The moves are mostly incremental–adding a touchscreen to the Bold, a modest OS update and features like FaceBook and video chat for the PlayBook tablet. Perhaps the biggest move is the notion of expanding its core BlackBerry Enterprise Server to manage other devices, such as Android and iOS, something that Mobilized reported in January that RIM was considering. RIM said on Monday that it is buying Ubitexx to help with this product.

“The multi-platform BlackBerry Enterprise Solution is designed to address a growing market and respond to requests from enterprise customers who want a secure multi-platform device management solution from a company that already delivers the gold standard for enterprise mobility,” RIM VP Peter Devenyi said in a statement. “We recognize the opportunity to continue leading in the enterprise market by providing customers with a common platform to help simplify the management of a variety of mobile devices.”

The company also touted other ways that its products can continue to appeal to businesses, such as the ability of its phones to divide into work and personal parts–the so-called BlackBerry Balance feature–as well as unified communications capabilities that will allow the devices to act as a desk phone at work and a cell on the go.

The announcements come just days after RIM warned that its current quarter profits will be far weaker than the company thought just a month earlier as demand for BlackBerry has waned, particularly at the high end of the market.

RIM is hoping a new crop of devices, including the new Bolds, will help reignite demand and has said it expects things to pick up toward the latter part of the year. In addition to a touchscreen, the new Bold phones sport Near Field Communications technology, a wireless technology which is seen as an emerging method for mobile payments, among other uses. The phones also add a compass to aid their ability for use in things like augmented reality.

The phones will be the first to use BlackBerry OS 7, an update to the RIM operating system that adds support for improved graphics and the BlackBerry Balance feature. Both new Bold models are due this summer, RIM said. T-Mobile said it will carry one of the models and that the phone will be the first BlackBerry to run on its higher-speed HSPA+ network.

The expanded BlackBerry Enterprise Server, with the ability to manage non-RIM devices, is expected later this year.

Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 4 death-grip drama came to a head this morning at a news conference at which Steve Jobs, saying no smartphone was immune to antenna issues, promised free cases for all owners and a liberal return policy. Here’s the the live blog.

[Update: Apple has provided a video of the presentation on its Web site. It's not embeddable, but here's the link.]

9:40 am: We’re here at the Apple (AAPL) campus in Cupertino. The assembled press, a smaller crowd than usual, is waiting to enter Building 4 for the event.

10:00 am: Inside the auditorium now. This is easily the smallest Apple event I’ve ever attended — there are actually empty seats.

A quick scan of the front row reveals pretty much all of Apple’s executive bench to be in the house: Tim Cook, Bertrand Serlet, Bob Mansfield, Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller.

10:04 am: The event begins with a music video: “The iPhone Antenna Song.”

It’s a sing-a-long: “If you don’t want an iPhone 4, don’t buy it. If you don’t like it, bring it back.”

10:06 am: And Jobs takes the stage with a big grin on his face. “We saw that video on YouTube and couldn’t help but share it.”

10:06 am: “We’re not perfect,” says Jobs. “We know that and you know that. Phones aren’t perfect either….We want to make our users happy. That’s what Apple is all about.”

10:07 am: The iPhone 4 is perhaps the best product we’ve ever made at Apple and we’ve sold over three million since we launched it just three weeks ago, he says, noting that the device has been well reviewed in major publications and has a high satisfaction rate to boot.

10:08 am: “However,” says Jobs, “we began getting reports about antenna issues…and this has since been dubbed ‘antennagate.’…We heard about this just 22 days ago and Apple is an engineering-driven company and the way that we work is that we want to understand what the problem is before we come up with a real solution.”

10:09 am: “We’ve been working our butts off for the past few weeks to do that with antennagate.”

Jobs notes that attenuation problems are not unique to the iPhone 4. He rolls some videos demonstrating similar signal deterioration when a BlackBerry Bold is held in a particular way.

Another video, this one of the HTC Eris. Again the phone’s bar display drops drastically when held in a particular way.

10:12 am: Same thing with the Samsung Omnia. “It’s got 4 bars to start,’ says Jobs. “We grip it in a familiar way and the signal drops.”

