BlackBerry sale: why it's descended into farce

Things have taken a turn for the ridiculous in Ontario.

For a once-great company, BlackBerry is really making a hash of its sale.
While Nokia bowed out gracefully, fixing up its inevitable deal with Microsoft with minimal fanfare, the deal to sell BlackBerry is becoming much like the launch of its products: Drawn-out and tedious.
After seemingly arranging a deal to sell to key investor Fairfax Financial, the company said others would be welcome to bid.
It then turned out it had spoken to Google and attempted to draw Samsung and LG into a battle for its patents and enterprise network.
That’s understandable. Analysts have said already that the company is worth far more broken-up than as a single entity.
But now Fairfax appears to be struggling to raise the necessary $4.7 billion to push its deal through.
And to make things worse, Mike Lazaridis, the man who founded the company but oversaw its descent into irrelevance, says he wants to buy the company.

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Android exec Hugo Barra quits for Chinese mobile maker

Moving to Xiaomi.

One of Android’s leading execs has quit his post and is heading to China to work for one of the country’s mobile manufacturers. Hugo Barra, Android’s vice-president of product management who has worked at Google for five and a half years, is set to join Xiaomi, working on developing their Android portfolio.
In a post on Google+, Barra said, “In a few weeks, I'll be joining the Xiaomi team in China to help them expand their incredible product portfolio and business globally — as Vice President, Xiaomi Global.
“I'm really looking forward to this new challenge, and am particularly excited about the opportunity to continue to help drive the Android ecosystem.”
Barra’s departure follows that of Andy Rubin, Android’s creator, who left the Android team to work on other Google projects.

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Wozniak’s note of caution is a rare slice of common sense

Is the Woz-man right to urge more patience with Apple's pace of innovation? Joe Minihane gives his two cents.

The pace at which the world of smartphones and tablets moves today means that the demands from hardcore fans, hungry for bleeding edge updates, are relentless. If a new phone doesn’t cram in a game-changing feature, then it’s instantly dismissed as irrelevant, despite the fact its software may be spanking new and a game-changer in and of itself.
That’s why this week’s words from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak are so refreshing. In an interview with the BBC, Wozniak essentially put demanding fans in their place. “Everybody says, ‘oh my gosh, two years have passed and we need something really new and great from Apple’,” he said. “Well yeah, great advances for mankind don't happen every year.”
Wozniak was answering a question about whether Apple had lost its innovative edge since Tim Cook took over the helm at Cupertino. But his remarks are telling and show how ludicrous things have got that a wholly rejigged iPhone 5S, albeit with a similar design, is dismissed outright as iterative and unexciting in some quarters.
In the past seven years, Apple has released two products that have completely reshaped tech as we know it. The iPhone and iPad were both trailblazers and updates to those devices are only ever going to offer a minor jump on the last year’s model. Cumulatively, that can add up to a huge difference, as is being seen with the move to iOS 7 and a bulging App Store, full of stunning native and third party add-ons.

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BlackBerry boss: We can survive as niche company

Not over yet.

BlackBerry can continue to exist as a niche company and will not be completely killed off once it’s been bought out. That’s the opinion of Bert Nordberg, who sits on the ailing mobile maker’s board.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Wall Street Journal, Nordberg said, “I think BlackBerry is able to survive as a niche company.
"But being a niche company means deciding to be a niche company. Historically, BlackBerry has had larger ambitions. But battling giants like Apple, Google, and Samsung is tough."
Nordberg said that BlackBerry’s products did still have something to offer. “BlackBerry's unique assets make it stand apart from other phone makers.
“BlackBerry is strong on the enterprise business, its products are NSA-proof in the sense that you can't intercept their communication, its handsets' keyboards have many fans around the globe, and the company has a leading worldwide data network.”

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BlackBerry A10 phablet detailed

BlackBerry goes big.

