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The Playbook will survive as RIM is committed to its QNX OS for it's next generation phones.

As far as it ever being successful, it joins all other tablets collecting dust on store shelfs.
 
Funny, since I called the death of the Touchpad a couple of weeks before it happened on this very forum. Playbook will be in the discount bin for under 200 within 6 months as RIM abandones it completely to focus strictly on bringing their phones back into popularity... But will also fail there until the co-CEO knuckleheads running RIM are fired.

Funny, since anyone could have guessed that would happen eventually based on the sales numbers, and it coincidentally happened soon afterward. Did you also predict that HP would sell off their computer division? Let me demonstrate my equally potent psychic abilities:

* I predict it will rain.
* I predict that the sun will set.
* I predict that we will have a new President in the US by 2017.
* I predict that both Apple and Microsoft will be huge money-making corporate machines in 2012.

And you're welcome. ;)
 
Funny, since I called the death of the Touchpad a couple of weeks before it happened on this very forum. Playbook will be in the discount bin for under 200 within 6 months as RIM abandones it completely to focus strictly on bringing their phones back into popularity... But will also fail there until the co-CEO knuckleheads running RIM are fired.




As a Pre and a Pre 2 owner I predicted it much earlier ;)

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=12900147#post12900147

I bought both a Pre and later a Pre 2 just to experience Web OS. It has some positives, but the lack of official Apps is an absolute killer, especially a lack of regionally tailored Apps.

The fact that the majority of users seem to have to root the device and install PreWare in order to increase the amount of available Apps is NOT a good thing, it's a pain in the hole.

As much as I like my Pre 2 it could never be my full-time smart phone simply because of the lack of official support, and I do not see Web OS 3 on the touchpad changing that.

The Pre 2/ 3 and HP Veer do / will not sell well outside of the USA, much like how the Pre 2 had no real carrier support in Europe.

This means there is no extra oomph for marketing, to drive sales globally and very little incentive for developers to go to any trouble supporting it, leaving it's App store like the barren whore once again.

Whilst the blackberry playbook may struggle to find any sizeable marketshare, the HP Touch, Veer and Pre 3 will be nibbling on an even smaller Market.

I'm not saying Web OS isn't a good OS, but it just fails to live up to it's potential all the time IMHO. Slapping it inside hardware that despite the OP's assertion that hey size doesn't matter, is overly bulky compared to it's competitors and imho plastic cheap looking does not help it's cause.

Likewise the Pre 2 and Veer are the cooky cousins of phone design. In a world where anything over 8-9mm thick is seen as superflouous, the fact that these chunky egg like devices will never truly take the 'mass' Market by storm. They are original, they are cooky, they do feel nice in the hand, but they are NOT importantly seen as cool, elegant or aspirational products.

In a world where your priced the same as the leading competitors, being a bit chubby and wearing an OS that hangs like a pretty but badly fitted dress (it has a lack of support in all the key areas) is not a real viable Market winner.

I had hopes that HP could turn WebOS around, but it's merely making the same mistakes Palm made - albeit with a bigger backing of cash but without correcting where Palm went wrong.

Sadly by the time get it right with Web OS and have hardware people care about, it will be too late. The Market is pretty much sewn up and given another 12 months any gap in the Market will be reduced in size even more so.

A promising OS wasted. Commercially unattractive and lacking developer support and specifically lacking 'global carriers' to subsidise cost of it's handsets - WebOS is dead in the water before it was ever given the chance to truly swim. HP's involvement is disappointing and lacks any real gumption to save this drowning ship unfortunately.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/12900713/
July 8th
The lack of 3rd party dev support (excluding PreWare homebrew) is what will kill the touchpad.

I have owned both the Pre and Pre 2 (alongside an iphone) and its clear that despite the promise of a great operating system - it means nothing without decent App support (GLOBALLY).

HP & Palm failed to entice European operators to back the Pre in any great form and its clear on its localized App store the amount of choice is utterly pitiful.

I see no further strides to improve this with the Touchpad, and with Veer and the forthcoming Pre 3 not making any impression or looking like they will with European carriers there is little hope that a tidal wave of quality apps will hit WebOS.3 guaranteeing that it will NEVER rise to its potential. In fact I see little evidence that HP's involvement has improved webOS's chances of success or survival.

After spending €800 on the two Pre device (handsets) and witnessing the woeful support and lack-lustre app store for way too long, I will not be investing ANY thing more into WebOS as reviews have done nothing to inspire me that this great vacuum on which a device sinks or swims has been plugged.