10:13 am: “These phones were all tested in areas of relatively weak signal strength and they all dropped bars….This is life in the smartphone industry….Smartphones are not perfect.”

10:14 am: Jobs suggests that the controversy over the iPhone 4′s antenna issue is partially the result of the fact that the “dead spot” is so easily visible on the iPhone 4′s exterior. “X marks the spot,” he says.

10:16 am: A quick overview of Apple’s state-of-the-art antenna lab, which is pretty impressive looking. “This is a state of the art antenna test facility,” Jobs says. “We have 17 anechoic chambers. These things are not cheap. We have invested over $100 million in antenna testing facilities over the past 5 years. We have 18 PhD scientists and engineers on our staff. And so the iPhone antenna went through all of this. We tested it. We knew that if you gripped it in a certain way, the bars are going to go down a little bit, just like every smartphone. We didn’t think it’d be a big problem, because every smartphone has this issue.”

10:17 am: Jobs notes again that antenna design is a challenge for the entire industry. “Smartphones have weak spots….You can grab them in the course of normal use and you will drop reception.”

A quick discussion of AppleCare statistics on iPhone 4 user antenna/reception complaints. “If you’ve read the media coverage you’d think, Jesus, at least half of our customers have called in to complain,” says Jobs. “So what’s the real percentage? 0.55 percent.”

10:20 am: And what of return rates? Jobs notes that AT&T (T) has a buyer’s remorse program that allows users to return their phone if they’re unhappy with it. So what have AT&T’s return rates been like for the iPhone 4?

Jobs says return rates for the iPhone 3GS were 6.0 percent, which is below the industry average.

Return rates for the iPhone 4: 1.7 percent.

“That’s less than a third of the return rates for the iPhone 3GS,” says Jobs.

10:22 am: A final data point. A dropped call metric from AT&T. “How do call drops on iPhone 4 compare to those on the 3GS?” asks Jobs. “I can tell you that even though we believe the iPhone 4 is superior to the 3GS, the iPhone 4 drops more calls per hundred than the 3GS.”

10:24 am: So how many more calls does it drop?

Here’s the hard data, says Jobs. “The iPhone 4 drops less than one additional call per hundred than the iPhone 3GS.”

“Now even less than one is too much for us, but this does put things in perspective,” Jobs adds.

10:25 am: Noting that there are fewer third-party cases available for the iPhone 4 than the iPhone 3GS at launch, Jobs theorizes that the number of caseless iPhones on the street has further exacerbated the iPhone 4′s reported reception issues. “So, I have my own pet theory on this, which we have no proof of, but I’ll give it to you anyway,” he says. “When the iPhone 3GS came out, we did not change the design from the iPhone 3, and there was a healthy market of cases for the iPhone 3G that fit the 3GS perfectly because the design didn’t change. And in our stores, 80 percent of the iPhone 3GS users walked out with a case. iPhone 4 has a radically new design; none of the old cases fit. Since we didn’t show it to anybody, none of the new cases are ready, and we can’t make enough of our bumper cases. And so in our stores, about 20 percent of the people are going out with a case. And I think that has something to do with this disparity.”

10:27 am: Now a quick overview of the data points offered so far:

Smartphones have weak spots
Few complaints to AppleCare
Few returns to AT&T

“So this issue is affecting a small percentage of our users,” says Jobs.

10:28 am: “But we are about every user” says Jobs. “So what are we going to do?”

First: The update to iOS 4 Apple released yesterday.

Second: We’re going to give everyone a free bumper case. “One for every iPhone 4…if you’ve already bought one, we’ll give you a refund… through Sept. 30.”

10:30 am: “We will send you a free case,” says Jobs. ” But we can’t make enough bumpers…so what we’re going to do is offer users a choice of cases.”

Users can apply for a case on the Apple Web site beginning next week.

10:31 am: “And if after that,” says Jobs, “you are still unhappy with your iPhone, you can return it for a refund and we’ll waive the restocking fee.”

10:31 am: And now a few other iPhone 4 updates. Jobs mentions complaints about the proximity sensor. He says the company plans to have a fix for it soon.

10:32 am: The white iPhone 4 will begin shipping later this month

10:33 am: And finally, on July 30, Apple will begin shipping the iPhone 4 to a number of new countries.

