Every time I walk by a standard operator shop that isn’t EE, I have to cringe. I can’t avoid it. That’s because, invariably, the shop window is currently advertising the Samsung Galaxy S4.

And unless you’re EE, you need to cover your promotions with the text, “4G ready”.

Seriously embarrassing for any mobile operator.

4G ready?

Oh, you mean you don’t have that… yet you’re selling a 4G-capable device? The device that everyone-and-their-dog is clamouring for?

Oh dear. Not good.

It’s like selling a terrestrial service selling an HD television and being forced to wax lyrical about the amazing quality pictures the TV can display… just, er, not from your services. Yet. For an unspecified time.

Someone asked me the other day about the difference between 4G and all the other 3G services and there’s no contest. Arguably Three UK’s 3.5999G+++++ is pretty good. But I’ve been able to download HD movies in about 10 minutes thanks to EE.

There’s an argument to say that the areas I’m using EE aren’t heavily congested — but given there’s almost a million EE customers on 4G, I’m not sure how much that perspective washes.

I can’t disagree with the EE advertisements that recommend you don’t limit your 4G-capable Samsung S4 by getting it from a standard network. I’ve been finding EE blazing fast in most situations. Indeed, on my iPad (with EE sim) I can even stream House of Cards from Netflix in high quality for about the first 20 minutes of my train journey (whilst I’m in a 4G area).

To the team at EE that managed to outmanoeuvre their competitors and get 4G live (and reliable) in such a short time, nice work. Very nice work.

There’s still a lot of love in the room for the Q10. I knew there would be. I KNEW it!

Fundamentally, I am faster at typing on a physical keyboard. There are generations of executives who are the same as me. And ever since the iPhone came of age, we’ve been overlooked. We’ve been told that the Earth is flat from every other manufacturer suffering from Appleitis (that is, the only phone anyone wants to buy comes with a virtual keyboard). Apart from the odd exception, mostly on the ultra-low end, manufacturers have walked away from physical keyboards.

Stuff you, they said. The Earth is flat, they said. All the time, we qwerty-fans have been looking over the horizon wondering if there was any hope.

So profound was the touchscreen-only mantra, it was commercial suicide for BlackBerry to even MENTION the prospect of a physical keyboard device running BlackBerry 10 for a long time. For quite a while the Q10 was absolutely and wholly clouded in rumour-only status. Once the market got comfortable with BlackBerry 10, then the Q10 was confirmed.

Whoop!

Now then, will the Q10 sell by the bucketload? That depends on how you define “bucketload”. There are legions of senior executives quietly cursing their touchscreen devices every hour of the business day. When you just want to reply “y” or “yes” to dozens of emails from subordinates every hour, there is nothing that beats a BlackBerry.

Just… they haven’t been that modern, recently. But that’s all changing with the Q10.

There are millions of low level executives whose status in their companies will currently be insufficient to command a BlackBerry Q10. That’s because it’s a 500 quid device. The BlackBerry Curve 120 quid specials are still incredibly popular in enterprise. Those folk don’t have anywhere to go yet. That’s something BlackBerry will address shortly I’m sure.

This weekend you could buy a Q10 exclusively from the Carphone Warehouse concession store in London’s Selfridges.

Predictably, they sold out super quickly. Just by judging the excitement on Twitter relating to the Q10, I could see there would be demand. There’s no word on how many actual phones were sold. However Carphone Warehouse’s Charles Dunstone is on record today describing their Q10 weekend sales as an “amazing success”. He goes on:

“We have never seen any product sell that amount of volume in such a short space of time – it was incredible.”

This, from one of the country’s biggest sellers of iPhones and Samsungs.

Dunstone’s glowing feedback doesn’t stop there. He continues:

“The new user experience is fantastic and with its trademark BlackBerry keyboard, we think it will appeal to both BlackBerry loyalists and new users alike. We are expecting the nationwide launch of the BlackBerry Q10 to be huge for both BlackBerry and Carphone Warehouse.”

Rob Orr, BlackBerry’s top man in the UK & Ireland is on bullish form:

“This increased support from Carphone Warehouse following the Selfridges sell-out reinforces the strong demand for a high-end BlackBerry 10 smartphone with a full-QWERTY physical keyboard.”

You can pick up a Q10 for £579.99 SIM free from one of Carphone’s 800 stores (or online) from tomorrow. Or, I imagine, you could pop to Selfridges right now and probably pick one up. I’d ring ahead and reserve one though — even though they’ve had more stock, you’re up against a load of other Qwerty fans!

News just in from the Carphone Warehouse team: You can be amongst the first in the UK with a BlackBerry Q10 if you head over to the company’s concession in Selfridges, London, this weekend. The device itself will cost you £579.95 sim-free from them. Or you can reduce that dramatically with a contract (the phone is free from £36 per month).

I have been waiting for the Q10 to arrive for ages. For absolute ages. I am particularly excited now that it’s almost here. I’ve had hands-on briefly with the phone quite often across the past few months and I have to say it did feel brilliant in the hand.

I think I fundamentally am a keyboard guy. Some of the innovations on the Q10, particularly the ability to type the first few letters of someone’s name from the home screen and then rattle off an email to them immediately. Love it.

Read more about the Q10 over at the official BlackBerry product page.

What about you? What’s your interest level in a newly updated BlackBerry with a physical keyboard?

I came across this Folding USB solar power cell on Kickstarter the other week and thought I’d pick one up. It’s too easy to forget how reliant we are on traditional means of obtaining electricity for your important gadgets, especially if you live somewhere exotic. Like the East coast of America where all sorts of weather regularly takes out the power lines.

Although there are plenty of other possibile products out there I liked the look of this on Kickstarter and stuck $60 up with another 881 people. Have a look and see what you make of it.

If you’ve any other suggestions for similar products, let me know!

I never want to actually force myself to write here on Mobile Industry Review. It’s far too easy to get stuck into the churnalism world of cutting and pasting press releases to make yourself feel like you’re doing the right thing.

When I feel like I’ve nothing to write, I have to work hard to avoid sitting in front of the keyboard and knocking out tripe.

So I’ve been letting my view on Facebook Home bubble away. I’m now ready to pronounce… that I think it’s a fantastic concept. I am particularly keen on the little chat bubbles and the manner in which Facebook have implemented the persistent yet backgrounded interactivity.

First, though, the flaw. I only had to see the first few snaps of some of the keynote coverage to recognise (then affirm later on) that Facebook Home is primarily for young’uns. Young people. Folk with nothing better to do than continually live their lives by documenting the experience rather than actually simply experiencing it. It’s a different perspective that many folk over the age of 30 simply don’t understand.

I do actually think that some of the younger people I know actually do things so they can Facebook or Instagram them. I caught one, the other week, exclaiming that, “We should go on the London Eye [Ferris Wheel] because it’ll be a great photo.”

What the individual meant is that they’ll spend 90% of the ride trying to get the right shot and immediately liveblogging the queue, before interacting with friends half way around the world, sharing the event. They’ll spend the other 10% looking and then worrying that they’re not capturing enough of the experience and further, worrying that their “friends” following them live from Sydney, Chicago and Hull aren’t getting enough updates.

Those are the type of friends you need for the basic premise of Facebook Home to work.

I’ve two Facebook accounts. One setup at the urging of my wife (“Now we are married I can’t have you boring our [my] friends with stuff about mobile all the time.”) and the other my original proper account.

Neither, I’m sorry to say, provides the level of entertainment I think I need for Facebook Home to work effectively.

My friends simply don’t post enough “news”.

An average day will see 3 new items added into the stream.

So I either need to get some new friends, demand the existing ones change their service level or simply do without the Home updates.

I suppose with even an average of 3 updates, the wallpaper would effectively change regularly.

But… my friends aren’t good enough! Not all of their updates come with photos! Ah dear.