A nice OS hampered entirely by half hearted hardware design and piss poor app support and no real carrier momentum to drive the device into consumers hands.




I don't go around over dramatizing every other tablet that receives a very modest price reduction, and fail to take into account that Rim still have a viable phone Market and that's why it is not in the same situation as Palm Pre and Touchpad.
 
Well that one was simple, the video 2000 the really superior format and Betamax both didn't have ay porn videos, which is why VHS won that game.
It is the same reason Laserdiscs failed: Philips refused to put porn on laserdiscs.

Amiga 500: the perfect silent game computer! Superfrog rules!

Remember how the technically worse VHS won the format war over Betamax By having the largest collection of films.

Same goes for many things I'm afraid, being the best does not mean winning.

And I predicted all of this long before there was the internet! So there I win!
 
Remember how the technically worse VHS won the format war over Betamax By having the largest collection of films.

Same goes for many things I'm afraid, being the best does not mean winning.
Basically, whichever device/format/OS etc, becomes ubiquitous first, is the one that 'wins'. You're right, it's not always the best that's victorious.
Many mp3 players were far superior technically to the iPod, but it was the iPod that went mainstream first.
Windows-based PC went mainstream, in the early 90's just when the Internet took off, ensuring victory for WinTel. The Mac may or not have been superior - It didn't matter.
Blu-Ray was adopted by the majority of the big movie studios, leaving HD-DVD in the weeds.
The iPad went mainstream last year. The race for 2nd place is the only one on offer to the rest, regardless of the quality of their hard and software.
Once you have dominant market and mindshare, it's already game over.
 
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I don't go around over dramatizing every other tablet that receives a very modest price reduction, and fail to take into account that Rim still have a viable phone Market and that's why it is not in the same situation as Palm Pre and Touchpad.
Only issue with this statement is that RIM's phone Market is shrinking steadily every quarter. HP had the largest Market share of the computer industry. If anything the situation is completely opposite to your example.
 
As a Pre and a Pre 2 owner I predicted it much earlier ;)

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=12900147#post12900147



https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/12900713/
July 8th





I don't go around over dramatizing every other tablet that receives a very modest price reduction, and fail to take into account that Rim still have a viable phone Market and that's why it is not in the same situation as Palm Pre and Touchpad.

RIM is a Dead Company Walking. And you know what the scary part is? It looks as if they don't really give a ****.

http://www.wincom7.com/blog/rim-announces-three-new-blackberry-curves-neowin-net/
 
^ certainly when Apple's messaging hits iOS devices, the reasons to own a Blackberry diminishes. TBH over here, Blackberrys are not as prevalent as the states anyway.
 
Don't think it's overstating anything. This is a precursor to the eventual end of the Playbook. I give RIM 6 months to dump it, much like it is doing with it's employees.

Well I give RIM 6 months to dump themselves. They way the company is moving, I highly doubt they can survive anymore.
 
Look I have a iPad and Playbook and alot of other Apple products, the Playbook software is much better then the iPad and the multitasking is way better. Spend a day or so with the Paybook and if you dont keep your comments to your self untill you give it a try ?

I spent more than a few days with the Playbook and felt like I wanted to throw it against a wall. It has nothing on the iPad. In addition, the person that approved the power button for the Playbook should be fired.
 
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I quite like the playbook, but the Barney Stinson's one :)
 
The HP touchpad is a better than the playbook. While the playbook has hardware and software that is very nice. The platform as a whole is incomplete and shouldn't be on store shelves.
 
Funny, since I called the death of the Touchpad a couple of weeks before it happened on this very forum. Playbook will be in the discount bin for under 200 within 6 months as RIM abandones it completely to focus strictly on bringing their phones back into popularity... But will also fail there until the co-CEO knuckleheads running RIM are fired.
Oh dear psychic overlord of all things tech, we bow down.

It's a $50 discount, chill your guns. Geez. Definitely an overstatement.
 
The sad thing is that the Playbook is a great device, very responsive, with incredible multitasking. But RIM murdered themselves by releasing a half backed product. How in the world do u not have an email client?!!! Just plain stupid!!!!
 
The Playbook will survive as RIM is committed to its QNX OS for it's next generation phones.

As far as it ever being successful, it joins all other tablets collecting dust on store shelfs.