10:33 am: On to final remarks now: “We love our users,” says Jobs. “We do our best to delight and surprise them. We work our asses off for our users.”

He runs through a list of Apple innovations, notes what the company has done for the retail experience (free Genius Bar appointments, One to One service, etc.)

“And when we fall short,” he adds, “we try harder. And when we succeed they reward us by staying our users….So when we have problems like this, we take it really personally….We all read this stories, and if a user is having a problem, it’s our problem….So we’ve been working really, really hard for the past 22 days to understand the problem and solve it, and we think we’ve gotten to the heart of the problem: Smartphones have weak spots.”

10:37 am: “The data supports the fact that the iPhone 4 is the best phone in the world,” Jobs concludes. “There is no antennagate; there’s a challenge for the entire industry to improve their phones to where there are no reception issues.”

10:38 am: Moving on to the Q&A now.

First question: How’s your health, Steve?

“I’m doing fine…feeling great.”

10:38 am: Considering any changes to the antenna design?

Jobs: “We’re pretty happy with the antenna in the iPhone 4; it’s better than the iPhone 3G’s antenna in almost every way….We’re getting lots of reports from customers who say their reception has actually improved…so we’re not feeling right now that there’s a giant problem we need to fix.”

Jobs: “We have a lot of iPhones in a lot of hands and most people don’t seem to be having problems.”

10:41 am: A question about grip variation. Why does touching the antenna with a single finger sometimes cause signal to drop?

“The body is an effective signal absorber…so the fact that you’ve bridged the gap between the antennas, you’re attenuating the signal.”

10:43 am: A question referencing yesterday’s Bloomberg article: Was Jobs warned about potential iPhone antenna issues?

“You’re referring to the Bloomberg article,” Jobs replies. “Yeah, that was a total crock. We challenge them to come up with any evidence to prove it….I talked to Rubin (the antenna engineer mentioned in the article) and he says it’s total bullshit from his point of view as well.”

10:45 am: Is Apple apologizing to its customers and investors?

Jobs: “I apologize to our customers … But investors … We want investors for the long haul. To those investors who bought the stock and are down $5, I have no apology. … We make great products, and if we hit a bump in the road…it’s just like having kids.”

10:46 am: Q: Is Apple a company that makes users choose between form and function?

Jobs: No. We are a company that likes to do both. You know, you look at an iPod touch and it’s wonderfully thin and it costs us extra to do that well, but we do it. The iPhone 4 antenna is an exterior antenna that doesn’t use internal space, so we can use that additional space for battery, storage, etc. We try to have our cake and eat it too.

10:48 am: Q: Is AT&T giving full refunds to unhappy iPhone 4 users and allowing them to break their contracts?

Jobs: I believe so.

10:50 am: “What we’re learning through this process is that part of our role as an industry leader in this space is to educate,” says Jobs. “So that’s what we’re doing. We’re gathering data and sharing it…and we will continue to devise products that have fewer of these issues, but right now to our knowledge it’s not possible to design a phone that does that….I mean you could make a really, really big phone…a Hummer of a phone, but then no one would want to buy it.”

10:51 am: Jobs says, “I can tell you right up front, we are not perfect. We are human…we make mistakes….We don’t know everything, but we figure things out pretty fast…and we love our customers and appreciate them. We don’t take them for granted and we work hard to keep them.”

10:53 am: Q from Consumer Reports: Does the refund apply to third-party cases?

Jobs says no. Because there are very few third-party cases available, there aren’t really enough in the market to justify a refund.

10:56 am: Q for the team: Do any of you carry your iPhone 4s with bumpers?

Cook, Jobs and Mansfield all raise their phones and none of them has a case. (Laughter)

10:57 am: Give this debacle, what will Apple do differently with its next product launch.

Jobs says he needs to get a little distance before he can really speak to that.

“We were stunned and upset and embarrassed by the Consumer Reports stuff that came out this week, but we didn’t need that to know that we had to take care of our customers….But we weren’t silent because we were ignoring it, we were silent because we were working to understand it….If we had spoken out on this a week ago, we wouldn’t have had the data we needed….Some people have wanted us to run a little faster, and honestly I don’t think we could….We have people here all night…there are cots in the engineering department.”