I suspect, then, that Facebook Home is aimed at the youthful masses who take huge (and understandable) joy from sharing everything and participating in their huge virtual communities continuously.

I’m particularly interested to see just how these users adopt the platform — and whether or not it’s something that’s likely to make me want to use Facebook more. I think the chat functionality could very well draw me and a lot of others to it.

Now, though, it’s time for me to wallow in the collective pity of the mobile world. How rubbish is it, that we were (I think, universally?) pretty impressed by the Facebook Home interface and user experience?

I was delighted with it. Seriously delighted. But at the same time, completely dismayed. Facebook’s achievement with their UI (however unproven) is a frustrating reminder that innovation has stagnated terribly in the Apple Era.

Luckily I think we’re well on our way out of the Apple Era… and into another. I’m not sure which, yet. Facebook certainly has a chance.

Nowhere, dear reader, NOWHERE, is it written that the manufacturer of the hardware has to specifically define the user interface experience. Nowhere.

I know we’ve all been brainwashed by Jobs dancing on stage saying (words to the effect of), “anyone serious about software builds their own hardware.”

Yes. I get that. This doesn’t mean they need govern the front-end user experience. Indeed I think the most successful platforms in the future will get out of the way and let the user buy and define their own interface.

Right now the UI is linked directly to the platform. You need to change devices to get a different one, generally. Facebook Home is one of the latest examples of a next generation viewpoint: The actual platform doesn’t matter. How long until you’ll be able to subscribe to different Facebook Home interfaces, iterated daily? Or buy a particular user interface like you would a theme for your phone? That will rock.

In the meantime, congratulations Facebook. Good job for thinking outside the box. Nice implementation. Inspired. Every success and let’s see how things go.

This is a post for Rafe Blandford, top man, editor, publisher, super-genius Nokia know-it-all and the man behind such sites as All About Symbian and All About Windows Phone.

Dear Rafe,

For some time now I’ve been feeling like chucking my existing smartphones out the window of the train, car or office that I’ve been inhabiting. The data connectivity of my smartphones (all brands — Apple, Android, BlackBerry, Windows) are second to none. We know this. All the whizzy stuff tends to work quite well, network permitting.

However, when I want to make a telephone call that lasts for more than 5 seconds, my smartphones are completely failing me. On multiple networks. None of them seem to be able to maintain a call beyond a few seconds when my train is moving slowly out of Waterloo. None of them seem to be able to cope properly with any audio telephony.

I therefore think it’s time to at least try a proper Nokia. I don’t mean a Windows Phone, I mean one of the Ye Olde Symbian specials. Please could you recommend 2-3 proper Nokias that I can evaluate and then purchase? Ideally I’d like a device with data connectivity and ideally I’d like my address book to sync with Google. But given that I only actually phone about 5 people, adding a few numbers to an address book isn’t a problem. Price is not an issue. Quality is more important in this bracket. So whilst I am attracted to a Nokia 100 series device for a tenner, I’m happy to consider a more expensive equivalent provided you reckon the components I care about (principally the bits that let me make and maintain a phone call to a network) are higher quality.

What is your suggestion Mr Blandford?

Thanks for your time in advance,

Ewan

When — if — Rafe has the time to pen a response (he’s a busy guy), I’ll publish it and link the reply here.

Update: Barely 2 hours later, Blandford has replied. See the comments!

Give it a rest Apple?

Following on from last week’s ultra desperate email to millions of iPhone users, Apple is back again with yet another reminder about how much you should love your iPhone.

Apparently last week they said they had 8 JD Power awards for customer blah blah. They must have received another one making the total now 9.

And?

Is that it?

Deary me Apple.

I am beginning to really feel a bit stupid being subjected to this campaign straight out of some 1980s marketing manual.

Since when did Apple have to repeatedly email me to remind me how good their products are?

This is significantly worrying. Why do they feel the need to do this? In days gone by they were able to let the product do the talking.

Now, obviously, they don’t feel as confident about their market position.

The fact that they’re having to email me to remind me is damaging my perspective of both their brand and the product experience.

Not good at all. I will be surprised if its not down hill from here on in. Apple must know something we don’t (or didn’t) — that they’ve nothing else left in the tank, apart from a couple of hundred billion dollars (that they can’t think what to do with other than give back to their shareholders).

I’d like to be surprised by Apple. I wonder if those days are well and truly behind us?

I really, really like smart ways of paying for technology. Even stumping up £269 for an iPad Mini can feel expensive, more if you’re looking at the full size iPad. It’s so unpleasant that many UK consumers will run a million miles to avoid having to pay full price (£500ish) for the latest smartphone. They’ll willingly subscribe to a 24-month excruciating expensive service plan to have somebody else front the initial device cost.

I’ve been wondering what would happen if someone came into the market and made the costs go away by splicing them or presenting them differently.

Now and again I saw examples of Tesco Direct offering something like 6-month payment terms for various Android tablets, but it’s only recently that I noticed www.very.co.uk is offering excellent payment terms on a wide variety of consumer hardware.

I have to say £89 for 3 months feels a lot cheaper than £269. That’s the cost of a bog standard iPad Mini from Very. (Have a look) Provided you pass the (I suspect, basic) credit check, you’ll qualify for “take 3″ payment terms. There’s no additional cost beyond taking the purchase price and splitting payment across 3 months. If you choose to delay payment, then they’ll charge you interest. Fair enough.

Let’s get a bit more serious and evaluate the potential of using very.co.uk to fuel your handset purchasing habits. The Sony Xperia Z is a fabulous new handset. It’s £599 from very.co.uk. Or, you can choose to pay £199.67 across 3 months.

Now, yes that’s a bit of cash to stump up every months for three months.

But you get to avoid:

a) Putting the whole amount on your credit card and therefore feeling, ‘shit, I’ve spent a lot of money probably unnecessarily’
b) Signing up to a 24-month contract that you probably don’t need

£199 each month for three months is a lot easier to manage. And if you absolutely must have that phone….?

And you know, you could actually spread the cost out a bit more (at an extra 7% interest rate).

Some people will read this and think I’m off my rocker. The fiscally sensible way might be to wait until you’re out of contract yada yada and then have the operator buy the device for you which you then pay-up along with your price plan.

Or it might be more sensible to buy the device outright on your credit card.

I think it’s about perception.

I like the idea of payment terms that feel more accessible.

Perhaps it’s all in the mind.

What do you think?

For the avoidance of doubt, the following text outlines why you love your iPhone 5. Feel free to print this text for further consultation. Your iPhone will periodically prompt you with test questions based on the following text.

Heh. I felt that text like that quote I made up above should have been included at the top of the infamous “here’s why you love your iPhone” email.

I’m pleased it wasn’t just me that thought Apple’s email to the millions of iPhone 5 readers was appalling in so many different ways.

But this is what makes the mobile industry so exciting.

Just as we were all asking ourselves what the hell was wrong with Nokia when we could all plainly see the challenges (and in many cases, the exact sources and the methodology to fix), when Nokia itself couldn’t seem to manage, we’re now seeing this with Apple.

Check out this perspective written by The Week’s Marc Ambinder (“Apple explains why you should love Apple“). Here’s a quote:

So apparently, according to Apple, I should love my phone and not even think about switching to the other guy. But the thing is: As great as the iPhone is, maybe I don’t love is as much as I’m told to.

Ouch.

And you know, when you have to actually TELL me that I should love my iPhone, there’s a problem right there Apple.

I got this email yesterday from Apple. The subject was: How will you love it? Let us count the ways.

The email then proceeded to go through a list of increasingly desperate reminders about why I was right to buy an iPhone 5.

Yah-huh?

I would have expected this in September 2012, when I actually bought the device. Perhaps maybe a month afterwards.

But toward the end of the first quarter of 2013? Straight after the week Samsung launched their most anticipated handset ever? The one that’s been killing (or depressing) iPhone sales the world over?

