Friday, October 01, 2010

Tablet computers: Chasing King Apple | The Economist

Have you seen any net-positive RIM PlayBook press coverage?…

In spite of all this, RIM’s new baby is unlikely to become a bestseller because it suffers from at least two handicaps. The first is that at launch it will have only Wi-Fi connectivity built in. Users wanting to connect via a mobile service will have to link their tablets to a BlackBerry device and connect through that. This will make the PlayBook less appealing to people who are not already RIM customers.

The second handicap is more serious. Simply put, consumers will have relatively little to play with on their PlayBooks. Developers have been working overtime to churn out apps for the iPad and for the growing number of tablets that will use Android. Apple’s tablet can also tap into the several hundred thousand apps already available for the popular iPhone too. So the PlayBook’s apps library—with the exception of its business-related offerings—is likely to look anaemic alongside those of its main competitors.

Tablet computers: Chasing King Apple | The Economist

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