11:00 am: More from Jobs–”One thing I’ve learned is that when there’s a successful organization, people want to tear it down….It’s happening to Google now. Google’s a great company, but people are tearing them down. They’re doing the same thing to us. … What’s the purpose in that?…Would you prefer, that we’re a Korean company? Do you not like the fact that we’re an American company leading the world right here? …Sometimes I feel that these Web sites in search of eyeballs don’t know what they leave in their wake….We’ve been around for how many years? Don’t we have the trust from the press that we will address issues like this when they arise? I didn’t see that this week….Now we weren’t innocents in this, but the reaction to this based on the data we have has been so overblown that to digest it and determine what we can do better is going to take us some time.”

11:04 am: Jobs reiterates that the number of customers encountering iPhone 4 attenuation issues is small, but that the company still wants to make them happy. Hence today’s announcement of free iPhone 4 cases.

11:05 am: Q–Did you even consider a recall?

Jobs: “You know when you love your customers as much as we do, nothing is off the table. But we are a data-driven company.”

Jobs describes Apple’s efforts to track this issue, talks about sending engineers across the country to analyze it and develop a solution. Evidently, in some cases engineers were dispatched to the homes of customers who’d complained about attenuation.

“We called them first, of course,” jokes Mansfield.

11:08 am: Question about a possible software fix for signal attenuation. This was mentioned in the New York Times report this morning.

Jobs takes issue with the question, stresses that attenuation is an industrywide issue.

Scott Forstall steps up to address the Times article and the “latent software issue” it mentions. “That’s patently false,” he says.

Jobs chimes in: “One of many such statements we’ve seen over the past week.”

11:12 am: Jobs says, “We can’t make the iPhone 4 fast enough….We are way behind demand.”

11:13 am: Q–What impact will this have on your bottom line?

Tim Cook: We’re announcing results next week. We’ll hold off on discussing things like that until then.

11:15 am: Question about iPhone 4 sales.

Tim Cook: “We are selling every phone we can make right now.”

11:18 am: Jobs–”If you don’t own the primary technology, the company that does is going to beat you in the end….We want to own or control the primary technology for the businesses that we’re in….We decided that for us, software was the most important component….So we brought software to the phone business in a way that hadn’t been seen before….So we’ve been able to create and frictionlessly distribute software updates seamlessly since the iPhone first launched….We were the first ones to really do that in a practical way.”

11:22 am: A question about the recent spike in Jobs’s emailing Apple customers. Has Apple shifted the way it communicates with its customers?

Jobs: I get a lot of emails, my email address is out there, and sometimes I answer them. And now people have begun posting them to the Web–which is rude. And now there’s this new phenomenon, where people are just making them up. But this is something I’ve always done.

11:25 am: So was that helpful, Jobs asks the audience before delivering a final quip:

“I wish we could have done this in 48 hours, but then you wouldn’t have had as much to write about.”

And that’s it. The event’s ended.

PREVIOUSLY

• iPhone 4 Full Coverage on AllThingsD.com
• What Will Apple Say Tomorrow? Your Guess Is as Good as My Analyst’s.
• Apple Releases iOS 4.0.1 for iPhone, iOS 3.2.1 for iPad
• The Reality Distortion Field Appears to Be Suffering Attenuation Issues as Well
• Analyst: “Highly Unlikely” iPhone 4 Recall Could Cost Apple $1.5 Billion
• Apple Snips Needling Threads From iPhone 4 Forums
• IPhone 4 Recall? Get a Grip!
• Consumer Reports: By the Way, the iPhone 4 is Also the Best Smartphone on the Market
• Duct-Tape Makers Look for Boost From Consumer Reports iPhone Verdict
• Consumer Reports: We Can’t Recommend the iPhone 4
• Apple: Your iPhone 4 Antenna Is Fine, and So Is Your Reception–But We’re Fixing Our Software Anyway
• Grip Different: Apple, AT&T Sued Over iPhone 4 Antenna Issue
• Gripping Antenna Drama Won’t Hold iPhone 4 Back, Says Analyst
• Apple on iPhone 4 Reception Problems: Grip Different

Much has changed in a year, most notably the growing number of serious competitors vying to steal customers from RIM (RIMM) and Apple (AAPL), and the surge of applications (“apps” for short) available for these super smart phones.