Curious.

I scrolled down the email and the immediate thought I had was, “desperate!”

Then I wondered how many other people got this email.

I’d love to know if this email was a planned broadcast by Apple or whether it was specifically scheduled to arrive on the first weekend day after Samsung’s launch?

If it’s the latter, geez.

I find it difficult to think that Apple would have allowed a scheduled broadcast such as this to be sent to clearly conflict with the Samsung launch. Indeed to avoid anyone picking up on it, why not stick the send date back a few weeks?

I can’t help but assume that this was a planned, panicked enterprise by Apple.

Did a senior Apple executive, holding on to the desk for dear life as the world spins around him, suddenly convene a meeting of the company’s best and brightest marketeers? Did they then hatch a plan that included (or majored?) on trying to remind the legions of iPhone 5 customers not to look elsewhere?

Run with me. Assume that I’m right for a moment and let’s take a journey into total speculation. If this is one of Apple’s principle public responses to the likes of Samsung (along with HTC/LG/Sony), then dear me, things are worse than I would have ever thought for Apple.

If your best response — if your only discernible response (beyond senior executive Phil bleating about Samsung last week) — is to whack out an email like this, I think we should all set our expectations for the next iPhone.

Should we be preparing ourselves for the iPhone 5.01?

SlashGear’s written up the video here.

I’m pretty excited at the concept. I’m giving it a lot of thought.

Browsing through the Google Glasses site though, I have to say, I think the device is looking very smart.

So to answer the question in the title above: Yes. It is time to get on board. Glasses won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but I can seriously imagine folk in the Valley wearing them non-stop. And that’s going to spread around the world swiftly.

However the technology will need to get exceedingly cheap before it’s going to become mainstream enough for you to walk around London with a pair on… without having them snatched from your head (like I experienced with my Nokia N95 phonejacking incident a few years ago).

I’m not that enamoured about the voice interface. That’s hardly going to be useful during a board meeting is it? (“OK Glasses, bring up the employment contract of Ewan and let me see if we can get rid of him…”)

Still. Around the house? When you’re out and about (in mugging-safe territory)? Yeah. On the train? Hmmm. Again, the speaking bit is likely to annoy everyone.

Or, will we soon find ourselves in carriages full of commuters wearing Google Glasses talking out loud to no one in particular? (A bit like the last train from Waterloo on a Friday night.)

Bring it on.

If you haven’t checked out Google’s promo video it’s worth a look.

I have to say that this is one of the best handset promotional videos from a mobile network that I’ve seen. It’s just a minute or so long. Have a look.

There are full details from Three on the device on their blog post. It’s looking pretty hot, that Z.

(Via Nirave’s post).

I am sure this advertising will be turning a lot of heads, especially the ‘stop pausing start peaking’ message.

I sat down this morning with Alec Saunders, BlackBerry’s top developer relations chap, to find out more about him and his approach to growing the company’s application ecosystem.

My questions are in bold.

Hello Alec! Give us a quick overview of your previous career before BlackBerry? Set the scene for us.
I was a Waterloo computer science graduate. I worked for a number of small companies in the developer tool space through until 1992 and I founded a few too so I have a lot of hard startup experience. I then moved to work with Microsoft working in their developer tools and operating systems section, first in Canada then in Redmond. Just to give you an example of the things I was doing: I product managed the first versions of Internet Explorer and worked on introducing the first universal Plug and Play products. Then in 2001 I went to QNX in Ottawa as VP of Marketing. I was there for a year before heading off to a telecoms startup and then I ended up at RIM in February 2011.

So most of my career I’ve either worked directly with software developers or I’ve been part of a team selling or evangelising to software developers.

Take us through your initial strategy when you arrived at RIM?
Well the day I arrived, the company was in the middle of laying off 2,500 people! So it was quite a time to start. WHat I wanted to do was build a programme for developers and after having been a software developer working with various different vendors, I thought there was an opportunity for one vendor to own the space of being a great business partner to the developer community.

When I arrived RIM only had a small number developer community left.

The three things we focused on immediately:

1) I took the initial developer relations group and began spreading it around the world. We were only in a few geographies at that point and the most significant North American geography for mobile development — Silicon Valley — had no representatives. So we grew the team from 37 to 135 and we distributed it!

2) We began a whole serious of aggressive seeding programmes. RIM had gone to developers in the past much later than our competitors were doing, so we worked hard at getting devices into the hands of developers right away.

3) RIM was notoriously cautious about publicity around our developer tools and platform. However the only way I know of reaching the developer community was to focus on outreach, public relations and those kinds of approaches. So that’s what we did — that was the essence of the first business plan.

Tell us about some initiatives that you’ve put in place to reach and influence developers?
There’s nothing entirely new about what we’ve been doing. The most interesting initiative that worked really well for us was to build virtual porting labs to help developers convert their applications for BlackBerry. The first time we ran a portathon we had 3,500 applications submitted — and this got progressively larger — the next time it was 4,000, then 15,000 applications and finally the last portathon saw 19,000 submissions. We did it all virtually.

The technique of helping developers port applications is very old — we just modernised it for the internet age.

Tell us about the BlackBerry Elite programme?
It covers many areas of our business — let me talk to you about developer elite: There are 85 of them. 85 of our best and most influential developers. Typically they are people who write blogs; participate on our forums outside proportion to what others do; or they run developer groups. Some of our South East Asia groups are massive — and the elite people are the influencers who run those groups. It’s invitation only and we keep it small. We take new ideas to the Elites and ask what they think. They act as a sounding board and a means for us to directly reach a large community through their influence.

What achievements challenged you most over the years?
The biggest thing that’s been a challenge for us is that (and this is where the portathons came in) is that it’s hard to reach large numbers of people with our message. There are millions of developers out there so activities like the World Tour helped us reach out to some of them.

The World Tour took in 44 cities across 37 countries tour — we basically went to every continent except Antartica. We went from city to city, setup a stage and spent a day speaking to developers, seeding devices, solving problems, meeting different groups.

Opinion of RIM as a platform player was very low. We measure net promoter scores — a measurement of someone’s likelihood to say positive things to a community based around a product or in this case a developer platform. After a developer attended one of our Jam events we could see a swing of 56-58 points on that score. So the message was resonating in every city. People would tell us, “I had no idea it was so easy to build an app for the platform,” and, “Boy, they treat us well!”

The challenge became growing that from the 9,300 people that we touched across the tour into a broader mass — and that’s still the challenge. There are a lot of developers out there that have a poor opinion of us based on experiences from 5 years ago. The company is different, the developer relations team is different, the developer programme is different, the tools are different — not even the the company name is the same! That’s the reason that when I saw the Strategy Analytics results [showing BlackBerry achieved an 8/10 score from developers, 38% of whom have the company 10/10] I saw our message was finally breaking through.

How has the launch week been for you? Were you apprehensive?
I was not apprehensive. If you’d asked me a month ago I’d have said, “Yeah, a little!” The launch week was fabulous. We knew we had the numbers about a week and a half beforehand so we were really happy and excited. The launch week looked really good.

It’s an interesting experience because with a modern smartphone, the whole product is not just the smartphone and operating system. It’s the smartphone, operating system and the ecosystem. I’ve been counselling our team that we have to trust our colleagues to deliver great product — and that our carrier teams will do a great job of getting the devices out to the customers. We need to focus on our knitting — and that’s getting the ecosystem built.

It looks like the entire team that comprises BlackBerry is executing very, very well.

How important is the Built for BlackBerry programme?
It’s the cornerstone of the future of what we want to do. We’ve been working on building a mass, a volume of apps in the ecosystem. The most crucial thing we can do now is to get applications built that take full advantage of the platform. Every app should be an extansiation of the platform itself — beautiful, social, integrated — supported with gestures, peak, flow — all the things that are designed to help our users keep their life moving. Built for BlackBerry is a soft way to encourage developers to do this.