BlackBerry is prepping a new phablet to add to its arsenal of BB10 devices, it has emerged.
Dubbed the BlackBerry A10, it packs a huge five-inch screen and has appeared as part of a leaked roadmap of future devices from the Canadian mobile maker.
Word on the web is that it’ll pack a Super AMOLED display, along with 2GB of RAM and a dual-core processor. A quad-core one would apparently hamper battery life too drastically and therefore won’t be included.
Design-wise, the BlackBerry A10 apparently resembles the Samsung Galaxy S4, albeit slightly larger.
BlackBerry is expected to launch the A10 during the autumn.
As revealed yesterday it may also launch a new, entry-level BB7 device around the same time.

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BlackBerry BB7 phone landing this year

BB10 takes a back seat.

BlackBerry has confirmed it will be rolling out a device this year that uses its old-school BB7 platform.
The news came directly from CEO Thorsten Heins, who was speaking at a shareholder meeting.

Although he didn’t serve up details, it appears Heins was talking about the BlackBerry Bold 9720, which has been leaked extensively across the web.
The move appears to be an attempt to keep fans of older BlackBerry devices on side.
While the newer BlackBerry 10 platform has received rave reviews, and its Z10 has sold relatively well, BlackBerry is still a long way off competing in the smartphone space.
Heins also told shareholders that the company would only ever sell six handsets at any given time, allowing it to concentrate on serving up a decent roster of devices.

 so enjoy BlackBerry BB7 phone landing this year, on your pc news.

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TalkTalk offering BlackBerry Curve 9320 for £2.50 per month

Six days left for promo.

The BlackBerry Curve 9320 is available for £2.50 per month with TalkTalk Mobile, as part of a time-limited promotion.
The offer is available to all TalkTalk broadband and TV customers who sign up online for the handset on a two-year contract on TalkTalk Mobile before the end of June.

As well as a free phone in black, blue or white, £2.50 per month gets you monthly allowances of 100 any-network, anytime call minutes, 250 texts and 200MB of mobile data.
TalkTalk also provides 100 monthly call minutes to TalkTalk mobiles, as well as unlimited family calls, free text alerts and free voicemail.
Although it doesn’t run the latest BB10 version of the phone maker’s operating system, the Curve 9320 supports all key BlackBerry services. Not least the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) instant messaging app, which is accessible through a dedicated key to make it easier to share news and snaps.

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BlackBerry PlayBook: Five things that killed world’s biggest tablet flop

BlackBerry's slate is dead. Joe Minihane carries out the post-mortem.

And so the game is up for the BlackBerry PlayBook.
Nearly three years after its launch, the Canadian company last week confirmed that the tablet would not be getting a taste of its ace new BlackBerry 10 software, effectively consigning the device to the history books.
From the off, the slate was a disaster, beset by problems and a focal point for the hubristic last days of the former BlackBerry exec team.
Here are five things that helped ensure the PlayBook would never compete with the iPad

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iPhone 6 concept packs fingerprint scanning & 18MP camera

Designer works up ‘what-if’ render.

A designer has given us a glimpse of what the next iPhone may look like, in the latest in a rash of renders of the iPhone 5S / iPhone 6 that have appeared online in recent weeks.
Created by Antonio De Rosa of ADR Studio, the concept design takes on board much of what leaks suggest will be on board the forthcoming Apple smartphone. That means there’s a larger screen – albeit at 4.3-inches one that’s much smaller than talk of an iPhablet suggests – and a beefier A7 quad-core processor.

De Rosa’s fantasy phone also substitutes the current iPhone’s eight-megapixel snapper for a lavish 18-megapixel camera, complete with double-flash LED and noise reduction.
But it’s perhaps the use of fingerprint scanning tech – also a long-time fixture of the iPhone rumour mill - and transformation of the area beneath the screen where his render stands out.

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BlackBerry PlayBook denied BlackBerry 10 upgrade

PlayBook even less fun than before.

BlackBerry’s CEO Thorsten Heins has confirmed that the company’s PlayBook tablet will not be getting an update to the mobile-maker’s critically lauded BlackBerry 10 software.
The news came in an investors’ conference call earlier today. Heins had said at a major event in January that the slate, which has been a commercial flop, would eventually get BlackBerry 10.
However, he has now admitted the engineers at BlackBerry couldn’t get its sleek new OS to work satisfactorily on the PlayBook.

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BlackBerry 10 touchscreen

                 

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