This week, I tested RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold 9700 (na.blackberry.com), which will be available on Nov. 27 for $200 with a two-year T-Mobile contract. Like the original Bold, the Bold 9700 has a leatherette back. But that’s where the similarities end. This new version reminds me of the original Bold after a diet: smaller in every dimension—width, height, depth and weight—and, physically, it’s a lot like the newer BlackBerry Curve models. (I use the Curve 8900 every day, and after using the two together for a week I still mistook them for one another at a glance.)

RIM has long been proud of its diverse selection and the fact that it doesn’t force a “one size fits all” theory on its users. Instead, it offers BlackBerrys in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Pearl Flip, a flip phone with a built-in BlackBerry, to the Storm 2, a touch-screen device without a physical keyboard, and several models in between.

Now, the Bold has dropped its distinguished characteristics. The Buick of BlackBerrys has become as common as the Toyota Camry. Is there nothing left for the user who likes a large, luxurious BlackBerry?

In a side-by-side comparison between this new Bold 9700, the Curve 8900 ($150 after a $100 mail-in rebate) and the Tour 9630 ($150 after Verizon’s $100 online discount), the physical differences are almost imperceptible. And these models don’t look all that different from the Curve 8520, which costs $50 with a two-year T-Mobile contract when bought at Wal-Mart (WMT).

The new Bold’s smaller size means its keyboard also is slightly smaller than its predecessor: It measures about 5.5 centimeters across rather than 5.9 centimeters. I still found it relatively comfortable to use. But this keyboard is almost exactly the same as the keyboard on the BlackBerry Tour, except the new Bold’s bottom row of keys is slightly shorter. Unlike the keyboard found on the Curve 8900 and other less-expensive Curves, the keys on the Bold 9700 are positioned side by side with no spaces between them, and horizontal rows are divided by chrome frets.

Look familiar? The BlackBerry Bold 9700 now resembles existing BlackBerrys.

While the Bold 9700 looks rather undistinguished, it has a few less-obvious attributes that give it a little oomph. For starters, it uses a trackpad for scrolling the screen. Longtime Blackberry users will remember the original scroll wheel, which was on the right side of the device. In 2006, the scroll wheel was replaced with a trackball on the front of the device. This September, that trackball was replaced by a trackpad as first seen on the Curve 8520, and its appearance on this new Bold confirms RIM’s decision to use it as the navigational tool of choice.

This trackpad is a tiny, touch-sensitive square that works by sensing a finger’s directional movements. Pressing in on the trackpad, like pressing in on the trackball, selects something on the screen. At first, I missed the satisfying physical feel of scrolling with the trackball, and the trackpad felt fast and less controllable to my thumb. But I soon got used to the trackpad and appreciated that it does away with all moving parts that could possibly get stuck—a trackball hazard for many BlackBerry users. The trackpad also establishes a flat layer beneath the screen that looks sleek and smooth in line with the four navigational buttons.

Another advantage of the Bold 9700 is its battery life. If you take off this BlackBerry’s leatherette back, a battery that measures almost the size of the device itself lies beneath. This large battery supplies the Bold 9700 with enough juice to last up to 19 days in standby mode. By comparison, the BlackBerry Tour and Curve 8900 last for up to 14 days each in standby. The new Bold’s talk time is up to six hours, slightly better than the Curve 8900′s 5½ and an hour better than the Tour’s five-hour talk time.

This thinner, lighter, smaller Bold is more comfortable to use for phone calls than the original, which could make users feel like they were holding a small piece of toast up to their ear during calls. I made several calls with no problems. Emailing on this Bold 9700 was as simple as always, and I set up four email accounts for testing.

Despite its fancy new BlackBerrys, RIM needs to overhaul the way it handles apps. The Bold 9700 comes preloaded with a prominently positioned icon for RIM’s BlackBerry App World store. But apps downloaded from here still go right into the “Downloads” folder, sending users unfamiliar with this system into a frantic search for their newly downloaded app.