Some developer programmes have tight controls, others have next to none, but in the middle there’s a space for us to occupy. You can bring an application to us easily — but we’ll make it commercially exciting for you to build an app that leverages our platform fully.

What’s next for your team?

We’re just starting to scratch the surface. We have releases planned for later this year. You’ve heard Torsten talk a lot about mobile computing and his vision for the future: Devices connecting with different places and connection points in the environment (think, for example, of the Bentley car shown off at CES). There is very fertile ground for epxloring how our devices interact in the world that our users live and work in… never mind the fact that there are more BlackBerry products coming down the pike!

- – - – -

Alec, thank you for taking the time!

If you’d like to find out more about developing on BlackBerry, please visit developer.blackberry.com.

Hi there Stephen, tell us about last week’s launch?
For me it was an amazing event to actually get to the point where we are actually standing on stage talking about BlackBerry 10. We have been working on this for a long time and it’s been a tough journey. We’ve had lots of challenges on the way so there’s a sense of pride and achievement throughout the team. We feel that we’ve proven we have the ability to get back in the game — now is the time to re-earn our respect and prove to our customers that we can deliver.

What’s been the reaction from your partners?
The carriers and retailers love it — they love ‘new’, they love clear differentiated products, they love what we’ve done to deal with the feedback that we’ve got over years about things that were not great with the platform; they love the fact that our new platform retains the essence of what BlackBerry was, yet moves it onwards.

For business customers, BlackBerry Balance seems to nail the problem beautifully around the existence of “private you” and “business you” — along with all the challenges you have of Bring Your Own Device and ensuring you protect your both personal and company day — this is what’s unique with BlackBerry Balance.

How has the Z10 been selling in the UK?
It’s going really well; we have as many of our partners active in as many channels as possible. initial reaction has been phenomenal. Stores sold out and the feedback — very important from store staff on the ground — is that the customer reaction has been great.

The call centre feedback has been good as well; We’ve been closely monitoring feedback so we can swiftly deal with any issues quickly, but most of the call volume has been customers asking for more information about the device, stock levels and contract terms.

Mobile Industry Review has a lot of developers reading. What should they take from the initial market launch reactions?

Actually I said earlier today on stage, I think it’s a good time to be a BlackBerry developer. With the BlackBerry 10 platform there’s clear differentiation, the hub, the keyboard, BBM video, BlackBerry Balance, multitasking and the ability to integrate into the hub too. BlackBerry 10 offers a great, fast and elegant experience that offers developers the ability to create beautiful, differentiated applications.

Behind this we’ve been working with carriers to integrate carrier billing — making it as easy as possible to pay is another benefit in ensuring applications sell.

We’ve defined this target market of BlackBerry people — hyper-connected people for whom multitasking is the norm. That description of an individual covers teenagers, mothers, small business owners, those in large corporates — we feel we’ve framed the proposition to really address that. We are obviously targeting our BlackBerry base but also that extends to people who had a BlackBerry but who moved for whatever reason. Last week’s launch has demonstrated we have fixed the disqualifiers thatthe platform once had.

There was a lot of talk about press interviews last week — what was the background on that?

I didn’t do as good a job as I could have. I was trying to get across how we have changed our business, how we have spent the last two years not only re-building but re-engineering. We have been looking at what’s not gone right for us and trying to define what people liked about BlackBerry along with what they didn’t like. We have spent a lot of time with the developer community too — and if you talk to many developers, they’ll tell you that there’s a big difference between how we work with them today than in the past. So for me last week I just didn’t explain that particularly well in one or two interviews.

What do you want to achieve from BlackBerry Jam Europe this week?
I’m happy that the developer community took this chance with us. They stayed with us, supported us — and they will leave tomorrow with confidence and renewed belief that BlackBerry is back. They’ll leave with a sense that they can make a difference, that they can show off some amazing offerings with our new platform.

What can we expect to see from BlackBerry after the two handsets launched last week?
So the two products we’ve launched are high end devices; we are intending bringing more mid-tier devices soon. We won’t get to the entry level this year though. The area of interest to us is mobile computing. We’re still working on framing this exactly, but it’s about mobile computing, about helping us all connect with intelligent mobile devices in and around our homes, cars and, for example, transport systems.

If you can imagine a world where we interact, translate and communicate with all these devices in a smarter way — that gives you a sense of where we’re aiming; we’re aiming to bulid that vision into a set of more tangible deliverables over the next months and years.

What are the hot markets in your region?
France and UK are the first countries for the BlackBerry 10 launch in Europe, but all the markets are important to us. In France and the UK, we have a strong customer base which developed from the business community into the consumer world. In Germany we have a strong base of business customers — we’d love to move out into the consumer market there. We’ll be following up with a launch in Spain, Italy, Holland and then Turkey. Right now we’re working with lots of partners in these countries on the plans for launch.

How are you bringing the Z10 to market across the region?
Right now we’re engaged with carriers on testing, certification and we’re working with the local applications and business development team to ensure that we bring enogh good local apps as well as the global ones. Fundamentally our objective is to get BlackBerry 10 launched in as many markets as quickly as we can.

What’s your message for developers and executives reading Mobile Industry Review?
We have brought a new BlackBerry platform to the market that puts you (the developer) in the front seat; we’ve provided strong developer toolkits (native, HTML5, and also the Android runtime environment) and we’ve got best-in-class developer infrastructure support to enable you to develop great applications. We believe we have a unique way of ensuring your applications appeal to the end consumer and stand out in the market.

- – - – -

Thank you for taking the time Stephen.

You can find out more information about developing for BlackBerry at http://developer.blackberry.com/.

The only different is the colour. You can buy the black or white version in the UK today, but you can only get hold of the red one if you’ve developed and submitted an app to BlackBerry World.

Interestingly, if you were thinking about developing an app for BlackBerry but you just haven’t managed to get it submitted in time, think again. They’ve extended the qualifying period to the 28th of February. So you could still pick one of these up. You’ll need to be quick. The full information is at developer.blackberry.com.

The answer is loyalty and inclusivity, prompted and enhanced by BlackBerry’s now legendary developer relations team. I could feel the respect, care and attention for the audience in the room. If anything it’s rather difficult to parse as a standard participant. We’re so used to being lectured and instructed by other platforms that when Alec Saunders and his team come along with their warm smiles and can-do attitude, it’s rather astonishing.

For the assembled BlackBerry developers in the room, it’s brilliant.

Over the past (difficult) years, Alec Saunders has resolutely got up on stage in each continent and effectively made a promise. He asked developers to believe in BlackBerry (and, therefore, believe in him). So it was no surprise to many that the message was rammed home today: We made it, we delivered.

Alec and his team worked incredibly hard last year supplying developer devices to legions of developers to help test and refine their Blackberry 10 apps ahead of launch. It was left to Alec’s team to console, cajole and support the disappointed faithful when the rumoured BB10 launch date was pushed back from Q3 2012 to January 30th. Throughout that time they held portatons, they held event-after-event in 40+ cities around the globe, taking the BB10 message far and wide.

I remember discussions with some analysts back at various events in the summertime wondering why they were bothering. The conventional wisdom is that you do an “Apple” — build it and they will come. As countless (hapless?) platforms before have proved, that’s a rare exception. You need to work at it.

And that’s what BlackBerry has done. It’s paid off. This is why BlackBerry World went live with a 70,000-strong app catalogue. And it’s why 1,000 new apps are hitting the store daily. Detractors will point out that the majority are direct ports from Android. Sure. I think, if I recall correctly, Alec highlighted that their two crazy-popular 36-hour portathon weekends delivered 16,000 about 36,000 applications into the catalogue. That’s astounding. And it means as a consumer, you’ll at least have a degree of parity when compared to other platforms.

