Alt-kun - Slashdot User

Submission + - With BB10, RIM tries to break out of the "mobile ecosystem" model

Submitted by

Alt-kun

on Friday May 11, 2012 @07:06AM

Alt-kun writes: "This past week has seen a couple of interesting articles about Research In Motion's strategic plans for BlackBerry 10. The Globe and Mail thinks that by pushing HTML5 for app development, they want to make mobile applications platform-neutral, which would let them sell devices purely on the strength of the hardware and OS, rather than on the ecosystem. And the Guelph Mercury notes that they also plan to push BB10 as the basis for a whole range of mobile and embedded devices, not just phones and tablets. One example shown off at the recent developer conference was a Porsche with a BlackBerry entertainment system."

Submission + - Playbook OS 2.0 released: native email, Android app support (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by

Alt-kun

on Wednesday February 22, 2012 @10:16AM

Alt-kun writes: "As of February 21st, The Blackberry Playbook has finally received its long-promised overhaul. Called Playbook OS 2.0, this major upgrade provides native email and calendaring apps, limited support for Android applications (the developer has to repackage the app for the Playbook), and a bunch of other features. There are some fairly positive initial reviews, although one can no doubt expect a lot of too-little-too-late naysaying from various quarters as well.

The Globe and Mail article also contains this somewhat interesting note:
until RIM began deep discounting ... the device languished way behind rivals such as the iPad in terms of market share. One recent report by Toronto-based Solutions Research Group, however, pegs RIM's share of the tablet market at around 15 per cent, a big jump after discounting over the holiday buying season.
"

Submission + - Kobo to release Android tablet e-reader (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by Alt-kun on Friday October 21, 2011 @05:27AM

Alt-kun writes: Like Amazon last month, Kobo is now making the jump to an Android-based tablet e-reader. Priced at $200 and available on October 28th, the Kobo Vox is set to complete with the Kindle Fire rather than the iPad.

While Kobo can't match up with Amazon's sheer mass of available content, it is partnered with various major book sellers and has a good-sized base of existing customers. Also, previous Kobo products have made a point of supporting open standards for media, and that will presumably continue with the Vox.

For those who aren't familiar with Kobo: they have little presence in the US, but their e-readers are fairly popular in Canada, Australia, and a number of other countries.

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