And not all apps go into that folder; the Facebook app goes straight to the “Apps” folder. Why not put every new app right on the home screen and let me put them into folders if I so choose?

Once apps are downloaded, RIM neglects to notify you when all apps need to be updated. On my personal Curve 8900, I recently dug into the settings of my TwitterBerry and Facebook apps and manually checked to see if updated versions were available for each. This was the case, and I downloaded the new versions, but most people would never think to check for this kind of thing. Instead, RIM should send notifications about available updates for all apps.

The Bold 9700 runs on T-Mobile’s 3G network, which isn’t nearly as established as the 3G networks that Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) offer. It also can connect to Wi-Fi and allows voice calls to be made over Wi-Fi. (The BlackBerry Tour connects to Verizon’s 3G network but doesn’t have Wi-Fi—a huge downside. The Curve 8900 connects to Wi-Fi but not to 3G.)

The other attributes of the Bold 9700 are like the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and Tour: They all have cameras with flashes that are capable of capturing 3.2-megapixel photographs, bright 480×360-pixel displays, built-in GPS and slots for microSD memory cards so as to expand their memory.

If you’re considering a BlackBerry upgrade, the Bold 9700 offers 3G and Wi-Fi, a combination not offered by another BlackBerry with a full physical keyboard—other than the original Bold. But since many of the Bold 9700′s features are about the same as less-expensive BlackBerrys, it’s worth considering the Tour and Curve 8900 before you spend $200 on a device that no longer lives up to its bold name.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091110/a-downsized-blackberry-bold-with-oomph/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090227/shake-up-at-sony/ http://allthingsd.com/20090227/shake-up-at-sony/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:20:30 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=13818

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090227/shake-up-at-sony/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090227/ntt-docomo-announces-blackberry-bold-hotline/ http://allthingsd.com/20090227/ntt-docomo-announces-blackberry-bold-hotline/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:07:00 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=13767 Troubling reports today from Japan about Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Bold. NTT DoCoMo (DCM), Japan’s largest mobile carrier, has suspended sales of the device after receiving multiple reports that it’s prone to overheating. This just days after the Bold’s debut in Japan.

RIM (RIMM) is investigating the problem and says it appears to be specific to the Japanese market. “This issue appears to be specifically limited to the BlackBerry Bold devices sold in Japan since last week and sales of BlackBerry Bold devices in other countries are unaffected by this matter,” the company said in a statement.

Another tough break for the Bold, which has suffered quite a few of them since launch. Back in January U.K. carrier Orange was said to be considering pulling the device from its lineup because of persistent problems.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090227/ntt-docomo-announces-blackberry-bold-hotline/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090102/rim-orange-to-pull-bb-bold-guardian-alleges-software-glitches/ http://allthingsd.com/20090102/rim-orange-to-pull-bb-bold-guardian-alleges-software-glitches/#comments Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:17:47 +0000 Tiernan Ray http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=7291 U.K. paper The Guardian this morning reports that Orange, the mobile phone operator owned by France Telecom, is considering yanking Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry Bold from its handset lineup–presumably in the U.K. market–because of what the paper calls persistent software errors.

The curious fact of the article is that it cites no one–it is “understood,” in the passive voice, that the device will be discontinued by Orange. And the article is actually more about the BlackBerry Storm than the Bold.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090102/rim-orange-to-pull-bb-bold-guardian-alleges-software-glitches/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20080825/blackberry-bold-to-rival-iphone-in-3g-reception-issues/ http://allthingsd.com/20080825/blackberry-bold-to-rival-iphone-in-3g-reception-issues/#comments Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:13:11 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=3796 If misery loves company, then Apple (AAPL) may have a friend in RIM (RIMM). A Citigroup analyst who has tested the company’s forthcoming BlackBerry Bold claims that the device is troubled by 3G reception woes similar to those plaguing Apple’s new handset. A noteworthy data point, since Bold will initially run on AT&T’s (T) wireless network, just as the iPhone does. “We had a few occasional 3G signal-dropping troubles at some locations especially on high-rise building streets and on our 34th floor (EDGE picked up immediately but at slower Internet speeds),” Citigroup analyst Jim Suva wrote in a recent research note to clients. “[This] may be why AT&T has yet to launch the product.”