There’s work to be done though. This morning, Alec spent a lot of time highlighting the “Built for BlackBerry” opportunity. They’re aiming to favour submissions purpose-built for the platform shortly — those apps will soon be highlighted and promoted on the most valuable carousel real estate on BlackBerry World. Purpose-built applications leverage the full set of capabilities of BlackBerry, not least the fully integrated approach across the device from sharing to notifications.

In this morning’s keynote, Saunders thanked the 12,000+ developers who stuck with the platform and resolutely worked on developing their apps for BlackBerry. If you recall, the company offered any developer who submitted an app prior to the launch of BB10 a brand new BlackBerry device. This was a smart move — not only did it help populate the app catalogue with a set of useful apps, it did so at a fairly low cost. Just a handset, right? Well, Saunders surprised everyone today (to audible gasps of excitement) when he announced that those developers will be receiving a very special customised BlackBerry Z10 — in bright red, each uniquely numbered. I think that’s a smart move and a nice reward. The devices are exclusive — you won’t be able to get them anywhere else.

“You are the ones who earned them,” said Saunders, holding his red Z10 aloft, “You took the leap with us, you contributed in a real way to our shared success.”

If you read that text — indeed, if you read the transcript of Saunders’ keynote, you’d be forgiven for thinking some of his language might sound a little bit… twee. A bit.. fake. It’s not, though — and this is the cruicial thing.

In today’s world, with such cut-throat super-charged competition with a huge lead, you need a radically different method. BlackBerry’s approach is direct, friendly, highly-committed and very, very inclusive. I spent the morning today observing the warmth generated and engedered by BlackBerry toward it’s developers. It’s being felt and recriprocated by a growing number of deevlopers. This is the way ahead for the company.

I’ll write more on this later but just to expand this theme to the larger customer base. I think it’s easy to forget that BlackBerry users have a history of being exceptionally loyal. These last few years will have tested many. I have not been surprised to find many previously hyper-loyal converts swapping to iPhone, Android or Windows recently, especially when it came to contract renewal stage. Who’s going to choose a 12-month old BlackBerry Bold 9900 over a Galaxy SIII or iPhone 5, particularly when there’s the commitment of a 24-month contract to be considered? There’s a school of thought that seems to assume once you step off the BlackBerry platform, that’s it. That it’s game-over for BlackBerry, that you’ll never be back. I don’t know about that. I wonder how many will take a look at the Z10 or the Q10 and make the leap once more back to BlackBerry? You only need to spend 5 minutes with the on-screen keyboard and the new Flow user interface and you can find your mind wandering. Especially when you swap back to your iPhone and wonder why you can’t just swipe-up to activate the device. Or pull right to peak at your messages.

Based on what I saw today at this morning’s keynote, the developers are energised, excited and keen to get stuck in. The challenge for BlackBerry will be to maintain this — and, equally, attract the attention and devotion of their consumers.

By all accounts the company had a blow-out brilliant launch last week in the United Kingdom. One senior executive told me privately that he was, “Absolutely f–king delighted!”. Could this mean a hundred thousand units shipped into channel and then into customers hands in a week? More? It didn’t take long for me to start hearing stories about sell-outs (particularly of the white Z10) — but we’ll need to wait and see.

BlackBerry appears alive and well. I’m off to go and find out more about what they’re doing with the platform.

It is a seriously annoying experience trying to transact business in an Apple Store nowadays, especially when you’re in there at peak time.

At 8pm today I tried to buy an iPad Mini, Mophie juice charger and another iPad Mini or full-size iPad. I hadn’t made my decision. I’d decided on the Mini and the Mophie but I was going to buy the other iPad “real time”. That is, see what I felt like and see what the stock levels were like.

When I came to actually want to buy, I was stumped.

I arrived into the store just before 8 and saw a whole load of iPads and iPhones arranged at the back of the store on a big desk. Excellent. That is a useful focal point. It also makes it easy for you to see what they’ve got in stock. And since they’re boxed product, they can’t be left alone. So there’s always a staffer — a “blue shirt” — around to at least smile at you.

After I’d done some browsing I went downstairs and found that the desk was empty, in readiness for the store closure at 9.

I wandered around looking “open”. I hung around the iPad desks twiddling my thumbs trying to look ready to buy. I’m not quite sure what to do in these situations.

Eventually after a few minutes of staring and flashing my eyebrows at passing blue shirts, I resolved to walk over to the ‘greeter’ lady. The young lady was focusing on welcoming people. I asked if I could buy from her. I felt a bit silly asking but, you know, that’s fine. At least I had introduced myself into the Apple bosom, right?

“Oh I can sell you that,” she said, pointing at the Mophie and getting out her whizzy iPhone/POS unit.

“I’d like a Mini, too?” I asked.

“Oh, you’ll need to speak to Guy,” she explained, pointing over to the iPad table area.

Guy had magically arrived.

“Right, thank you,” I said, feeling slightly bemused.

I walked over to the chap and said, “Guy? Can you help?”

“I’m Matt,” the chap said, “That’s Guy!” he continued, pointing at another chap fiddling with an iPad, “How can I help?”

“I’d like to buy an iPad Mini,” I said.

“Oh, you’ll need to speak to Guy,” replied Matt, smiling nodding and turning away.

I turned toward Guy and waited patiently for a moment before he headed off somewhere else.

Right.

I wasn’t sure what to do.

What is the protocol for this sort of situation?

I am unaccustomed to having to think. I was previously in a bit of a haze of Apple Store excitement whereby I could have spent about £1,000ish. That had been fractured and was beginning to break into tiny pieces.

I am unaccustomed at having to work to buy from Apple. I really don’t think I should have to put in what I deem considerable effort (i.e. chasing someone around the store) to give them money. Not at 30-40% margin.

I hung around the iPad desk.

A blue shirt at the other iPad table became free. Excellent. I turned toward her. She almost caught my eye before her attention was drawn by somebody asking a question about a device. She embraced the question and delivered a brilliantly enthusiastic series of explanations to the customer.

Excellent. That is fantastic. This is what the Apple store is all about. Friendly happy folk helping you out.

It’s the prioritisation that’s all wrong. I’d done my selection. I just wanted to complete the transaction. Arguably I should have come before the questionner. But there’s a dilemma. Should the blue shirt lady be focusing on making sure anyone ready to buy is being helped; or focus on dealing with the enquiry which should/could be converted into an eventual sale?

I hung about some more.

I mentally calculated a 40% margin of the £269 product. I wondered how much margin the company was taking on the £79.95 Mophie juice pack. That I could have bought cheaper (I’m sure) from somewhere like Amazon.

I wondered why I was engaging in the whole transaction.

I didn’t get super frustrated. I should point that out. I didn’t start screaming or stamping my feet.

No.

I innovated.

I walked over to the greeter lady and explained that my Apple experience had been substantially degraded.

“Oh, did you not get Guy?” she said, frowning.

“No.”

She surveyed the room.

“Tom!” she cried, as another blue shirter ran past. He looked up briefly and shook his head, walking up the stairs.

“Can I give you my money please?” I called after him.

I thought it was time for some serious innovation.

“What do we need to do to get some attention?” I asked the blue shirt lady.

I tried a few star jumps.

This, I’m sure, looked a bit silly. It caught the attention of one guy helping out at the iPhone desk. He smiled wildly. I think he interpreted by star jumps as the unbridled joy. I think he might have given me a thumbs-up. I can’t quite recall.

If memory serves, I did a few more star jumps. Not big ones you understand. But certainly discernible. My 2x iPhones would have fallen out of my pocket if I’d jumped forcefully. The £2,500 Apple MacBook Pro could have been dislodged from my bag. The other iPhone inside the bag could have fallen out. But they’re all backed up on my 50GB Apple iCloud subscription. I write this paragraph to highlight that I’m not an Apple lightweight spender.

