Today was the big announcement of the new BlackBerry 10 platform. A lot happened this morning so let me hit the highlights:
- Effective today, Research In Motion is now going to be known as BlackBerry. Their ticker symbol will change as well. It will now be BBRY.
- Two new devices were announced today. The Q10 and the Z10. The Z10 lacks a keyboard and will be shipping depending on where you are rather quickly. The Q10 has a keyboard and will not be shipping until March or April according to some reports. Both devices will have LTE support.
- The BlackBerry 10 OS will launch with over 70,000 apps in the app store including Skype, Facebook, Foursquare and Amazon’s Kindle app. Even Angry Birds will be available.
- Besides apps, BlackBerry Balance will be on these devices and it enables work data and apps to be separate from the users’ personal saved data.
- Another new feature is BlackBerry Hub which acts as a single inbox for all incoming messages, email, BBM, and social media. Then there’s BlackBerry remember which allows you to organize your messages, notes etc. in one place.
- There will be video calling built into the new OS, sort of like FaceTime on the iPhone.
- One other piece of news is that musical artist Alica Keys is now BlackBerry’s Global Creative Director. She’ll work with app designers, developers, carriers and the musical community to “inspire projects”….. Whatever that means. One thing she did admit to was the fact that she had a BlackBerry, dumped it for another smartphone, but came back to BlackBerry
because she got paid presumably.
Now some of this stuff has either been leaked out over the last few months, thus there’s a certain amount of “ho hum” to those aspects of the announcement. That might have contributed to a severe drop in the value of the stock during and after the announcement. It’s currently down just over 6% as I type this.
I’ve also got news from Rogers for the Canadians out there. The Z10 will be available in six days in white or black for $149 on a three year plan. The Q10 will come later in 2013. More details are on RedBoard including details on how to reserve these devices on the Rogers Reservation System.
So, the big question is this: Is this enough to put BlackBerry back into the smart phone game, or is it too little to late? Post your thoughts below and let’s get the discussion going.
UPDATE: Rogers just told me that there’s a limited time promotion for the Z10 that will net you this BlackBerry for $139 on a three year plan. Details here.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
This entry was posted on January 30, 2013 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags BlackBerry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Today Is BB10 Day…. Here’s The Recap [UPDATED]
Today was the big announcement of the new BlackBerry 10 platform. A lot happened this morning so let me hit the highlights:
because she got paid presumably.Now some of this stuff has either been leaked out over the last few months, thus there’s a certain amount of “ho hum” to those aspects of the announcement. That might have contributed to a severe drop in the value of the stock during and after the announcement. It’s currently down just over 6% as I type this.
I’ve also got news from Rogers for the Canadians out there. The Z10 will be available in six days in white or black for $149 on a three year plan. The Q10 will come later in 2013. More details are on RedBoard including details on how to reserve these devices on the Rogers Reservation System.
So, the big question is this: Is this enough to put BlackBerry back into the smart phone game, or is it too little to late? Post your thoughts below and let’s get the discussion going.
UPDATE: Rogers just told me that there’s a limited time promotion for the Z10 that will net you this BlackBerry for $139 on a three year plan. Details here.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
This entry was posted on January 30, 2013 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags BlackBerry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.