Interesting to hear that the Bold shares the iPhone’s erratic 3G connection because the device doesn’t share the same Infineon Technologies (IFX) chip believed to be the source of the iPhone’s troubles. Which means the only real point of commonality between the two phones is AT&T’s 3G network, which may still be a bit too immature for either of them.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080825/blackberry-bold-to-rival-iphone-in-3g-reception-issues/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20080820/citigroup-tests-likes-rims-bold-but-its-no-game-changer/ http://allthingsd.com/20080820/citigroup-tests-likes-rims-bold-but-its-no-game-changer/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:51:21 +0000 Tiernan Ray http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=2900 What’s the killer app on a BlackBerry? … Citigroup analyst Jim Suva has a note out today detailing his experience testing the forthcoming Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry–the “Bold.” He says one of his tests involved watching the comedy movie “Talladega Nights” about race car driver Ricky Bobby, which showed off the pretty screen on the device. (It is nice, I’ve seen it.)

Suva has recently made known his belief that the Bold will be an important factor for RIM in the second half of 2008.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080820/citigroup-tests-likes-rims-bold-but-its-no-game-changer/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080625/rimm-slides-ahead-of-earnings-report-blackberry-bold-att-launch-delayed-2-3-weeks-rbc-trims-fy-q2-estimates/ http://allthingsd.com/20080625/rimm-slides-ahead-of-earnings-report-blackberry-bold-att-launch-delayed-2-3-weeks-rbc-trims-fy-q2-estimates/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:47:39 +0000 Eric Savitz http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=1739 Research In Motion (RIMM) shares are lower this morning heading into the company’s announcement after the close of results for its fiscal first quarter ended May. The Street consensus is for revenue of $2.27 billion and profits of 85 cents a share.

Meanwhile, RBC Capital’s Mike Abramsky asserts in a research note this morning that AT&T (T) appears likely to launch the new 3G Blackberry Bold in mid-August, two or three weeks later than expected, “as it continues to stabilize the device” on its 3G HSPA network. He reports that the launch with Rogers in Canada is on track for July, with other carriers expected to offer the phone later in August.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080625/rimm-slides-ahead-of-earnings-report-blackberry-bold-att-launch-delayed-2-3-weeks-rbc-trims-fy-q2-estimates/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080512/ddv20080512/ http://allthingsd.com/20080512/ddv20080512/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 18:00:22 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080512/ddv20080512/

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080512/ddv20080512/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080512/think-of-it-as-an-iphone-with-a-broken-touchscreen/ http://allthingsd.com/20080512/think-of-it-as-an-iphone-with-a-broken-touchscreen/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 13:14:35 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080512/think-of-it-as-an-iphone-with-a-broken-touchscreen/ With its curvier edges, stylish silver trim, half-VGA 480-by-320 pixel screen and improved iTunes compatibility, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) new BlackBerry Bold should be a big hit with IT operations professionals convinced the iPhone isn’t an enterprise-class mobile device but driven to near-aneurysm by discontented employees demanding them.

The device is largely as expected–an iPhonish-looking thing with both GPS and Wi-Fi, 1GB of permanent flash memory, a 2-megapixel camera, full HTML browsing, 3G support on GSM networks with HSDPA access and, of course, the BlackBerry’s one-trick killer app: instant, secure email. That’s a compelling combination for business users and casual ones not easily swayed by the iPhone’s hype juggernaut as well. Indeed, Citigroup analyst Jim Suva says it could boost RIM’s quarterly shipments by 200,000 to 400,000.

But perhaps not without a bit of struggle. The BlackBerry Bold won’t ship until as late as August, which means Apple (AAPL) could beat it to market with the enterprise-friendly 3G iPhone it’s rumored to be uncrating at its Worldwide Developer’s Conference in June. Which has got to worry RIM. After all, the first-generation iPhone had claimed a 28% market share by the fourth quarter of 2007. That’s still less than the BlackBerry, which holds about a 41% market share, but the iPhone hasn’t even been on the market a year.

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