Following news that RIM made an initial build of its QNX-based OS simulator available for Windows and Mac, company Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis demoed RIM’s tablet live for the first time this morning at the Adobe MAX show. When RIM announced its upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet last month, the company chose not to demo the device (because it didn’t have any working prototypes on hand) and caught a good amount of criticism as a result. Following the ordeal, we imagine prepping a live demo became a priority and today, RIM can finally check that milestone off its list. Hit the break for a video of the PlayBook being demoed on the big screen at Adobe MAX and let us know what you think.

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Apple and Blackberry have recently been involved in a war of words over the touchy subject of tablets and market-share. However, according to a report by Strategy Analytics, the numbers are stacking in Cupertino’s favor. The report indicates that Apple has shipped 14.1 million iPhones in the third quarter of 2010. BlackBerry on the other hand shipped only 12.3 million handsets in the same period. This is the first time Apple has outdone their fruity counterparts on a quarterly basis. Nokia still retains their top spot, shipping an impressive 26.5 million smartphones in the quarter. These figures add insult to injury, following Steve Jobs’ tirade on BlackBerry during last weeks conference call.

“We’ve now passed RIM. And I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future. They must move beyond their area of strength and comfort, into the unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company. I think it’s going to be a challenge for them to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform after iOS and Android. With 300,000 apps on Apple’s App Store, RIM has a high mountain ahead of them to climb” — Ouch!

BlackBerry is slated to launch the Bold 9780 and Style 9670 soon, yet it remains to be seen whether RIM has the chops to stay competitive in this cut-throat ever-evolving smartphone market.

UPDATE: There was an inaccuracy in the iPhone sales figures quoted by LoopInsight. The correct number of iPhones sold in Apple’s Q4 FY2010 was 14.1 million, not 15.4 million.

[Via LoopInsight]

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As you can clearly see, no, we didn’t snag the royal purple BlackBerry Style, but Sprint and RIM were nice enough to hook us up with a steel grey (also known as black) unit, and we’re up and running. After a quick Enterprise Activation, the emails are flowing like wine. But there are no beautiful women instinctively flocking like the salmon of Capistrano — yet. Here are some of our first impressions on the device we exclusively showed the world way back in April:

• It’s not as big as we figured it would be. The BlackBerry Style is a little thick, but not overly hefty, and definitely manageable.
• The keyboard is… not as great as we hoped, and expected, it to be. It’s good, more than usable, but it feels a bit like the Torch’s keyboard — not enough travel tactility. Maybe we’re spoiled by our Bold 9780, but even though the keyboard isn’t as good, it’s most probably better than your current phone’s QWERTY keyboard, so that’s a plus.
• The screen is just what you’d expect; you don’t really notice the fact it’s a lower-than-optimal resolution due to the fact that the screen size is much smaller than on the BlackBerry Torch. Also without a touch layer, the display looks a little thinner and sleeker. Colors look good, crisp, and clear.
• The external display by default when closed is a clock, and when you receive messages, you can simply page through them without having to open the handset, just like on the Pearl Flip. Definitely a nice feature.
• Here is what we’re not in love with in our limited time with the Style… talking on the phone. With the device flipped open, the ear speaker doesn’t fit right against your ear and face. It’s on a diagonal angle because the phone’s hinge sits under the body of the phone. For example, instead of the hinge forming a straight V-shape, the flip part sits under the main part of the phone, and this recessed hinge design doesn’t offer the most comfortable phone talking experience. We’ll let you know if we get used to talking on it more in our review.
• The camera is pretty decent, seems as if it’s the same sensor as the one in the BlackBerry Torch and the BlackBerry Bold 9780.
• There is a non-button in place of the left convenience  key button and it’s kind of irritating. Not because there is anything wrong with it, but because it looks like a button would work there, and you’re left with only the right convenience key as a result. [Update: it's the cover for the microSD slot]

All in all, for a $99 (with contract) BlackBerry smartphone rocking 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, a 5 megapixel camera, BlackBerry OS 6, a QWERTY keyboard, and more, it does feel like an improvement over the Curve series in many ways. Especially for the younger, hipper demographic, the BlackBerry Style doesn’t feel too much out of place in that context. We just wish Sprint and RIM would have launched a slightly less expensive BlackBerry data plan (just email and BBM) with the Style — those high schoolers, and their parents, wouldn’t be able to resist the new 9670. It goes on sale October 31st on Sprint.

