could be that we won’t see a QNX multicore device until be 2013. Continue reading ‘Highlights from Mike Lazaridis at the Dive Into Mobile Conference’
Today, during the first DevCon2010 general session, Mike Lazaridis announced the BBM Social Platform. The platform allows developers to access the social features of BBM as well as integrating with nearly all the first party applications in a Super App fashion. The BBM Social Platform includes chat capabilities, content sharing, and invitations. Users will be able to invite their BBM friends to join them in a game and then chat with one another while the game is in progress.
BBM functionality accessible to developers through the BBM Social Platform includes:
Contact list – allows users to choose from their BBM contacts from within another application in order to initiate social interactions such as chatting or initiating game play. BBM user profile – an application can insert application status updates into the user’s BBM profile allowing it to be launched or downloaded from BBM by the user’s friends. Application – specific communities – users can create BBM friend groups specific to an application. Data Transfer – allows users to transfer pictures, audio, video and other content directly from an application to their BBM contacts or groups Invitations – allows users to invite new friends to BBM, invite their friends to interact within or download an application, and accept invitations, all from within an application.
We have already put up these videos on the site but if you’re looking for something mobile or you’d like to view at 1080p, we’ve uploaded them to YouTube as well. The BlackBerry Torch launch event lasted about an hour, and now that we have the actual device, we’ll have even better videos for you shortly. In the meantime, enjoy these clips. Continue reading ‘BlackBerry Torch Event Videos Available on YouTube in High Definition’
