Darwin's Theories Blog

New Theories for a New Time

BlackBerry 'ComeBlack' Starts Now!

2013-01-30

Just watched the BB10 launch event. Technically great, some innovation, a lot of stuff that's already on Android and iOS but better packaged. Phones available TOMORROW in the UK, next week (Feb 5 in Canada, 49 subsidized with usual three-year carrier lock-in). Rogers has a limited special at 39. No-lockin price is 99, about the same as the competition for newly-introduced models (though Google now sells the 8Gb Nexus at half that...).

Singer Alicia Keys hired as the celebrity promo person. Well-known commentator David Pogue likes it for all the right reasons. All the big names are in: FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. (many of them along with email via the BB Hub integration), Angry Birds. Lots of Canuck goodness on sale now. "1,000 of the top apps [from the competing platforms]" included in the 70,000 apps in BB World today.

Oh, and they tossed the geekish "Research In Motion" name, the company name is now == the device name.

Neither my Dev Alpha nor my Playbook offered any software update after the show, so I can't (yet) play with the BB Hub

And, as I tweeted: From today, all three mainstream mobile platforms run a descendant or clone of UNIX as their operating system. Welcome Back @BlackBerry!!">