back to article RIM answers Apple iPad with...The BlackPad*

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is preparing to launch an iPad competitor in November, and it will be called the BlackPad, according to a report citing two people familiar with the company's plans. Bloomberg reports that the RIM tablet will have roughly the same dimensions as the iPad, offer WiFi and Bluetooth, and give …

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  1. LinkOfHyrule
    Joke

    Facepalm

    If "Rim" wasn't a bad enough name as it is!

    This is embarrassing frankly. LOLZ

    1. Lance 3

      Rim job?

      try rim.jobs

      1. LinkOfHyrule
        Joke

        Title thingy

        Why, is that a new Apple website? :oD

  2. Tim Keck
    Joke

    The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

    Wonder bread with mayonnaise! Perish the thought! Only imitation Miracle Whip on imitation bread.

  3. JaitcH
    Pint

    Blackpad is so Canadian ...

    less flamboyant than America but simply gets the job done.

    And even endorsed by an American president who refused to release his 'Death Grip' on it!

  4. Alastair 7

    Still, could be worse

    Anyone ever buy an i.Beat blaxx?

    http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/24/trekstor-showcases-i-beat-blaxx-portable-media-player/

    (say it out loud)

  5. Sean Timarco Baggaley

    What was wrong with...

    ..."Padberry"?

    1. Seanie Ryan
      Headmaster

      why has no-one got an imagination? including RIM

      why the hell does it have to have 'pad' in the name at all??? do all companies have to copy Apple right down to the name?

      SURELY they could hire a branding team to come with a name?

      At least its not Dell though, who would name it the easy to remember 'X9B7207-g' :-)

      1. Terry Barnes
        Stop

        Copy?

        I'm intrugued as to what products you think have been the result of original thought within Apple and not based on copying what others have done previously?

        1. Seanie Ryan
          Alien

          Re : Copy

          Terry, I am referring to the fact that after the iMac came out, suddenly there was and i-Everything on the market. And even irons came in bondi blue.

          Now there is the iPad and all speculation turns to what x-pad the competition will bring out.

          Why do tablets now have to be called pads'?

          Come on, wheres the imagination?

          (there are other minor examples too, but you get the idea..)

      2. Lance 3

        Thinkpad

        IBM sold ThinkPads long before Apple even thought of a tablet/slate computer.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Pint

        You are asking a serious question?

        The iPad sells so if you want to get a share of that search market, grab the punters with something that is similar, you need to follow the leader. By leader I mean the one that has sold the most, not the ones that are actually any good.

        The oldest marketing trick in the book. Fred sells product X-ABC so if you want to sell yours, you need to sell it as Y-ABC to ensure the punters find your product. You call it UD364, it will not get seen.

        The cheap far-east knock-off merchants are masters at it, take a trip down to your local Trading Standards office for a taste!

        1. Seanie Ryan
          Pint

          not always

          so why dint apple call the iphone the red-berry? why dont dell call their all-in-one PC the i-Dell or the iMax?

    2. David McMahon
      Go

      Nice one :)

      That what I would choose! :)

    3. Ainteenbooty

      pre-emptive copycattery

      believe it or not, I purchased a personal assistant device a little less than a decade ago that was named the "iPaq".

  6. Arctic fox
    Joke

    If they really want to get up.......

    .......Jobs' nose they could call it "myPad".

    1. Goat Jam
      Thumb Up

      hmmmm

      I can't think of any jokes that could be made of that name.

      No, none whatsoever.

  7. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    Too little

    Too late

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Title

      If it was not "too little" or "too late" for Apple who was the 11th or 12th entry into the tablet market, why would it be too late for RIM coming in at 13?

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
        Unhappy

        Bullseyed

        Apple threw away all preconceptions of how a tablet should work and built something new based not upon a desktop OS, but a smartphone. They created good hardware and backed it up with a lightweight (if heavily locked down) operating system.

        The Blackpad, if the reports are to believed, will not offer anything new over the iPad. In fact, if the reports are to be believed, it will be inferior. No 3G model; access provided only through a smartphone acting as a gateway. (Assuming of course that you own a compatible smartphone on a provider that will allow you to do such things.) Everything I have read elsewhere says it will have Blackberry 6 OS; an operating system that looks as bland and uninspired as Windows Phone 7.