Click on over to our BlackBerry Style 9670 hands on gallery!

BlackBerry Storm users on Verizon Wireless are still feeling the burn from the AT&T exclusive launch of the BlackBerry Torch. While not everyone has a hankering for a hybrid handset, owners of the Storm and Storm 2 were more than displeased to learn that RIM will not be updating either smartphone to the latest version of its OS, BlackBerry 6. While the imminent release of a new OS 6-powered touchscreen handset will merely be salt in the wound for some, others will be happy to learn that the Storm 3, so it would seem, is almost ready for prime time. The third coming of RIM’s popular touchscreen line, the BlackBerry Storm 3, has been spotted in Cellbrite — an internal system used by Verizon Wireless service technicians to transfer information between phones. In short, another piece of the puzzle is now in place and the BlackBerry 6-equipped Storm 3 may be hitting store shelves in the near future.

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Friendly reminder, folks… RIM’s latest candybar device and lower cost QWERTY 3G handset are now available for purchase from your friendly AT&T store. If you need a refresh on the products, here we go:

BlackBerry Pearl 9100

• SureType keyboard
• 3G
• Wi-Fi
• GPS
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• 1150mAh battery
• $149 with 2 year agreement

BlackBerry Curve 9300

• QWERTY keyboard
• 3G
• Wi-Fi b,g,n
• GPS
• 2 megapixel camera
• $99 with 2 year agreement

If you’re in the market for a BlackBerry handset from AT&T which one are you going to go for? Or do you think you’ll hold out for the BlackBerry Bold 9780?

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Sprint and BlackBerry have finally gone and made the BlackBerry Style 9670 official as of this morning. In case you’re forgetting the specifications on the device we first showed to the world, here they are… a full QWERTY flip phone rockin’ BlackBerry 6, 624MHz processor, 5 megapixel camera, GPS, and Wi-Fi b/g/n. The BlackBerry Style will also come in two colors on the nation’s first 4G carrier — steel grey and royal purple, just like we reported. If you’re looking for the purple variant, it won’t go on sale until “early November” but we’re sure most of the general public will be gunning for the grey handset anyway. As far as price, it’s just like we said — $99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and new 2 year cellular agreement. Full press release is after the break, folks!

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., and WATERLOO, Ontario – Oct. 18, 2010 – For the more than 100 million U.S. consumers who currently use a flip phone, Sprint (NYSE:S) and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM; TSX:RIM) today announced the much-anticipated BlackBerry^® Style™ 9670 smartphone. BlackBerry Style is an elegant, new flip smartphone featuring a full QWERTY BlackBerry^® keyboard, the new BlackBerry^® 6 operating system and a wide range of advanced communications and multimedia capabilities. It will be available in the United States only from Sprint beginning on Oct. 31.

The BlackBerry Style features a full QWERTY BlackBerry keyboard that makes email, messaging and real-time chats with BBM™ (BlackBerry^® Messenger) incredibly easy. It also comes with many advanced features, including a 5MP camera with flash and support for video recording, built-in GPS for location-based apps and geo-tagging, Wi-Fi^® for faster connectivity and extended data coverage, and an expandable memory slot for up to 32GB of additional storage.

“The beautiful and compact flip form factor on the BlackBerry Style smartphone makes it quite unique within the BlackBerry lineup,” said Fared Adib, vice president – Product Development, Sprint. “Customers will appreciate that the flip form factor is extremely easy to use for calls, and with a full QWERTY keyboard, it provides the same attractive features enthusiasts have come to expect from their smartphone. Also, with the enhancements available through BlackBerry 6, Sprint customers will love the new user interface and the enhanced Web browsing experience.”

The attractive new smartphone includes an optical trackpad for fluid navigation and boasts two large displays, an external screen for quickly viewing notifications and messages, and a high-resolution internal display that makes Web browsing or watching videos a pleasure. The BlackBerry Style smartphone will also be available in two fashionable colors – Steel Grey and Royal Purple.

“The flip form factor appeals to a very distinct but sizable set of consumers in the U.S., and we’re pleased to work with Sprint to bring this unique new BlackBerry smartphone to their customers,” said David J. Smith, vice president of Product Management, Research In Motion. “The new BlackBerry Style smartphone is a feature rich, premium BlackBerry smartphone that makes the perfect choice for Sprint customers who love the flip form factor but want advanced smartphone features and a full QWERTY keyboard.”

