They’ve finally announced the BlackBerry PlayBook…
I am intrigued… do they genuinely believe they’ve got a killer product on their hands, or are they just putting it out there and hoping to buy themselves time.
A few major things jump out which makes me wonder.
- It is directed at business (“The business-centric iPad”) but is called the “Playbook”. There’s confusion for a start. Is this thing for work or play?
- It doesn’t have a ship date except Q1 2011 (for the US – Q2 for the rest of the world). But no 3G yet.
- No pricing!
- It appears to be focused on existing BlackBerry users, so you can use the Playbook as a companion device, sucking content from your BlackBerry… I wonder what’s going to that make a success where the Palm Foleo failed?
It feels like they’ve been panicked into launching something so there’s little detail, long timescales, and little innovation. Doesn’t look good does it?
I am constantly amazed and just what a bad job people do of trying to copy Apple, even after Apple have shown them what to do!