Eventually as the nerves of the blue shirt greeter lady began to fray around the edges — I’m not sure she gets many people standing next to her doing the occasional array of star jumps — another blue shirt chap appeared at the top of the stairs.

The greeter called out to him in relief.

“Mini, 16GB WiFi, White,” I barked out at him when he asked how he could help. I did my best to remain polite.

As I waited for him to fetch it another blue shirter spotted me lingering and asked if he could help.

I explained that my Apple experience had been severely degraded by the inability to purchase for approximately 10 minutes.

He kindly listened, offering me a cathartic release.

“Would you like me to help you set it up?” the other chap asked as he arrived with the Mini.

“No I think it’s my 8th iPad so I’m good,” I said, handing him my card.

The rest of the experience was perfectly fine. I completed the transaction, got my bag, got the receipt emailed and then thanked the greeter lady on my way out.

I daresay that the whole end-to-end purchase process would have been better if I’d arrived earlier whilst that huge big wooden desk was still setup with all those iPads and iPhones. I think it would have been easier to attract attention.

For anyone from the Apple Store reading, let’s be clear: Your team were impeccable. The fact I couldn’t actually get Guy’s attention shouldn’t, I don’t think, be an issue. The chap looked particularly focused on a task, no doubt in pursuit of an answer for another customer.

The issue is priority and orderliness, particularly when there is zero focal point. Perhaps after 8pm, you could have a little sign that says “Stand here if you’d like to order/pay”?

Or is this simply an isolated issue that only occurs after 8pm?

I know it’s still hugely annoying during the day in many Apple Stores that don’t have a focal point desk setup bristling with product so I’m not so sure.

The silent customer getting frustrated is the one to try and identify swiftly. I think I’d have spent at least £600 more tonight (at least another iPad) if my experience had been smoother. I couldn’t help but snap into reality.

I was moved to consider whether the Apple ecosystem is entirely for me.

I’m disappointed to say I’m teetering. I’m not quite sure it is for me. I don’t mind the premium but in return, I don’t want any friction whatsoever. AT ALL.

I’m wondering if it is worth it.

Currently, I think on balance, it is.

I’ve only had the device for a short time and already I am very much appreciating it. Here is a direct feed from my brain:

1. The back case is plastic. Nice quality, but plastic. Which is good. Because my BlackBerry is a tool for getting stuff done. I want to be able to toss it on the table without fearing a scratch.

2. I really like the fact the Z10′s NFC ‘receiver/transmitter’ is BlackBerry logo on the back of the case.

3. I LOVE the fact there’s a removable battery. LOVE it.

4. The on screen keyboard is simply the best I’ve ever used, bar none. Bar none. It’s fast, it’s incredibly accurate and I really, REALLY like the fact you can more or less type whole sentences without spaces and the system will parse it for you. The amount of times I’ve written somethinglikethis and then had to do about 21 keypresses to delete the word… gah. The BB10 keyboard parses somethinglikethis into “something like this” immediately without any thinking on your part.

5. Uniformly across the UI is the facility to turn ‘on’ password display — it’s just a little eye icon at the right of any password field. I can’t tell you how nice that makes setting up accounts. I have some complicated passwords!

6. When you’re entering passwords, the keyboard automatically expands to place a numerical row on top of the standard QWERTY input. Duh. Of course. This is a slap-head-stupidly-smart touch. Of COURSE. I really don’t enjoy having to constantly swap alpha to numerical keyboards every time I enter a password. Smart thinking, RIM.

7. The device feels chunky — it’s got a nice weight to it. A nice solidity. I feel confident in it’s abilities. I don’t feel concerned about damaging it. It doesn’t feel as fragile as the iPhone or a Galaxy SIII. It feels robust. Just what I want in a communications tool.

8. I really enjoy the thumb-interface. Hold the device in one hand and you can switch on the screen and peak at your email in a single fluid movement.

9. There’s no home button. No buttons to speak off (apart from those on the shell). To activate the device you simply swipe up from the BlackBerry logo on the bottom bevel. Bang. The screen appears and as you swipe up, the last screen you were using is slowly revealed in a rather pleasing blur. Pleasing enough to show off repeatedly to everyone you meet

10. The sleep function is really nice: Plug the device in and pull down the ‘night’ option and an attractive, minimalist analog clock appears in pleasing red colours but at a very low light level so the brightness doesn’t keep you awake. That stays active the whole time unless you specifically switch off the screen with the top button.

Ok I was only going to write 10 but here are some more that I can’t help but tell you about.

11. The BlackBerry Hub is now your central inbox to rule them all. It’s really nice to see it realised in glorious “HD” quality on the Z10 screen. Indeed it feels slightly surreal looking at the familiar RIM icons in high quality.

12. The super-app concept is live and well; so apps can easily integrate into your Hub. For instance, you can accept a LinkedIn request directly from the Hub inbox listing. Just tap and it’s done. No need to actually fire up the LinkedIn app for that. Similarly with Facbeook and Twitter.

13. I was initially horrified to find that Evernote was missing from BlackBerry World (the new App World name). Until I remembered that Evernote is baked in. It’s baked into the operating system now as “Reminders”. Just put in your Evernote credentials and there you go.

14. I will be dining out on the camera timeshift function for a long time. It works exactly as the team demonstrated on stage at the keynote last year. It’s brilliant.

15. Everything’s ready for 2013. The built-in sharing is excellent and fully functional. There are no compromises as with the last versions of the OS.

16. Video calling from BBM rocks. What’s EVEN FLIPPING BETTER is the ability to share your phone screen with the other party. Yes, you read that right. “Desktop sharing” of your BlackBerry. Heh. Really useful if you’re trying to make a point or demonstrate something. Or show off a particular email.

17. The browser is fast. Very, very fast. I think I’m right in saying it’s the best HTML5 compliant browser bar none. It’s really enjoyable.

18. I was concerned about how to attach the BlackBerry to an old BES5 server. I shouldn’t have worried. BB10 now has ActiveSync support — so provided you’ve got that enabled on your Exchange server, you’ll be fine. A nice move from RIM.

19. BlackBerry World is looking good. I’m going to try out some of the TV and movies, all supplied by Rovio. (I won’t yet comment on the app selection as I want to make sure it’s all live and operational first.)

20. DropBox support also appears built-in but I’ll need to confirm that. It looks that way. I haven’t had to download an app to get it working. Box is installed by default, along with DocsToGo. Editing a PowerPoint on your BlackBerry is now a realistic proposition.

21. For the first time ever, a video sent to me from my brother’s iPhone played without any jiggerypokery on a BlackBerry. As I commented above, BB10 is 2013-ready. Small things like this were missing from the older devices. They were capable, but only if the videos were formatted in a particular manner and so on. Now it’s seamless. And the screen is wonderful.

22. I like the Inbox delete function — they’ve placed it bottom right so it’s quick to access all the time. On that point, I do miss the keyboard shortcuts but the touchscreen definitely makes up for it.

23. The touchscreen just works. No lag, no messing around, no compensation required from me. And no double swiping because the system didn’t detect your first swipe. It’s all perfect.

Ok. I’ll have more for you shortly.

Everything you need to know, direct from RIM, the moment it hit the wires…

Waterloo, ON – BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today launched BlackBerry® 10, the re-designed, re-engineered, and re-invented BlackBerry platform that creates a new and unique mobile computing experience. Available on two new LTE-enabled smartphones, the BlackBerry® Z10 (all-touch) and BlackBerry® Q10 (touch with physical keyboard) smartphones powered by BlackBerry 10 offer you a faster, smarter and smoother experience than any other BlackBerry you have used before.

BlackBerry unveiled the new BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones at events held simultaneously in New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Dubai, and Johannesburg.

“Today sees a re-invented BlackBerry launching an entirely new mobile experience,” said Thorsten Heins, President and CEO of BlackBerry. “We are thrilled to be introducing BlackBerry 10 on the new BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones, to deliver a faster, smarter experience that continuously adapts to your needs. Every feature, every gesture, and every detail in BlackBerry 10 is designed to keep you moving.”