        It promises to deliver less than the iPad but cost as much, whilst suffering from being nearly a generation behind. I’m sorry, I don’t like Apple all that much, but their execution on the iPad was fantastic. They took a concept (tablets) that was dead (barring a few significantly overexpensive flukes the P1510d or the OQO) and change the game significantly. They brought excellent battery life, a multitouch interface system that works and that most critical of items: a low price.

        I don’t much care for Apple, but if the bloody thing had a USB port, an SD Card slot and the ability to be easily rooted (so that I could run whatever programs I wanted, not so that I could pirate other programs,) then I would already own one. (There has to be a way to recompile VLC or something similar to run on it. Then I could watch my extant collection of media without having to repurchase it all from iTunes. SD Cards would allow me to swap out media I wish to watch.)

        Other *pads might (might!!) offer something like this in the future. Maybe. By then, Apple will be onto the second generation of iPad with enough features to answer the competition. Apple got into the “actually affordable and usable” tablet market before anyone else. Everyone else failed miserably to execute, and now Apple has the category brand name recognition.

        So, too little, too late? Damned right. It might please the odd geek or business if it happens to be somehow technologically superior to an iPad, or cheaper. (Highly unlikely on both counts.) If it does, it still won’t be a game changer, and thus it will be unable to overcome the brand recognition on that market space that Apple has, and won’t sell in enough volume to matter.

        Thus: too little, too late.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Blackpad isn't so bad

    I understand the other names in contention was Raspberry and Fruitcake.

  9. Dwayne_Chapman

    Answers?

    So RIM bought a domain and there are rumors of a planned released of this unseen product in November. How exactly is that answering the iPad? I mean the iPad is selling so far at around 1 million a month or so and selling a ton of Apps. RIM hasn't and probably won't answer that with this device.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Does it have a calculator?

    If it does, then you can say it has a Blackadder app.

    1. TeeCee Gold badge

      Re: Does it have a calculator?

      It's been done, only with more subtlety......

      http://www.blacada.com/

  11. rahul
    Jobs Halo

    The lure of Apple's success...

    ...seems to be making other companies forget about innovation. Apple has always been about innovation, and everyone else seems to be playing "follow the leader" right now.

    If only they followed the engineering philosophy, rather than push out me-too devices.

    I count Google as the only exception.

    1. Cameron Colley

      And who invented the Blackberry?

      True, this is a bit of a "me too" device but RIM as a company did invent one of the most influential smart phone designs and were the first to market with push mail -- so they're as much of an innovator as Apple.

      1. Dwayne_Chapman

        Maybe not the 1st.

        Actually push email had been around in Japan well before BB started marketing and using it.

        RIM did innovate with the way they handle corporate email.

    2. David McMahon
      Jobs Horns

      @rahul

      yes as long as they hold it correctly

    3. Lance 3

      Ummm

      What did Apple invent? They have stolen the IP of others and admitted to it. You surely don't complain about the royalty rates if you didn't steal anything.

      Mobile to mobile video conferencing? Nope, Apple wasn't first.

      Push? Nope, not Apple.

      Mobile email. Nope, not Apple

      Touchscreen mobile phones. Nope, not Apple.

      Apps on a phone. Nope, not Apple.

      I can't see a single thing Apple invented. Unless your idea of innovation is copying/stealing, then they are the king.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Innovation != invention.

        Innovation is not the same as invention, Lance. You can take an idea (an idea isn't necessarily IP either Lance) and improve upon it. This is such a puerile, schoolyard "it was MY idea first" type argument!

        Apple haven't claimed that they invented mobile to mobile video conferencing, YOU did! Apple never claimed that they invented push email *or* the notion of mobile email either. Neither can I recall Apple ever claiming that they invented "touch screen" phones, but theirs was the first to use actually use "touch" (ie your *finger*) for input., rather than a fiddly stylus. Apple never claimed to invent apps on phones; when the initially released the iPhone, they intended it to run *webapps*. The dev and Tech "journalist" cried merry hell they they couldn't develop apps on it (much like the rediculous "S'not fair, I only know Java and I should be allowed to use that!" brouhaha), so Apple acquiesced and released an SDK and allowed apps on the device. See, facts! Want more, not silly conjecture!

