BerryManiacs

This was a big weekend for device leaks and videos.  First on the leak list for this week is the BlackBerry Curve 9360 (aka “Apollo”).  Tinhte.vn made a hands-on video and posted it yesterday.  The video isn’t in English, but everything seems to look nice and fluid.

Because these things often come at the same time, BGR also got some hands-on time with the 9360 today.  According to them, the Curve they had was very polished in both build quality and software.  Check out the pictures below.

Overall, the Curve 9360 looks about ready for release, but I imagine that they’re waiting for their flagship 9900/9930 to come out before they start releasing the lower-end handhelds.  Hopefully these devices will start coming out soon.  In case you forgot, here are the rumored specs of the Curve 9360.

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri-band UMTS/HSPA 7.2Mbps
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Wi-Fi b/g/n
• GPS
• NFC
• 512MB of eMMC, 512MB of RAM
• 5-megapixel camera with flash
• HVGA 480 x 360 display
• 1050 mAh battery
• Tavor MG-1 800MHz CPU
• BlackBerry OS 6.1
• 11mm thin

[Video: Tinhte.vn via Engadget, Pics: BGR]

There has been a lot of speculation in the past week about how well the PlayBook has been selling in the first month since it was released.  Originally, an RBC analyst estimated that RIM has sold 250,000 PlayBooks in the first month based on data coming from the sales channels.  On Friday, because news like this tends to snowball a bit, BGR got a report from a source at an unnamed “trusted source from a major big box retailer” indicating that the PlayBook missed their sales projections by as much as 90% and had a higher return rate than the Motorola XOOM, which is currently at around 7%.

RIM has stated that they will not release any sales numbers until their quarterly earnings call on June 16th.  However, unwilling to let these rumors float around without a response, RIM had this to say:

The source of the reported comment is anonymous and unknown to RIM, but the comment is certainly inconsistent with the positive feedback we have received from our main retail partners. As previously indicated, RIM will provide a business update on BlackBerry PlayBook results on June 16.

For reference, here is a public statement recently offered by Best Buy:

“Best Buy has had great success selling BlackBerry smartphones in North America, so our sales expectations for the BlackBerry PlayBook were very high. To date, we have far exceeded those expectations and we’re finding that customers are even more interested in purchasing once they’ve tested the PlayBook in the store.”

I did some digging, and found this statement from Best Buy in an article from Computerworld, but it was only written after a week of sales, so it is possible that sales dropped below expectations in the last 3 weeks.  To add to the confusion, mobile carrier Cellular South gave this statement to the Wall Street Journal over the weekend:

Dave Miller, a spokesman for closely held Cellular South Inc., the eighth-largest wireless carrier in the U.S., said the device is selling well, particularly with business customers that already deploy the BlackBerry. “They view it as a companion device to the BlackBerry,” Mr. Miller said, adding that there have been few if any returns of the device.

I fear that this rumor will be like the rumor of the bad battery life for the PlayBook.  All it took was for one analyst to say that the PlayBook wouldn’t have great battery life, even though RIM came out and denied it, for the story to be treated as a fact for a lot of people until the PlayBook finally came out.  I guess we’ll all have to wait and see on June 16th.  Personally, I’m less interested in sales numbers as I am in how many people have “activated” their PlayBook (linking it with your BlackBerry ID) and how many people have downloaded apps.

In the last few years, it’s become a trend for people with a new device to videotape it and share it on the internet.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I watch them when I’m itching for the latest handheld.  The guys over at revision3 have made a fun parody series of these videos called Unboxing Porn.  Last week, they got their hands on a PlayBook and opened it up for all to see.  It’s a funny video that makes a lot of jokes about the reviews of the PlayBook.  Check out the video embedded below and check out more Unboxing Porn at the link below that.  If you look at the beginning, you might even see my tweet in there.

Check out more Unboxing Porn videos over at revision3 >>

In a note to investors today, RBC Capital Markets General Manager Mike Abramsky estimates that RIM has sold approximately 250,000 PlayBook tablets since its launch a month ago.  Abramsky is basing this off checks on the sales channel that say that sales have been steady since the April 19th release.  Based on these numbers, Abramsky estimates that RIM will have sold a total of 500,000 PlayBooks in the first quarter of availability (2 months from now).  Obviously, this is nowhere near the number of iPads that have been sold since the iPad 2 launched, but it does put it ahead of other tablets like the XOOM which took twice as long to sell 250,000 units.  Personally, I think sales will increase once the 3G/4G models come out that are sold, and possibly subsidized, by carriers.  It’s also likely that enterprise customers are still testing before purchasing large quantities.  Overall, I see this as positive.  The note also mentioned that handheld sales dropped 9%, but that was in line with RIM’s guidance due to the lack of new models in the market.

