Soft Arts

 RIM has announced the BlackPad: their acknowledging nod to the iPad’s success. Welcome to Checkmate 2.0: the only thing I need to do here is replace ‘iPhone’ with ‘iPad.’

End game

Because of that effort, since the iPhone was released, everyone else has been struggling to play catch up, and no one has really come close. Apple raised the bar higher than anyone else had before, and by the time the competition realized how much of an effort would be required to seriously compete, the public had already turned to them to see how they would meet Apple’s threat.

Being in the public eye, and forced to react, no competitor is really going to be able to put in the years of time required to offer Apple any serious competition. Everyone is reacting and trying to get something out the door as quickly as possible. I think that this is very well illustrated by the BlackBerry Storm, probably one of the most notorious handsets ever released by RIM. Perhaps it was the need for a fast response, or perhaps it was arrogance on the part of RIM, but there was no way that the Storm could ever be considered serious competition for the iPhone.

Can’t wait to hear the reviews.