Highlights of BlackBerry 10

BlackBerry 10 is a robust and reliable platform that is smooth and responsive. It has a modern design and a gesture-based interface that is highly discoverable. It is designed to support, learn, and adapt to the way you work and share with features like:

· The ever present BlackBerry® Hub, which is a single place to manage all your conversations whether personal or work email, BBM™ messages, social media updates or notifications, and the ability to “peek” into the BlackBerry Hub from anywhere, so you’re always only one swipe away from what matters to you.

· BlackBerry® Flow, where the BlackBerry 10 experience excels by enabling features and apps to flow seamlessly together, helping you complete the task at hand effortlessly and efficiently. For example, you can tap on an attendee listed for a meeting to see their latest tweet or LinkedIn profile. Or tap the thumbnail of a picture you just took to launch the Picture editor and quickly apply a transformation or filter, then instantly share it with your contacts.

· A keyboard that understands and adapts to you, that learns what words you use and how you use them, then offers them up to you so you can type faster and more accurately.

· BBM (BlackBerry® Messenger), which allows you to share things with the people that matter to you in an instant. BBM in BlackBerry 10 includes voice calling and video chat, and introduces the ability to share your screen with another BlackBerry 10 contact.

· BlackBerry® Balance™ technology, which elegantly separates and secures work applications and data from personal content on BlackBerry devices.

· Time Shift, an astonishing camera feature that lets you capture a group shot where everyone is smiling with their eyes wide open. Story Maker, which lets you bring a collection of photos and videos together, along with music and effects, to produce an HD movie that you can instantly share.

· The new BlackBerry 10 browser, which sets the industry benchmark for HTML5 support on smartphones, is incredibly fast. Scrolling or zooming is fluid and responsive. The browser includes many advanced features, supports multiple tabs, lets you browse sites privately, includes a reader mode, and integrates with the platform for easily sharing content.

· BlackBerry® Remember, which combines memos, tasks and much more into a single experience. It helps you organize and manage information you have on your smartphone around projects or ideas, letting you collect content such as websites, emails, photos, documents, and other files, and then like a To-Do list, lets you create tasks, assign due dates, and track your progress. If your BlackBerry 10 smartphone is set up with a work account, your Microsoft® Outlook® Tasks will automatically be wirelessly synced with BlackBerry Remember. If you have configured an Evernote account with your smartphone, BlackBerry Remember will sync Evernote workbooks as well.

· BlackBerry® Safeguard technology that helps protect what is important to you, and the business you work for.

· Built-in support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync® so your BlackBerry Z10 or BlackBerry Q10 smartphone can be simply connected and managed as other ActiveSync devices in a company, or enabled with BlackBerry® Enterprise Service 10 to gain secure access to work email, “behind the firewall” applications and data, and benefit from other security and enterprise mobility management features.

· The BlackBerry® World™ storefront, which now includes 70,000 BlackBerry 10 apps and one of the most robust music and video catalogs in mobile today – with most movies coming to the store the same day they are released on DVD. In addition, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare apps for BlackBerry 10 are preinstalled, and BlackBerry 10 customers will have access to leading applications from across the globe. Leading application providers including Disney, Cisco, Foursquare, Skype and Rovio have committed to the platform.

“At Foursquare, we are extremely excited to launch our new BlackBerry 10 application and to continue developing on the platform,” said Dennis Crowley, Co-Founder and CEO of Foursquare. “Our team built the app just for BlackBerry 10, and the result is an amazing Foursquare Explore experience to help people around the world make the most of where they are.”

“We’re delighted to bring Angry Birds Star Wars to BlackBerry fans around the world,” said Petri Järvilehto, EVP of Games, at Rovio. “It’s a great platform that gives a fantastic gaming experience, so fans can experience the struggle of Rebel Birds vs. Imperial Pigs to the fullest!”

“Bringing Where’s My Water? and Where’s My Perry? to BlackBerry 10 smartphones will introduce some of Disney’s most popular mobile games to new audiences,” said Tim O’Brien, VP of Business Development, Disney Games. “The new BlackBerry 10 platform is an exciting opportunity to expand Disney’s network of mobile players.”

“We’re proud to extend Cisco’s WebEx technology to the BlackBerry 10 platform letting customers of any size join, start, view content, and stay connected to WebEx meetings right from their BlackBerry 10 smartphone,” said Raj Gossain, Vice President of Product Management, Cloud Collaboration Applications Technology Group at Cisco. “Our customers access Cisco collaboration capabilities, such as instant messaging, IP voice calling and conferencing on BlackBerry smartphones to stay connected anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. RIM and Cisco have worked together to develop an application that is user friendly and meets the needs of our global customers.”

“We are excited about our plans to bring Skype to smartphones running the brand new BlackBerry 10 platform,” said Bob Rosin, VP & GM of Business Development for Microsoft’s Skype division. “We are working closely with BlackBerry to ensure Skype runs great on BlackBerry 10 devices. This will give BlackBerry 10 users a great Skype experience, including free voice and video calling, sending instant messages and text messages, sharing photos, videos and files, and calling to landlines and mobiles at Skype’s low rates.”

BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 Smartphones

The new BlackBerry 10 smartphones are elegant and distinctive, and the fastest, most advanced BlackBerry smartphones yet. They feature 1.5 Ghz dual core processors with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and an expandable memory card slot. They include the latest enhancements in high density pixel and screen technology to display clear, sharp, and incredibly vivid images. Both feature a micro HDMI out port for presentations, and advanced sensors such NFC (near field communications) to support mobile payments and the exchange of information with a tap of the smartphone. They also have a removable battery.

Models of the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 will be available from carriers to support their respective 4G LTE or HSPA+ networks, and all the available models include connectivity support for global roaming. The BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones will also each come in White and Black. For more information about the new BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones powered by BlackBerry 10 please visit www.blackberry.com/blackberry10

A range of accessories for the new BlackBerry 10 smartphones, including the new BlackBerry® Mini Stereo Speaker as well as a variety of carrying and charging solutions including a unique charger that provides on-the-go charging, will be available from select carriers and retailers.

Pricing and Availability

Worldwide, we have several key markets that are revealing pricing and availability today, including the UK, Canada and UAE.

· In the UK, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available beginning tomorrow on pay monthly contracts and pre-pay plans from EE, O2, Vodafone, Phones 4u, BT, 3UK and the Carphone Warehouse. BlackBerry Z10 smartphones will be available fully subsidized on competitive monthly pay contracts. Price points will vary according to carriers and retail partners.

· In Canada, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available on February 5th. Pricing will vary by carrier partner, but it will retail for around $149.99 on a 3 year contract.

· In the UAE, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available on February 10th. Pricing will vary by carrier partner, but unsubsidized it will retail for AED 2,599.

· In the U.S. market, we expect availability with most carriers for the BlackBerry Z10 to be in March. Today, U.S. carriers will start announcing pre-registration and price plans.

Many of our global partners have already launched or will be launching pre-registration and pre-order sites today.

We expect the first global carriers to launch the BlackBerry Q10 in April. We will announce new pricing and availability information as carriers roll-out around the world.

Back on the 8th of November 2011, I wrote a brief post highlighting just how flipping annoying it is using an iPhone for more than just emails from your mother and Facebook alerts. I can’t believe it’s still a problem today.

You and I get a lot of mail.

We do, right?

You’re reading Mobile Industry Review — not only does this highlight that you’re a seasoned professional with phenomenal taste, it also sets you apart as a professional of some sort. Not a normob. You’re not a normal mobile user. You get tons of email for work purposes and probably a load of personal email, even if the majority is transactional in nature (e.g. Amazon and whatnot).

If you’re rocking an iPhone, it’s fine — but with a pained look.