        "I can't see a single thing Apple invented. Unless your idea of innovation is copying/stealing, then they are the king." Utter and complete rubbish. Like it or not, Apple, Microsoft and Google to name the current dominant tech firms are ALL innovators, they wouldn't be where they are if they weren't. It's only myopic individuals that like getting themselves all steamed up about frankly meaningless and trivial flame wars that think otherwise.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AnotherNetNarcissist

          I can't tell if you have no reading comprehension or are just exceptionally bad at logic. He did not state that Apple "invented" any of those things. You said that Apple's product was innovative, so he listed the features of the product and asked which was an invention of Apple, because none of them are. For reference, since you do not appear to own a dictionary:

          innovation: invention, a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation

          innovation: invention, the creation of something in the mind

          wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

          The only thing Apple appears to have innovated or invented is an antenna that doesn't work.

          I also found it intellectually delicious that the second definition specifies that an innovation is something that is invented in your mind, because Steve Jobs' imagination is only place that the iPhone 4 "just works" or is "magical and revolutionary".

          Also, lest you embarrass yourself further with this "Apple was the first touch of the finger input" nonsense, Apple stole that technology from IBM, who invented it in the 1960s.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch

          Quote: "Mainstream exposure to multi-touch technology occurred in 2007 when the iPhone gained popularity, with Apple falsely stating they 'invented multi touch' as part of the iPhone announcement, however both the function and the term predate the announcement or patent requests."

          There is still hope for you though, if you stand still we may be able to remove your head from your rear.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            FAIL

            *My* comprehension..?

            Lance 3 asked, and I quote; "What did Apple invent?", then continued to list bogus claims that Apple had 'made', claiming that they had "stolen" all this technology. I was merely suggesting that Apple had NEVER claimed that they had invented any of the things that Lance 3 was disputing. Perhaps I could have been more explicit. I didn't even suggest, claim *or* intimate that Apple invented the (multi-)touch interface, just pointed out (correctly) that they were the first to bring it to market successfully, intimating they had done so with the then iPhone OS; again I could have possibly been more explicit. Apple have patented multitouch heavily, but again that's not a suggestion of *invention*, just a claim of *innovation* in the mobile space.*You* are attempting to put words in my mouth in much the same way Lance 3 was with Apple.

            As to Invention/innovation; I can play the 'quote-the-dictionary' game too! I'll quote from The Oxford English Dictionary;

            Innovate: 1) To change (a thing) into something new; to alter; to renew. 2) To bring in (something new) the first time; to introduce as new. eg; Nylon... was first invented in 1928, but not innovated until 1939. 3) To bring in or introduce novelties; to make changes in something established; to introduce innovations.

            Invent: 1) To come upon, find; to find out, discover. 2) To find out or produce by mental activity. (There are several more entries, but *none* of them suggest invent == innovate)

            I'd argue that you are very much wrong and my point stands; innovation != invention, although it is correct to assert that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

            Quoting from a Wikipedia article is not a good place to start with a rebuttal either; they themselves have a "DON'T QUOTE US!!!" disclaimer! The article that you do quote is, unsurprisingly, unsubstantiated. It merely links to videos shot and posted in 2005; meaningless as it doesn't necessarily prove prior art in any way, just that someone recorded a video in 2005! Or are you and the Wikipedia 'editor' suggesting that Apple only developed the iPhone in 2007? In fact they should really reference Elan Microelectronics (http://reg.cx/1HdK) 2010 claims agains Apple with regards multi-touch, but that's a whole other debate. Let's follow that "Apple stole it off IBM..." 'reasoning' though; the idea for hypertext, and arguably the GUI and modern computer interfaces as we know them, were more or less 'invented' by a chap called Vannevar Bush (look him up on Wikipedia!). So many modern "innovations' can be rationally argued to have been stolen from him!

            As to your rude tone, why? There is absolutely no need for it! It's nasty, spiteful and puerile, especially given how wrong you are! So, with all due respect, I suggest that you lay off the coffee and perhaps it is you that could do with his head removing from his rear. I thought is was only Apple fanboys that were supposed to be smug...

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Title

              He may have insinuated that Apple stole different features from other people (hint: they did). This implicitly suggests then that they didn't invent the technology, like Steve Jobs claims they did.

              I think when you say "intimating" repeatedly you mean "imitating"... then again, maybe you are getting intimate with your "multitouch" Apple devices. Not sure how that would work since there isn't even a USB port on the iPad.

              "Quoting from a Wikipedia article is not a good place to start with a rebuttal either."

