p*******m
发帖数: 20761 | 1 The future of BlackBerry 10 & rumours of a ‘dummy tablet’
BLOGS Richard Goodwin 17:34, 16 May 2013
mit bbs admin
Source claims BlackBerry is working on dummy tablet device
It’s the last day of BlackBerry Live 2013 in Orlando, Florida. The expo was
pretty epic with tons of announcements and lots of briefings. Over the
course of the last few days we’ve seen a new handset launched and have
spoken with lots of BlackBerry execs and partners. All in all, it was a very
informative trip.
Lewis Hamilton made a couple of appearances and Alicia Keys – BlackBerry’s
Creative Director – was also in attendance. There was an evening of
entertainment at Universal Studios featuring live music, a lot of booze, and
mountains of food and sweets. We even bumped into Thorsten Heins in the
hotel bar at 2am on Tuesday, no doubt celebrating the day’s successful
keynote address.
One of the best things about the expo, for me personally, however, was all
the people I met – and of course the amazing weather. I’ve chatted to
BlackBerry partners, engineers, re-sellers, IT managers, and network people
during my stay in Orlando, players from every sector of the BlackBerry
universe, and they turned out to be literal fountains of information.
BlackBerry Q10 review
BlackBerry Z10 review
BlackBerry Q5 hands on & initial impressions
We broke the story about the 5-inch Z10 reboot, something BlackBerry has yet
to officially acknowledge, but that’s nothing compared to what one
BlackBerry reseller told us last night about BlackBerry’s alleged plans for
the tablet space.
According to our source BlackBerry has plans in place to launch a dummy
tablet device. Think Asus’ Padfone just with BlackBerry 10. Now this sounds
pretty crazy, we know, but it’s still a very interesting idea all the same.
Our source said the logic behind the concept was three fold:
It’s a cheaper and more cost-effective solution than producing a proper
tablet device.
There’s a massive demand for larger form devices from BlackBerry’s core
business users.
BlackBerry needs something unique to compete with Apple’s iPad in the
enterprise space.
We’ve put the question of whether this was on the cards to BlackBerry UK
Managing Director Rob Orr. We weren’t expecting a confirmation and we didn
’t get one, but Orr did say that when it comes to the future of mobile
computing BlackBerry’s vision is centered on the smartphone.
During the BlackBerry Live 2013 keynote speech a Bentley Continental GTC,
packed with a BlackBerry 10-powered entertainment system, joined Thorsten
Heins on stage. Here, the car and the smartphone are linked and the
smartphone can instruct the car to download new features like updated maps
for instance. This is just one example of how BlackBerry 10 can be used in
different environment and settings.
Orr told us that with BlackBerry 10 the possibilities are limitless. Once
the platform is there, everything else falls into place. ‘BlackBerry 10 was
built with the next 10 years in mind,’ said Orr. ‘It’s a mobile
computing platform that embraces open web standards and features a rich set
of developer tools.’
‘BlackBerry 10 shows we listened to our customers.’
Orr also re-confirmed that BlackBerry would release six handsets
collectively in 2013, meaning we’ll see three more devices before the end
of the year. Asked about specifics such as specs, hardware, and features,
Orr could not comment.
Speaking about tablets, Thorsten Heins said the following during a media
session on Tuesday: ‘we want to create something that's easier to use.’ He
also confirmed that BlackBerry is now spending money on R&D looking into
this.
So how do you make a tablet simpler?
One option would be to create a dumb device, as our source claims, that uses
the phone has its brains but provides users with a larger BlackBerry tablet
experience.
Heins also said a ‘pure hardware play does not make sense in today’s
market.’
Our source could not confirm if or when the dummy tablet would launch but he
said it is on the roadmap and looked ‘very, very cool.’
We love this idea. It's unique, rather novel, and could be a very simple
solution to BlackBerry's tablet problems.
What say you? |
|
