RIM and the BlackPad - RIM's Black Pad and Steve Jobs the American Ninja

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;

If I cannot carry forests on my back,

Neither can you crack a nut.

Emerson, Fable: The Mountain and the Squirrel

Look like RIM CEO Lazardis just rolled out the stealth bomber codenamed the BlackPad, with plans to secretly attack CEO Steve Jobs as  suggested by the stealthy announcement of RIM’s intended pow-wow all much ado about the mysterious BlackPad as stated in the article Connecting the Dots: RIM may launch its Black Pad Monday, published September 21, 2010, 2:06pm PDT By Larry Dignan, ZDNET (http://www.zdnet.com) and confirmed in the article “RIM Readies Its Answer to iPad”, published SEPTEMBER 21, 2010 By PHRED DVORAK And TING-I TSAI, The Wall Street Journal, GADGETS & GAMES  (http://online.wsj.com).

Thus it should be of interest to Carletta DeLeon aka The Pet Tales chick aka “Dilly”, the tech chick on Smile Jamaica on Television Jamaica, who is nosy about everything tech these days, that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is well aware of this, having allegedly been spotted in Japan trying to smuggle shuriken [Ninja throwing stars] unto his hand luggage aboard his private jet as stated in the article “Is Steve Jobs a Star-Throwing Ninja?”, published Tuesday September 14 2010 by Yahoo! News, apparently in preparation to go with a Strike Team and grab a prototype of this mysterious device before it debut on Monday September 27^th 2010!

Seriously though, I would normally poke holes in RIM’s attempt at stealing the Apple iPad’s thunder, especially as it was my suggested design. For that is what this super secret Press Conference in San Francisco may be about: the RIM Black Pad, whose name I find mildly offensive, albeit accepting that there are no black people in Canada, at least indigenously living there since Canada was formed. John Public the engineer pulls apart this Press Kit………….

Thinking back to 2009, my Apple iPad suggestion to a bunch of brain-dead Shurpower Engineers while driving in a vehicle, merely making the Apple iPhone bigger,  is inclusive of a “zippy” interface based on iOS as stated in the review “Early reviews: iPad is 'beautiful', 'blazingly fast', 'has a touch of genius'”, published Wednesday April 1 2010 by Ben Patterson Yahoo! News and the maximum battery operating time when playing full 720p video to be maintained at 10 hours, a standard that Apple must maintain no matter what additional peripherals they add, hence why this first generation is bereft of power sapping USB ports and front and rear facing cameras that everyone is wishing - and putting – on their tablets.

These extra add-ons use more power and thus kill performance of tablets, much to the dismay of customers, who realize that for a brighter screen and 1080p playback as well as video calling capability, the 7” Samsung Galaxy Tablet as per description in the article “Samsung Galaxy Tab: An Android contender”, published September 3, 2010 10:32 AM PDT by Stephen Shankland, CNET News - Deep Tech.

It’s a full three inches smaller than the Apple iPad, which was touted as a killer of the White Unicorn, the Samsung Galaxy Tablet has now shot itself in the foot by blitzkrieg via all four (4) Telecom Providers, namely AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile on US$200 to (2) year contracts as stated in the article “Success of Samsung Galaxy Tab Doomed by Carrier Contracts”, published by Monday September 6 2010, 9:16 am ET by Tony Bradley, Yahoo! News and a full battery life while playing 1080p of less than 10 hours.

More proof that the Apple iPad still has no game as stated in the article “No iPad Killer Coming Until 2012, Says iSuppli”, published Thursday August 26, 1:59 pm ET, Barbara E. Hernandez , Yahoo! News.

Imagine that! Silicon Valley beaten by a UWI student with ONLY a Degree in Electronics and Chemistry from the University of the West Indies (2005 to 2009) and a Diploma in Electronics and Telecommunications form UTECH (1997 to 2000). No PhD. Holy smokes Batman. Just Imagination ALONE! Wait till news about the other modifications that I made to Batman’s………..er, I mean, CEO Steve Jobs’ …………….other gadgets also soon to get their long overdue Refresh in 2011.