              You know that studies and independent reviews have determined Wikipedia is far more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica, right? Anyway, here it the NYU web site summarizing the most recent iteration of multitouch. Look familiar? http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirsense/index.html

              Han, J. Y. 2005. Low-Cost Multi-Touch Sensing through Frustrated Total Internal Reflection. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

              Pretty smart though, I guess. They waited for a couple decades so other people could invent the technology for them, then "patented the hell out of it" to quote Stever.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Thumb Down

                Wow.

                The *Nature* 2008 review of Wikipedia’s reliability. It didn’t say that Wikipedia is “is far more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica” at all. The journal did find that there were on average 2.92 mistakes per article for Britannica and 3.86 for Wikipedia, which to the rest of the world means that Britannica is in fact more accurate than Wikipedia, if only marginally (depends on how the stats were calculated). The thing that I want to really to address is this; I didn’t say that Britannica, or any other encyclopedia for that matter, *was* a better reference, merely that using Wikipedia to base your argument on wasn’t a good idea! I wouldn’t base an debate, hypothesis or any kind of report on facts found in an encyclopedia! While encyclopedias are a reasonable platform to start your research from, it is advisable to, to quote Wikipedia; “...take care – as with all general reference works – to check their facts and be aware that mistakes and omissions do occur.” To present information gleaned from any encyclopedia, let alone Wikipedia as empirical evidence is just foolish.

  12. ez2x
    Thumb Down

    That blank page

    It tells you a lot about RIM corporate culture that a blank web page has a revision number 1.1.7

    1. Blain Hamon
      Coat

      Could be worse... Remember IBM manuals?

      This Page Left Intentionally Blank

  13. bluesxman
    Pint

    Suddenly reminded of...

    ... Jake the Poacher in Withnail & I

    "I'll come up and set one of these black pods on you"

    Good times.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surely...

    BerryPad is MUCH better.

    1. rahul
      Megaphone

      Rhymes too much...

      ... with Very Bad.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Augite

    "A white pad will remain an apartment where rhythm-challenged people wear khaki pants and eat Wonder Bread with mayonnaise. ®"

    Reg... That is spineless.

    If you're gonna make (albeit funny) little gags like that, at least have the minerals to be duotone in your slander.

    I wonder... what would the line say if the device was called a 'yellowpad'??

  16. joshimitsu
    Troll

    i wanna make up a silly name too

    Hmmm - how about CrackPad?

    And if you buy an optional coloured case for it - a redPad...

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Methinks?

    There may be some foolish tomfoolery for sure amongst many posters but I'd guess that the collective income of all of those merely registers less than a 0.05% on the xPad phenomena :-)

  18. Dr Christian
    Thumb Up

    interesting

    I myself am looking forward to more details about this product. I'm certainly a blackberry fan and loathe apple products.

    RIM has an excellent track record of secure, configurable products. Unlike apple.

  19. David Paul Morgan
    Big Brother

    PAD/PDA or PADD?

    Surely it's a punnet of blackberries?

    PAD is an anagram of PDA, but the term PAD(D) is surely a star trek/roddenBERRY creation?

    http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/PADD

    Personal Access Display Device

    which pretty much sums up what all of our flat-screen touch-screen communicators are.

    So, PAD - Personal Access Display or Personal Access Device.

    (big brother, but because it's the little sisters you need to watch out for...)

  20. Badwolf

    Toilet Humour

    I want a Black RIM Pad!!!

  21. Richard Porter
    Joke

    BlackPud?

    or perhaps Raspberry (to blow at Apple)

    or even Logonberry (log-on-berry geddit?)

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Say it loud!

    What we have here is a whole product line based on a James Brown advertising theme and the film, "Undercover Brother."

    ....

    Mr Feather will shortly be distributing the mind-control drug via a vast network of fried-chicken outlets.

    Paris - we'll have to make do in the absence of "White She-devil."

  23. Ascylto
    Big Brother

    Um ...

    Not available in the United Arab Emirates.

  24. Harvey Trowell
    Coat

    More lame suggestions...

    If...

    "the RIM tablet will... offer WiFi and Bluetooth, and give you the option of tapping the interwebs through the company's BlackBerry handsets"

    Then...

    How about calling it the CloudBerry? That's a thing, that is.

    Or. How about putting Gordon Brown and Naomi Campbell in the launch ads and calling it the ChuckBerry? My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling...

    And I'm spent...

  25. Running scared

    Another opportunity for more red thumbs!