Messaging on the iPhone is just about doable. Just about enough to keep you floating — but, again, if you’re anything like me, you probably have to spend real time sitting at your flipping desktop and “doing” email. You just do, because the iPhone can’t hack it when it comes to volume messaging.

And what seriously pisses me right off is when I’m on the train and the above message appears.

It appears because the iPhone is temporarily out of a service area. And for some reason, it STILL needs to tell you — like some impatient 2-year-old — that it CAN’T FLIPPING CONNECT to check/send email.

Not only does it tell you this ONCE. It then has to cycle through every single one of your email accounts to — YES — tell you it CAN’T FLIPPING connect.

Every time I experience this I say to myself, “Fisher Price”.

I curse the iPhone. The experience is usually enough to cause me to switch off the iPhone screen and put it in my pocket for a few minutes whilst my blood returns from boiling point.

And I positively curse RIM for taking so long on bringing out their new BlackBerry 10 legion of devices. I am depending on you RIM!

Over to James:

- – - – -

Blackberry mobile devices accounted for 15% of mobile phone web traffic in the United Kingdom during December 2012 according to the web usage figures of my own company, 51Degrees.mobi — this is based on the 620 million devices our servers tracked worldwide last month.

15% is a sizable number. It’s more than 7 times Windows Phone market share in the same period. Therefore why do so many web sites neglect Blackberry, or worst go out of their way to create a poor experience on Blackberry devices? What will happen after BB10 is launched?

PrimeLocation (a leading UK property portal) is clearly demonstrating a strong iOS and Android bias. Their first mobile optimised web site available throughout most of 2012 worked rather well on the classic Blackberry form factor. The same can’t be said for the latest upgrade. See screenshots below.

The latest version starts with a washed out logo dominating the mobile landing page. All the main menu items are off the screen. Even the menu link to the full site which appears at the top of the page on iPhone, Android and Windows Phone isn’t visible. Worst of all the home page (consisting of 7 links) is a whopping 450kb which takes a lifetime to appear over anything other than WiFi or perfect 3G coverage.

In contrast the previous PrimeLocation mobile web site placed the key menu items and activities for mobile users clearly at the top of the page, without compromising a slightly smaller logo. Mobile users could start browsing for homes quickly and start to get engaged.

Perhaps Blackberry users aren’t interested in PrimeLocation. But that’s going to change.

2013 the return of BlackBerry
The Blackberry platform is about to undergo its most important makeover since launch with the release of BB10 at the end of January 2013. Just consider…

• Major carriers including Vodafone, Telefonica, Everything Everywhere, Three and in the US Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint will include the devices in their range. More will be announcing support as you read this.
• Developer versions of handsets have been available for many months. Importantly BB10 includes some clever technology to enable developers to quickly port Android applications to Blackberry. Expect the number of applications to increase quickly.
• Blackberry Playbook version 2 on which much of BB10 is based has proven to be a great little tablet for those not put off by version 1.
• FIPS 140-2 certification has been achieved pre-launch, crucial to securing high volume government and defence deals.
• Many large corporations already have a big investment in Blackberry and are long overdue a major handset refreshes driving Enterprise sales in the first quarter.
• Analysts are becoming increasingly positive about BB10.

If you thought you could forget about Blackberry think again. Blackberry never went away in the UK. Blackberry is well placed to grow in 2013.

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James, thanks for taking the time to write this.

The new BlackBerry 10 devices will have some stonkingly good browsing technology if the alpha units we’ve seen are anything to go by so Prime Location will doubtless look phenomenal on the new Z10.

I am really excited to see the new device(s).

MAGISTER ADVISORS: “APPLE’S iPHONE SALES NEED TO BECOME IRRELEVANT”

“Apple needs to get to a place where it doesn’t matter whether they sell 50 million devices or five”

Apple’s, Samsung’s and Nokia’s results this week have added further weight to the argument that the mobile market is no longer about the device, according to analysis by Magister Advisors, M&A advisors to the global technology industry.

Victor Basta, managing director at Magister Advisors, said: “Apple is currently rated at a PE of less than 10. In order to be rerated it needs to be able to demonstrate significant earnings growth potential. The amount of profit that can be made out of smartphones will plateau and then contract. Apple needs to get to a place where its most interesting announcements are not about new devices. It must grow its revenues from software and services. ”

“Device saturation will have a huge effect on RIM, Nokia, Samsung and other device manufacturers. By chasing volumes, they will inevitably go the way of Dell which has itself been frantically replacing declining revenue by driving greater volumes.”

“Apple is in the best place to achieve growth and rerating through innovation in software and services. It has hundreds of millions of credit card enabled subscribers through iTunes and the App Store. Apple arguably owns and controls the whole app concept and is the micropayments king. How Apple transitions its revenue dependence from hardware to software is at least as important as any Apple TV and in the medium to long term much more so. Fundamentally Apple needs to get to a place where it doesn’t matter whether they sell 50 million devices or five. Devices are fast becoming irrelevant and will continue to trend towards zero profit and beyond.”

Margin pressures have been a theme in this week’s announcements, underpinning the significant pressures facing hardware-focused businesses as the smartphone and device market moves towards saturation. Samsung, which reported huge profits on the back of device sales, is likely to be on the crest of a wave, Magister Advisors argue.

Hardware, Victor Basta argues, is now simply a tool for enabling consumers to buy content and will become as prosaic an element of the commercial relationship as a credit card: “Apple’s revenues from sales of content are growing faster than total revenues. We expect this trend to accelerate.”

Thinning and in some cases non-existent profits on devices add weight to the argument that profit will increasingly stem from incremental content purchases. Victor Basta said: “Amazon already makes no profit on the Kindle mobile device. As competition intensifies across the mobile industry we predict that devices will be sold at a loss or potentially given away to capture value in content sales.”

In case you’ve been sitting there thinking “Magister Advisors?” and wondering if the name rings a bell. Here’s a prompt: They were the team behind the sale of C3 Technologies for $250m (40x revenue), LoveFILM’s $320m exit to Amazon, Mobile Interactive Group’s $59m exit to Velti and Clearswift’s sale to Lyceum Capital.

Back to the topic, though.

At what point will it become more effective to give away a device for free?

We’re already seeing the beginnings of this with the likes of Amazon’s Kindle and Google’s Nexus strategy. Right now the economics — or, at least the financial wizardry at both these tech giants — doesn’t support 100% device subsidy.

Individually, though, with some customers, I bet it does already. You only have to look at what I’m spending (in gross terms) with Apple or Amazon each month.

This is the screen that popped up earlier on one of the Android tablets I own.

The device is requesting that I approve connections for all the apps listed. In fact the list goes on for another two screens.

Do I want to give permission to “com.wipereceiver”? Possibly. Maybe. What?

It how about “DSMLawmo”? No fracking idea.

I almost hit “approve” but I decided to decline. Not today Android.

State your reason for existing beyond being the default cheap alternative?

Seriously who is running this UI experience? Who is responsible for displaying this utter jibberish? I’m sure there’s a valid reason for “Factory Test” to require me to give access to my personal gmail account. So tell me why. Or better still, just make the decision for me. I don’t get this crap on Apple or on a BlackBerry Playbook.

Maybe it is a Google Apps thing?

You’d think that Google would have been able to spare me the pain.

The Google Play store does a better job at explaining what the security access requirements are of particular apps. They try at least to use normal English.

But read this and weep:

That is the application description field for the BBC iPlayer App for Android. You have to feel for the developers who were forced to include explanations for the likes of “WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE”.

One day all of this on Android will just work without users having to parse stupidly badly defined system elements themselves.

I am backer of number 819 of the DoorBot project on Christie Street. It looks simply brilliant. A WiFi video-enabled doorbell system powered by 4x AA batteries! And just $169. Sign me up!

What do you think? Here’s the video overview: