It seems like lately everyone is talking about the touch-screen bearing BlackBerry 9000 series devices that are supposed to be coming out in the first half of next year. Don’t get me wrong, the BlackBerry 9000 will undoubtedly be a popular device, however, an iPhone killer it won’t be. (It doesn’t really need to be, however that is for another post…)
Touch screens aren’t anything new. Granted the iPhone’s interface is revolutionary and is actually pretty usable, however, the tactile feel of buttons when pounding out emails is far superior. Simply ignore anyone who tries to convince you otherwise.
RIM is absolutely pushing into the consumer market and success here is critical to the long term success of the company going forward, however, RIM doesn’t have the luxury of putting out a device so targeted to consumers that less than one tenth of one percent of the people who buy it do so primarily for business reasons.
Although the trend is changing, the majority of BlackBerry users out there use their devices because they really need them, in addition to them being cool phones. How many iPhone users truly need an iPhone to support their livelihood? A third of BlackBerry users think that SureType is evil. No keyboard at all will be perceived as “Michael Vick dog fighting” evil for many.
A BlackBerry with a touch screen will be pretty cool. I will surely get one. It will, however, undoubtedly be my other device. Kind of like my iPhone is now.
Remember when we first saw pictures of what we presumed was the BlackBerry 9000 and thought, “Oh crap, this thing doesn’t have a touch-screen.”, only to be followed up with a post of how this might not actually be the BlackBerry 9000, but a new BlackBerry 8000 model?