First Sprint Smartphone with BlackBerry 6

BlackBerry 6 features a redesigned interface that retains the familiar and trusted features that distinguish the BlackBerry brand, while delivering a fresh, approachable and engaging experience that’s powerful and easy to use. It includes expanded messaging capabilities with intuitive features to simplify the management of social networking and RSS feeds (Social Feeds) and provides integrated access to BBM, Facebook^®, Twitter™, MySpace™ and various instant messaging applications that are preinstalled on the BlackBerry Style smartphone.

BlackBerry 6 also integrates a new and rich WebKit-based browser that renders HTML Web pages (as well as HTML email) quickly and beautifully for a great browsing experience. It features tabs for accessing multiple sites simultaneously, mouse-like navigation with the optical trackpad and a zoom feature that intelligently auto-wraps text in a column, while maintaining the placement of a page’s key elements for easy viewing and navigation.

Universal search allows users to search through email, messages, contacts, music, videos and more on the smartphone, as well as extend searches to the Internet or to discover applications on BlackBerry App World™. The BlackBerry Style also includes a preinstalled YouTube app and Podcasts app.

Worry-Free Pricing

The BlackBerry Style smartphone will be available nationally on Oct. 31 for $99.99 (after a $100 mail-in rebate) with a new line or eligible upgrade and two-year service agreement with activation on a Sprint^® Business Advantage Messaging and Data plan or Everything plan with data. Sprint’s industry-leading Everything Data or Business Advantage Messaging and Data plans include unlimited Web, texting and calling on the Nationwide Sprint Network to every mobile in America with Any Mobile, Anytime^SM. Everything Data plans start at $69.99 per month (excluding taxes and surcharges).

With the Sprint Free Guarantee, customers can take advantage of the BlackBerry Style smartphone for 30 days. If not completely satisfied, customers may return the device within 30 days to get reimbursed for the device purchase and activation fee, get both the early termination and restocking fees waived, and receive a full refund for the monthly service plan charges.¹

Sprint is also offering customers an opportunity to reserve the Steel Grey BlackBerry Style smartphone for purchase beginning Tuesday, Oct. 19, while supplies last. The Royal Purple BlackBerry Style smartphone will be available in November.

Customers can reserve their smartphone for purchase at www.sprint.com/bbstyle.  Customers who reserve the BlackBerry Style smartphone will be able to complete their purchase beginning Sunday, Oct. 31, and must complete their purchase no later than 6 p.m. local time on Monday, Nov. 1. Through the reservation process, customers will be able to reserve their new BlackBerry Style smartphone online, pick it up in a Sprint Store and receive the full retail experience, including Sprint’s Ready Now service.

Application developers will have a chance to learn more about BlackBerry 6 at Sprint’s 10th annual developer conference. The Sprint Open Developer Conference, Oct. 26-28 in Santa Clara, Calif., is open to all attendees and will feature information on developing applications for a range of platforms, including BlackBerry 6. Developers can register for the conference at http://developer.sprint.com/devcon2010.

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If you’re one of those people who still prefer the brutal, sometimes primitive, efficiency of a BlackBerry device, listen up. It looks like RIM is starting to get their proverbial ducks in a row for a 9780 launch in the near future. One of our readers was kind enough to point out the mention of the Bold 9780 on RIM’s official website. Links to a “9780 Demo” and “9780 Announcement” are visible on the 9700′s support page… for the time being. The links don’t yield any interesting results, but it certainly is a good sign for those waiting for the handsets release. T-Mobile launched the 9700 ahead of AT&T earlier this year, which carrier do we think is getting the device first this time?

Thanks, T.D.!

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T-Mobile UK has jumped the gun and revealed pricing for the, BlackBerry OS 6-toting Bold 9780. The  Bold 9780 is the successor to the aging, but wildly popular Bold 9700. According to Electricpig, the new BlackBerry will be available before Christmas. The handset will be available for £0 ($0, if you convert) if you sign 2 years of your life away for a £30/month. Reasonable, no? However, we still don’t have any info on tariff details.

The three other major carriers in Blighty – O2, Orange and 3, have remained tight-lipped on availability. With the festive shopping season around the corner, you can expect all the major carriers to jump on-board

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One of our solid Sprint guys just shot us over this slide on the upcoming BlackBerry Oxford, the device we first showed the world, and the big news? A release date and price! Here is the breakdown: the BlackBerry Oxford (maybe “Style” wasn’t stylish enough?) is indeed a Sprint exclusive, and is set to launch on October 31st in the color Seattle grey. There will be a purple model being released in the near future, or as Sprint likes to put it, it’s “coming soon”. The BlackBerry 6-powered flip device will run you only $99.99 with a two year agreement after $100 mail-in-rebate. Not a bad price for a 5 megapixel-toting, full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi and GPS capable EV-DO Rev. A device, right? So let’s hear it — yay or nay on the Oxford, guys?