I think I agree with this. The HP situation was a one-of-a-kind thing where the company had already decided on a major change of course. The user @KnightWRX noted that HP's TouchPad almost seemed to be de-tuned on release; we had a brief discussion about that here.

One alarming factor: RIM just announced shipping 200,000 units in their last quarter (June - August). There's vast speculation about Apple's results in their current quarter, (which spans July - September). They may end up shipping as many as 20,000,000 iPads. A 100:1 ratio of sales must have a negative impact on the image of RIM.

It would seem that RIM's abysmal PB performance could be viewed as a negative marketing factor for their phones that are rolling out. That might encourage them to pull the product.

RIM's software update will allow them to run Android apps; that update should be available soon (if it's not already available). I don't see that change causing any significant improvement in sales.
 
I spent more than a few days with the Playbook and felt like I wanted to throw it against a wall. It has nothing on the iPad. In addition, the person that approved the power button for the Playbook should be fired.

EXACTLY. The power button is pathetic. Freaking tiny and almost impossible to press with my normal sized man fingers.

I'm amazed at how these multi million dollar companies can allow such bad hardware onto the market.
 
One alarming factor: RIM just announced shipping 200,000 units in their last quarter (June - August). There's vast speculation about Apple's results in their current quarter, (which spans July - September). They may end up shipping as many as 20,000,000 iPads. A 100:1 ratio of sales must have a negative impact on the image of RIM.

It would seem that RIM's abysmal PB performance could be viewed as a negative marketing factor for their phones that are rolling out. That might encourage them to pull the product.

RIM's software update will allow them to run Android apps; that update should be available soon (if it's not already available). I don't see that change causing any significant improvement in sales.


What's really alarming are the reports that RIM is sitting on an inventory of 800,000 Playbooks in addition to the 700,000 they stuffed the channel with.
 
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I think I agree with this. The HP situation was a one-of-a-kind thing where the company had already decided on a major change of course. The user @KnightWRX noted that HP's TouchPad almost seemed to be de-tuned on release; we had a brief discussion about that here.

The HP situation looks rather bizarre in hindsight. It seems that HP purchased PALM for about $1.2 bn to compete with Apple in the phone and tablet market, then they got a new CEO who comes from SAP and hasn't got a clue about tablets and PCs so he doesn't want that part of HP's business and wants the company to be more like SAP, and now the rumour mill says that HP wants to get rid of their CEO and the share price jumps up. I personally thought that between HP and RIM, HP had the stronger tablet product, but whatever happens there, Apotheker has destroyed any chances that they might have had in the tablet market.
 
Looks like RIM is trying one last thing before giving up. Between now and the end of the year, if you buy 2 Playbooks, you get a 3rd for free. This on the heels of RIM pushing back their OS update another 6 months. Must be hard to add native email and calendar clients?

It won't work, and come March, we should see a firesale... If not sooner. RIM is dead.

* note: this is only for business customers, cause you know, the Playbook is only for business users. Probably why the only sold 100,000 last quarter.
 
It just kills me that they released this as a business tablet but it doesn't even support emails or have a calendar. What a joke.

Its even more of a joke that these competitors in the market think they can charge as much as the iPad. The only company doing it right as far as competing with Apple is going to be Amazon.
 
It just kills me that they released this as a business tablet but it doesn't even support emails or have a calendar. What a joke.

Its even more of a joke that these competitors in the market think they can charge as much as the iPad. The only company doing it right as far as competing with Apple is going to be Amazon.


They can't build tablets for less than it costs Apple to do so with similar specs. Combine that with iOS and you have a pretty damn good lead on your competitors.
 
My $149 32gb Touchpad arrived a couple days ago, and it is clear why it failed. Same screen as the iPad, but twice as thick, 1.5 times as heavy, an app store they should be embarassed by, and the belief it should compete in price directly with the iPad.

That said, there are some great things about it. Touchstone dock charging is delightful. The OS is fine, original, and quick. Except for the lack of 100,000 apps to run on it and the price they could have done well if the original MSRP was $349/$399 16gb/32gb.

The PlayBook is desperately in need of an email app and Android APK compatability. It's OS is also refreshingly original and quick, but they also screwed up by asking iPad prices up front.

You have to assume they "had" to price these tablets where they were simply to make a profit with no potential for after-the-sale profit potential. If that was the case they both should have waited until component prices fell enough to allow a realistic selling price; i.e. amazon's Kindle Fire.
 
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