    Regardless of which poor sod’s idea it was in the first place, Apple have succeeded in two areas:

    The Apple ‘system’ is easy to use – by that I mean, if you have an Apple PC, iPod, iPhone, iPad etc, they generally do ‘just work’ for the average Joe. By a song on the PC, it appears on the iPhone. Take a Photo, it appears on the iMac etc. Admittedly, the average Joe is not a Reg reader, but there are a lot of them around, and the success of Apple in this area does support the view that they are prepared to pay a premium for this.

    Obviously the downside to providing this degree of simple automation and consistency is an increased level of centralised control that is the Apple police, but overall the model does work for an increasing share of the PC market.

    The second area they have succeeded in is raising the game of the whole ‘smart’ / mobile arena, and now they are moving onto the middle between laptops and PDA’s – whether they will be as successful there remains to be seen, but it’s looking like they have again acted as a catalyst to the market. RIM’s response to the iPad (and I do believe it would not have happened were it not for the iPad) is a good example of this.

    I must have owned 20+ PDA’s over the years, with very little evolution between any of them until the iPhone brought about a revolution. Others have caught up, some perhaps surpassed the iPhone, but Apple did put a rocket up the backside of the industry and force it to react – all to the benefit of the consumer.

  26. Filippo Silver badge
    Flame

    padpad

    IBM made ThinkPads long before Apple did iPads.

    And yet, people here are accusing RIM of copying the name from Apple.

    Really, sometimes I think Jobs has mind-control satellites.

    1. Penti

      Innovations

      Notepad Not moving further away then notebook in terms of innovative names, they have already done the iBook.

    2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Size of market?

      People may say that this perception is because Apple have sold so many iPads, but I wonder exactly how many ThinkPads have been made over the years? I would guess that it also runs into millions.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Title

      And with Apple's "Think Different" tag line...

      "Think Different: iPad"

      "Think iPad"

      "ThinkPad"

      Sounds like a lawsuit to me...

  27. gimbal
    Pint

    Identity Protection, Nothing More

    I remember reading a certain article in Blacklisted 411, a number of years ago - probably in the late 1990's, as memory servers. The article discussed the acquisition - by a major UK-based (I think) and US-marketed (I know) cel-phone carrier - the acquisition of a large number of internet domain names, many of which bore only some varying degrees of similarity to the name of the company itself. For detail's sake, I'm afraid that the exact name of that carrier presently escapes me.

    I believe it's highly possible that RIM is performing a similar maneuver, with the domain-name acquisition denoted in this article. It doesn't mean they're going to call it BlackPad - as I highly doubt they would, honestly. It could just as well be that they're trying to prevent anyone else from calling it the BlackPad, at least in so far as could be represented at a prospective site under that internet domain name - a site that could actively, selectively, and exclusively tarnish the identity of their actual product. It could be sort of a damage-limitation maneuver, as far as product identity goes.

    Cheers anyway. It's close enough to beer o'clock after all...

  28. ForthIsNotDead
    Coat

    Panty pad?

    No?

    Ok then...

  29. Doshu

    I'd call it

    The Outer RIM.

    "Travel cyber space in style."

    Sells itself, people.

  30. Gaslight

    A Canadian metaphor

    This is an example of skating to where the ice hockey puck is, rather than where the puck is going to be.

    It's a me-too product that'll probably be a version of the BB OS with push mail, but will it be as nicely scaled up as Apple chose to take the time to do. It drives some technical people around the bend, but it's often the case that it's not what you're offering but how you're offering it.

    I've forgotten the number of times I've tried to get devs to remove useless mouse clicks and pointless interface hoops to jump through only to be told 'Our users are smart.' That's not the point, it's that you want to make things efficient for the user.

    Will the competition have the ability and discipline to think differently about the UI? That's the beauty if the iPad -- it doesn't work like a desktop OS. You receive stuff on it and make minor updates. Making it a full blown OS for free-form data input is exactly what has failed repeatedly for the last decade.

    Best of luck to them!

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    blackberry pad general

    Blackberry jam anyone?

    I have jar or three left from last year -- and well ... its coming up on that time...

  32. Stevie

    Bah!

    Joke? I thinked hard but couldn't see an obvious joke in "blackpad".

    Also, have electronics experts in my family, none of whom have heard of "black pad". This seems very localised jargon and therefore not a source of embarrassment IMHO.

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