clunky
this will be blackberry's death blow.
I don't think so. At the very worst, this is just enough to keep Blackberry moving along for another several years if not a decade, an also-ran wth a niche market, giving them a chance to try again with something else later on. In which case this has done its job: the company isn't going to die.
Optimistically, this is just a starter version of things to come, and they will regain significant marketshare through constant improvement and innovation. If you remember, iOS 1.0 wasn't much to sneeze at, either. Try cutting and pasting text on iOS 1.0. Or taking video. Or tweeting.
Realistically, I think this is a very good re-launch, and Blackberry will be a strong third horse in the smartphone race. Maybe not a dominant player, but a platform with a strong enough base of users that will sustain it quite well.
BB10 definitely still has some drawbacks, like the outmoded way of thinking about security that I mentioned earlier on. But they've caught up where it counts, and to retain their loyal base of users, this will do.
Quite frankly, I'm getting tired of the mentality people have about new and existing mobile platforms. "Waa waa, iOS hasn't innovated enough. Waa waaaa, Blackberry is only playing catch up. Waaa waaaa, if company X doesn't innovate in some totally unrealistic way that I won't describe because I don't know what I want, then they'll just go bankrupt and everyone will buy Y device instead. Because if I say 'innovation' enough times, I'll convince myself that I know what it really means."
Sorry, that's not the way reality works. People might think they want to be wowed year after year, but hopping from device to device doesn't work in the long run for people who actually use their devices for real things. having to switch platforms, transfer data, relearn your workflow and figure out AGAIn how make your shiny new device useful to you really becomes a time waster when you have work to do. Those are the people who Blackberry is catering to, and even to an extent Apple.
And this is why BOTH platforms are going to continually evolve for the foreseeable future, not radically change every six months just to appease a bunch of forum "experts," with nothing but a case of cell phone ADHD and their keyboards to keep them company.