[BGR]

Last night, the guys over at This Is My Next got their hands on T-Mobile’s roadmap of upcoming devices.

• July 27, 2011: BlackBerry Monza (BlackBerry Touch, Storm 3)
• August 17, 2011: BlackBerry Bold 9900
• August 31, 2011: BlackBerry Apollo (Upcoming keyboard-based Curve, not the touchscreen version)

I’m intrigued that the BlackBerry Monza is planned to release before the Bold 9900, considering the Bold has been announced while the other has not.  Personally, my next BlackBerry will likely be the Monaco, so I’m happy to see that its GSM sibling Monza is currently slated for a July release.  Not much else to say here except that I hope these devices come out soon.

[This Is My Next]

I’m sure a lot of you are thinking what I thought when I saw this story, but no. This recall is not for the power button.  Over the weekend, RIM informed Staples or a recall of almost 1000 16GB PlayBooks for having a faulty OS build on them.  When asked for a comment, RIM issues this statment:

RIM determined that approximately one thousand BlackBerry PlayBook tablets (16 GB) were shipped with an OS build that may result in the devices being unable to properly load software upon initial set-up.

The majority of the affected devices are still in the distribution channel and haven’t reached customers. RIM is working to replace the affected devices.

In the small number of cases where a customer received a PlayBook that is unable to properly load software upon initial set-up, they can contact RIM for assistance.

Over at BGR, one of their readers sent in a video of what it apparently looks like with you have one of these faulty OS builds on your PlayBook.  If you happen to have a PlayBook that is doing this, you should contact RIM for a solution or to coordinate a replacement.

Maybe nest they’ll get on top of the bad power buttons on some of the tablets.

[Engadget, CrackBerry, and BGR]

In addition to announcing the Bold 9900-series smartphones at the BlackBerry World Conference, RIM also showed off their native email and their support for Android apps for the PlayBook.  In the first video (above) Doug Soltys from the Inside BlackBerry Blog got a demo of a PlayBook running native PIM apps like email and calendar.  It looks like it works and seems very similar to the Bridge Email program, except that it doesn’t have to be tethered to your BlackBerry to work.  It seems to be running smoothly, but I imagine that the issues with getting native email working is more of an issue in the RIM data center (NOC) rather than being able to write a program that displays your email.  According to the video, we can expect to see these apps coming out around summer, probably after a BIS upgrade.

In the next video, Doug gets a demo of Android apps running in the recently announced and soon to be released Android App Player.  The biggest thing that surprised me was how many Android apps there were on that PlayBook.  The apps all seemed to run smoothly, but there was no demo of any apps that use some hi-res graphics or anything.  I was a little skeptical at how well Android apps would run inside the wrapper of the app player, but everything seems to run fluidly.  Some of the app layouts seem a little odd, mostly because they were originally designed to run on handsets and not optimized for the extra screen real estate that comes with a tablet.  The biggest disappointment for me in this implementation is that all Android apps show up just as the app player on the home screen.  This means that, even though every Android app can have their own icon on the home screen, they all show up as a single app window when you are scrolling through apps, similar to the web shortcuts on the home screen that all launch in the web browser.  It’s not quite as seamless as I had hoped, but it should be enough for people who really want Android apps on their PlayBook.  Hopefully the app player continues to improve.

What do you guys think?  Are you excited for Android apps and native email?  Sound off in the comments.

[Inside BlackBerry Blog: Native email, and Android Player]

I’m not going to lie… it really annoys me sometimes that my Storm2 9550 is stuck on OS5 while so many others get to enjoy BlackBerry 6 (I’m sure the Tour owners can sympathize).  My annoyance hasn’t been helped by the fact the BB6 users have been able to get the Facebook 2.0 beta from the Beta Zone for over a month now, while I’ve been left with 1.9.  If you haven’t been following it, the Facebook 2.0 beta includes the ability to use Facebook chat, a notification bar similar to the today view in BB6, and a whole slew of UI enhancements (read the full list over at the Inside BlackBerry Blog).  In addition to OS5 support, the latest version of the beta includes the ability to see when a friend is typing in Facebook chat, browse through mutual friends, deeper integration with BlackBerry native apps, and several fixes and enhancements.

