“BlackBerry said the recent Canadian and U.K. launches of its new Z10 smartphone have been the best of any of its handset debuts in those regions ever,” John Paczkowski reports for AllThingsD.
“But it may not be quite the blowout success BlackBerry is spinning it as,” Paczkowski reports. “Deutsche Bank’s Brian Modoff recently surveyed 60 BlackBerry carrier stores in the U.K. and Canada and found no sell-outs in the former, and a few in the latter that may have been driven by poor inventory.”
Paczkowski reports, “If Modoff’s findings are accurate and a good litmus test of the broader market, this is concerning news. BlackBerry launched in Canada and the U.K. first because they’re strong markets with very loyal user bases. If strong early demand isn’t translating into solid, sustainable demand there, where will it?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nowhere. BlackBerry is dead. End this pitiful charade. Pull the plug already.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Ummm, MDN. Your take sounds a bit Dellish to me
Look, if Sillyballs selling his stake doesn’t give it away, nothing will. Sillyballs waited to see if the new phones would set the company on fire…it didn’t…he dumped his shares.
The iPhone 5 battery is rated at 1440mAh which is ridiculously small.
I hope Apple puts a bigger battery in the iPhone 5S or 6 in their next release.
Making batteries that are too small makes no sense to me when they can increase the size and capacity of the battery quite dramatically without sacrificing too much weight.
The beauty of the iPhone 5 is that it’s slender and light weight. My girlfriend loves this as it fits better with her usage, which is such that she never runs out of battery life.
On the other hand, I do all kinds of stuff with my iPhone that involves usage where I can’t charge it. I do lots of GPS, Bluetooth, tethering, etc… I can handle a larger and heavier device.
The beauty of the iPhone 5 for me is that I can almost double the battery life by adding a battery case to it. The new Mophie Helium has been working great for me since I got it yesterday. There should be others on the market with even more battery life.
Why build in the extra weight and size for people who won’t ever use the extra battery capacity?
The too small battery in the iPhone 5 actually cripples much of its functionality. I think Apple is either too stupid or too stingy to put in a larger battery.
There is absolutely no weight or dimension issue with the iPhone 5 with many people saying that it’s too light.
You don’t want to be disabling services by default because of battery anxiety and Apple should put a larger battery in there to dispel those anxieties.
BLN, you’re missing the point, and this is why Apple knows better than you.
*YOU* think the iPhone 5 is thin and light enough, and the battery doesn’t last long enough.
I actually agree with you in terms of my own personal usage, but you and I have the option of increasing the battery capacity along with the size and weight.
For a large number of people who disagree with us, (my girlfriend included), they can just keep the iPhone as is. How does my girlfriend (and many others) benefit from a larger and heavier iPhone when the battery never dips below 50%?
I don’t disagree, but BLN has a point, and it revolves around Apple’s famous reductionism.
Most manufacturers have diverse product lines to suit a wide range of consumer shapes, sizes, and desires. Apple disdains this approach and seems to promote a unisex, one-size-fits-all philosophy.
Certainly this pays off with increased profitability from streamlining production facilities, but at the cost of lost sales to buyers who are outsize or otherwise variant.
It’s almost as if Apple thinks like Henry Ford, who said of his Model T car, “You can have any color, as long as it’s black.”
But isn’t this exactly what we like about Apple? Their ability to (for the most part) wisely reduce a product to its most usable and sublimely beautiful form? I am still impressed with the products Apple creates AND how expandable they actually are. All product development is about striking the most beneficial balance and 99 times out of 100 no one does it better than Apple.
I agree with your point, hannajs, but that’s not the point BLN is making.
You’re saying that there are pros and cons to Apple having multiple configurations to meet more people’s needs.
BLN is saying that a bigger battery is in the best interest of everybody.
It’s not.
It may be in the interest of some people. It’s even in my own personal interest. However, turning it into a binary decision of large or small battery size only and not multiple configurations (due to what you already mentioned), what Apple did was go with the one option that is more inclusive.
That is to say they went with the reduced battery size, and those of us who want larger batteries can buy battery cases. This is exactly what I have done.
Had Apple done the opposite, there’s no way that people like my girlfriend could’ve carved away the extra battery size and weight.
They’re just getting a few “wishful thinking” customers who just like Blackberrys and who think there will be a resurgence in the platform. They’re wrong, most likely. Blackberry is doomed.
I like my new Blackberry Z10. It feels more elegant.
For now, with the sim card in the Blackberry, I use my iPhone 4s as an iPod touch. If the iphone 4s can be unlocked, I will use it on my Tmobile plan and sell my 3GS that is presently my USA phone. (I live in Canada).
With each new iteration of the iPhone Apple adds functionality that increases power consumption. The 5 is no exception. With much less battery capacity, I don’t hear Android users complaining, instead I see 27% of new iPhone customers are Android switchers.
There will always be those that want battery capacity equal to a hard plug in, “ballmer’s left nut” strikes me as one of those.
You must live in an alternate reality where Android is not outracing iOS in market share & adoption.
A common complaint that I hear all the time is the lack of battery longevity on the iPhone. The solution seems obvious to me but for Apple’s stinginess.
Of all the reasons you could suggest, stinginess is the least appropriate. Apple is not afraid to use expensive technology or components when there is a good reason.
Marketing people ( such as Steve Ballmer ) will claim that their products are designed “without compromise”. Anybody who has ever designed anything knows that compromises face you at every turn and that it’s impossible to design without compromise. What you have to do is to balance trade-offs and the difference between a good design and a great design is down to how carefully those trade-offs are balanced.
The trade-off that you’re touching upon is a classic three way one. Good performance vs light weight vs longer endurance. Choose two.
Apple feels that a small iPhone that doesn’t weigh too much is an important consideration for the market as a whole. That’s why they go to a lot of expense to design their own silicon with frugal power consumption. They could obviously build an iPhone with a huge battery that would last all week, but too many people would refuse it in favour of a lighter alternative.
They settled on a compromise where it works for most people for most of the day, but there will always be exception ( including myself ). That’s why on days when I’m working long hours I carry around a small external battery pack that can be used to recharge my phone and other devices, even when I’m not near an electricity outlet. Every other day I have the benefit of a light weight phone that lives comfortably in my shirt pocket.
You’ve hit the nail on the head as far as compromise versus balance. Maybe Ballmer should promote Microsoft products as being designed “without balance.”
He sold the shared long ago, after he was forced to leave the company. This is now just being made public.
Some stores that were sold out have gotten more stock in. Is that too hard to figure out? The phones did much better than the stores initially predicted and they had to get more in. This is great because they are selling much better than the previous model. I know. I asked at two different stores.
Wow totally distorted news just like about the bad Apple news recently…..