I do have a tinge of fear, though, as the level of secrecy surrounding what is just supposed to be a simple press release seems a bit ominous. In my mind, the only true contender for the throne against Apple is Apple’ previous builder of Chipsets, Motorola as stated in the article “Motorola most likely iPad rival”, published August 22, 2010 11:00 AM PDT by Brooke Crothers, Nanotech - CNET News for whom I also had suggested the design and branding for their Motorola Droid series of smart phones.

All they have to do is make their Motorola Droid bigger and on adding on additional peripherals, make sure to increase the power capacity of the batteries or augment it with spray on solar panels, similar to the nanotechnology employed by Solexant as stated in the article “Spray-on films turns glass into Solar panels”, published August 19, 2010 1:09 PM PDT by Juniper Foo, CNET News – Crave mentioneded in the article “Solexant funded to print trthin-film Solar Cells”, published June 4, 2010 8:50 AM PDT by Martin LaMonica, CNET News - Green Tech, to maintain the 10 hour battery life while playing full video playback.

The other considerations are mostly aesthetics: “zippy” OS, Google Chrome or Android OS 2.3 aka Gingerbread, Apps Store baked in optimized to use up the larger screen real estate and sell it for one low flat price, preferably below US$699; it should have a Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n) only version and a Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n) + 4G (LTE and WiMax preferably), no contracts and a thirty (30) day subscription for the Data plan and most importantly, be on Telecom Provider Verizon Data Network. Simple.

Thus RIM decision, as rumoured, to ditch their rather sluggish Blackberry 6.0 OS for a OS made by military contractor QNX Software Systems,  a complete unknown reputed to be capable of giving a iOS a run for its money in the “zippy” department may make me a bit fearful, but not worried.

From reading their previous modus operandii, I realize that QNX Software Systems are just a bunch of button pressing engineers, most likely with PhD and no knowledge of aesthetics and basic power engineering as stated in the article “RIM Readies Its Answer to iPad”, published SEPTEMBER 21, 2010 By PHRED DVORAK And TING-I TSAI, The Wall Street Journal Most importantly, they most likely do not know what customers want.

Typical engineers are going to “engineer” up something that does not click with customers, hoping that the graphics will “wow” the customers, not realizing that with Android now entrenched in the market, it would have been much better to grow brand recognition than the guts-and-glory bravado of engineering, especially in this area of consumer electronics, where the customer is STILL king, and will not accept anything less than the best.

Whatever RIM CEO Lazardis wishes to dish out with his 7” tablet, again another small tablet, as far as the rumours go, it will be riding the “fail whale”, as the Americans say in their rather colorful English, like the other tablets, including the recently debut tablet or flip laptop from Dell as stated in the video by CNET Buzz Report, aired Thursday September 16^th 2010, by Molly Wood, Senior Executive Editor, CNET News, CBS (http://www.cnet.com). Secrecy on the part of RIM only indicates fear.

They are afraid of the Apple iPad and desperately need a winner after the 21’st Century upgrade in the form of the Blackberry 9800 Torch on Telecom Provider AT&T with its Two (2) year contract for a reasonable US$199 as per the article “RIM looks to make a splash with $199 touchscreen BlackBerry Torch”,  published Tuesday August 3 2010 by Ben Patterson, Yahoo Technology Writer, Yahoo! News got…….well….torched as per the article “RIM Halves BlackBerry Torch Price to Boost Sales”, published Monday August 16, 7:24 pm ET by Barbara E. Hernandez, Yahoo! News.

Further confirmation is provided in the article “BlackBerry Torch already being sold at discount”, published August 17, 2010 8:14 AM PDT by Don Reisinger, Yahoo! News - The Digital Home!

The only challenger and potential iPad Assassin that Apple Ninja Steve Jobs fears is the one true Apple iPad killer: The Black Knight in the form of the Motorola LightSaber. Until then, Motorola! CEO Steve Jobs will be practicing on throwing his shruiken so that he can silently take out the guards at the “secret” RIM Press kit in San Francisco.