Seems like a worthwhile update, so head over to the download link below and let everyone know what you think in the comments.

Read more about Facebook 2.0 at the Inside BlackBerry Blog >>
Download Facebook 2.0 Beta from the BlackBerry Beta Zone >>

The hits just keep on coming today.  In addition to the announcement of the Bold 9900-series and a native Facebook app for the PlayBook, RIM has also announced the arrival of PlayBook Video Chat.  This functionality will come to PlayBook users in the form of a software update in the next 24 hours.  Key features of the PlayBook Video Chat application include:

• One-Click Video and Voice over Wi-Fi Calls – with just one click users can make a call from their Video Chat contact list, log of recent calls or simply by entering the BBID email address of the person they want to call.
• Incoming Call Notifications – users will receive a notification pop-up when a new video call comes in, allowing them to accept the call as either a video or voice call, or decline the call. For those quiet moments – such as when while watching a movie or playing a game -users will also have the ability to simply set the “Do Not Disturb” option and the BlackBerry PlayBook will automatically ignore all incoming calls.
• Powerful In-Call Functions – by using the picture-in-picture function users can easily preview their own video image prior to placing the call in order to see what will be displayed on the other end. They can also easily switch cameras from front to rear so their friends can see what they are seeing, and for private moments users can mute/unmute audio or make or take calls using voice only.
• Friends List – BlackBerry PlayBook Video Chat comes complete with a Friends List for maintaining your favorite contacts. A picture can easily be added to a contact to personalize the entry and a Call Log makes it simple to keep track of received and missed calls.

Considering how few PlayBooks there are in the world, it’s too bad that the video chat will only work with other PlayBooks at the moment.  At the PlayBook launch party, I asked one of the product managers there if video chat would be a closed “BlackBerry only” system or open like Skype (Skype is on my app wishlist).  He wouldn’t tell me either way, but he emphasized that if Skype wants to come in and make a video chat app, then they are welcome to as RIM doesn’t block apps that conflict with their own (I’m paraphrasing here).  I’m sure future handhelds that have a front-facing camera will be able to video chat as well, but from what this year’s roadmap looks like, that’s a little ways off.  In the meantime, maybe I’ll be able to vid chat with my girlfriend.

Read the full press release from RIM >>

In addition to the new Bold 9900-series devices, RIM also announced today the addition of a native Facebook app to the PlayBook.  While the Facebook website loads fine on the browser, and has full functionality, the app will have a more optimized UI for browsing Facebook on your tablet.  No word yet on if it will integrate with anything else on the PlayBook, like the future calendar app or the notifications system (maybe it could turn a corner blue instead of red).  Features of Facebook for PlayBook include:

• View and add Friends – Users can interact with friends quickly and easily: find friends by scanning the new grid view of their profile pictures; search for and add new friends and manage new friend requests; browse their profiles, photos and videos; view and interact with wall posts; view key information on profiles and pages; and view, comment and ‘like’ photos on profiles and pages.
• Enjoy seamless photo and video viewing – Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook makes it easy to upload photos from the BlackBerry PlayBook Picture Library, tag friends in photos, view comments, tags and likes.  The BlackBerry PlayBook can also be connected to an HD TV to display photos and videos at a whole new level in full 1080p HD.
• Connect with friends using Facebook Chat – On the BlackBerry PlayBook screen, users can enjoy side-by-side viewing of online contacts and active conversations. Notifications of new Chat messages are displayed on the Notifications Bar, so users can quickly and easily read and respond to new Chat messages while browsing friends’ profiles, viewing their pictures or reading their status updates.
• View and interact with the News Feed – Users will be able to browse highlights such as photo uploads and status updates and seamlessly view links in the BlackBerry PlayBook browser.  They will also be able to “Comment” and “Like” to discuss and show appreciation for friends’ content, as well as publish a status update or upload a photo from the status publisher accessible from their Profile or from within the News Feed.

This new app will be demonstrated this week at the BlackBerry World Conference, and will be available in the App World later this month.  As we see more about this, I’ll be sure to post it.

Read the official press release from RIM >>