24Jan

RIM Roadmap Leaked, Points To BlackBerry 10 Launch In September

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29-logo-rim

It’s only been one full day since former COO Thorsten Heins has taken the top spot at RIM, and we may already be privy to the company’s game plan for the next 15 months. According to reports from BGR‘s always-willing sources, RIM is hard at work on a series of new product launches that will culminate with the launch of their first BlackBerry 10 device in the latter half of this year.

For a company that gets nearly consistent praise for their physical QWERTY keyboards, they’re taking a risk by making the all-touch BlackBerry London the first BlackBerry 10 device to be pushed out the door. The London is reportedly on track for a September launch despite the kerfuffle surrounding their 4G chipsets, but a release so late into 2012 will pit RIM against a crop of strong competitors.

The London’s September launch should be followed by a hybrid touch/keyboard device (along the lines of the Bold 9900) roughly a month later. There have also been internal rumblings about a BlackBerry 10-powered QWERTY slider handset (a new Torch?), which is rumored to be released in Q1 2013.

Of course, RIM plans to ship a few new BlackBerry 7 devices between now and when their platform makes its long-awaited debut. Enter the EDGE-only BlackBerry Curve 9230 and the HSPA-friendly Curve 9320, neither of which will likely turn many heads when they see the light of day.

Along with RIM’s spate of new smartphones, a revamped BlackBerry PlayBook is also said to be in the works. The jury is still out on design and dimensions, but the new PlayBook is expected to sport a 1.5GHz processor, an NFC chip, and support for 42Mbps HSPA+. This itself isn’t much of a surprise — former co-CEO Jim Balsillie confirmed the existence of a refreshed PlayBook to the Wall Street Journal yesterday — but it’ll be interesting to see if this one fares any better than the original.

Some of the info matches up to previous leaks, and so far the new RIM seems centered around two things it can’t afford to bungle: the revival of the PlayBook and (more importantly) the BlackBerry 10 launch. Let’s take the Blackberry 7-powered Curves out of the equation for right now, as no one expects those to turn things around for RIM.

Credit where credit is due, taking a more restrained approach to product launches strikes me a smarter move than what they’ve done in the past. RIM’s devices releases have are often lumped together — consider this triple whammy of AT&T BlackBerrys from August, and this pair of new handsets from November. Staggering these new releases gives these devices room to breathe and hopefully hit their stride before being joined by other models.

Still, a thoughtful release timeline won’t mean anything if the products themselves aren’t up to snuff. One real fear I have is that BlackBerry 10 won’t be enough of a step forward, even after they’ve spent all this time on it. The new CEO doesn’t do much to assuage my concerns — Heins noted yesterday that he didn’t see much need for a “drastic change” for the company, though others may see it differently (quick aside: RIM’s stock has dipped yet again).



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28Dec

HTC Unlocks All Android Bootloaders From Smartphones Launched After September 2011

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htc_bootloader_unlocked_thumb

HTC has updated their developer site yet again, and they did so with some excellent news: All HTC Android devices launched after September 2011 are unlockable. The website will be updated accordingly to reflect this in the coming weeks. We continue to work on models launched prior to September 2011, please check back often for the status of older… Read more

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26Oct

iPhone App Downloads Dropped In September, iPhone 4S Anticipation Pegged As Culprit

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fiksu

Marketing technology company Fiksu’s data for the month of September shows the year’s biggest drop in application downloads, a trend it claims was impacted by mobile consumers holding out for the next Apple iPhone. Last month, the company speculated that a hiatus in sales of older iPhone models was impacting app downloads, and Apple’s recent admission of a drop of 3 million device sales last quarter appears to validate that claim.

The company publishes its Fiksu Indexes monthly to measure fluctuations in competition for rank in the app stores and the cost to acquire loyal users in order to help mobile app marketers benchmark their performance against industry averages.

In September, the Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which measures the average aggregate daily download volume of the Top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps, dropped by 6% from 4.06 million downloads in August to 3.8 million. This is the largest decrease Fiksu has seen this year, since it began measuring app store trends in May.

Meanwhile, the Fiksu Cost per Loyal User Index, which measures the cost of user acquisition, increased last month. It went up by 10 cents to $1.64, a 6% jump from $1.54 in August. The company also saw a continued decline in organic iPhone app downloads during September (a 4% drop), though not as bad as in August (a 35% drop).

Organic downloads are those where people actively seek out new apps in the app store without first seeing an ad. The drop here could also have been somewhat impacted by the anticipation of the new iPhone, as consumers weren’t looking to download new apps to what would soon be their old iPhone.



Company:
Fiksu
Website:
fiksu.com
Funding:
$5.5M

Fiksu, Inc. is a new marketing technology company. Fiksu™ for Mobile Apps is the company’s first solution designed to help mobile app brands achieve their business goals faster and more cost-effectively. Based in Boston, Mass., Fiksu – which means ‘smart’ in Finnish – is venture-backed by Charles River Ventures. The company was born from Fluent Mobile, developer of the Fluent News™ app.

Learn more



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01Oct

Japan Music: Top 10′s in September

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Today we’re October 1st.. so “about time” to give you a top 10 on Japan’s album and singles charts. Apologies for being later than usual, so here we go:
In the singles department:

フライングゲット – AKB48 (Get flying – AKB48)
Everybody Go – Kis-My-Ft2
RUN FOR YOU – KAT-TUN
ツブサニコイ – 関ジャニ∞  (Tsubusa nikoi – Seki Jani)
明日へのマーチ/Let’s try again – 桑田佳祐 (March / Let’s try again – Keisuke Kuwata)
へたっぴウィンク – 渡り廊下走り隊7 (Having to wink – Corridor …
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21Sep

Check Out This Best Buy Flyer From September, 1996

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Best Buy Flyer - September 1996 (Image courtesy imgur)
By Andrew Liszewski

I’m sure 15 years from now we’ll be looking back at Best Buy flyers from 2011 and snickering at how crappy the electronics of today are. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to do the same with this flyer from September, 1996.

Best Buy Flyer - September 1996 (Image courtesy imgur)

As a young’n I’m sure I stared at the cutting edge desktop computers with my jaw on the floor. Barely even able to comprehend what I could do with 16MB of RAM! Or left scratching my head as I perused the CDs and wondered what exactly a Butthole Surfer was…

[ Best Buy Flyer - September 1996 ] VIA [ Coudal ]



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