Today, AT&T announced that they will begin selling the BlackBerry Curve 3G and BlackBerry Pearl 3G in time for the holiday buying season. The Curve 3G (9300) will be available on an unspecified date — before December 25 — and will retail for $99.99 with a new 2-year contract (no mail in rebate required). The Pearl 3G (9100) will be available starting October 17 in stores and online and will retail for $149.99 on-contract (again, no rebate required). The devices will add to AT&T’s BlackBerry lineup which also includes the Bold 9700 and Torch 9800.

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Today, at the BlackBerry Developer Conference (DevCon), RIM CEO Mike Laziridis announced the BlackBerry Playbook. The PlayBook has a 7-inch hi-res widescreen display, is 9.7 mm thick, supports Flash 10.1 with hardware accelerated video, HTML 5, 1080p video, has non-proprietary HDMI and USB connections, full-HD front and rear-facing camera, support for dual-displays (with use of HDMI cable), will be able to connect with BlackBerry Enterprise Servers out of the box via Bluetooth secure pairing to BlackBerry. The device will have a 1 GHz dual-core processor (with symmetrical multiprocessing capabilities) and 1 GB RAM. The device OS, which is developed by QNX, is POSIX based and will get a native SDK which supports Adobe Air, Flash, and OpenGL 2.0.

Official Specifications

• 7” LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
• BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
• 1 GHz dual-core processor
• 1 GB RAM
• Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
• Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
• Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
• HDMI video output
• Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
• Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
• Ultra thin and portable: 
  • Measures 5.1”x7.6”x0.4” (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
  • Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
• Additional features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook will be shared on or before the date this product is launched in retail outlets.
• RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.

UPDATE: Video is after the jump.

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Today, at DevCon, RIM announced a host of new tools and services for its developers, including:

BlackBerry WebWorks™: RIM’s next-generation application platform enables developers to build full-featured applications for BlackBerry entirely in HTML-5, CSS and JavaScript.  BlackBerry WebWorks brings together existing tools, new tools and platform services for the creation of rich, integrated BlackBerry applications. Developers can leverage their existing HTML skill sets that take advantage of advanced features through APIs and services, just as BlackBerry Java® applications can do today.  This new platform merges the simplicity of HTML5 with the power of true multi-tasking, BlackBerry Platform services, true Push and more.

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM™) Social Platform: Developers can now build applications that take advantage of the BlackBerry smartphone’s social aspects, as well as the push architecture of the BlackBerry platform.   By leveraging the power and popularity of BBM, developers can weave functions – such as chat, content sharing and invitation – into their app, tying it directly to BBM.

BlackBerry Advertising Service: With just a few lines of code, developers can quickly and easily integrate advertising into their applications. Developers can include advertising in BlackBerry smartphone applications, while allowing advertisers, agencies and brands to work with a broad selection of advertising networks. RIM also is enabling new monetization opportunities to BlackBerry developers by simplifying the integration of advertising both on the development side and on the commercial side.

BlackBerry Analytics Service: RIM and Webtrends are offering a free enterprise-class analytics service for the BlackBerry developer community. BlackBerry Analytics Service will allow developers to quickly and easily add measurement into their applications and offer deep insight into how customer are using their BlackBerry smartphone applications.  With a few lines of code, developers can tie their applications to an analytics service with insights typically reserved for enterprise analytics.

BlackBerry Enterprise Application Middleware: This new enterprise application development platform is designed to accelerate the creation of “Super Apps” for commercial enterprise and corporate developers.  It simplifies enterprise application development and solves some of the challenges of building for mobility, including device OS compatibility and wireless connectivity.

BlackBerry Java Plug-In for MacOS X, which provides a similar level of Eclipse integration as the in-market 1.2 version for Windows;

Theme Builder 6, allowing users to personalize and brand their BlackBerry 6-enabled devices; and

BlackBerry Payment Service SDK, allowing developers to start building payment services into their applications, whether it’s enhanced in-app payments, try and buy offers, or freemium applications.

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Well, here is what we have confirmed: the keynote today, delivered by Mike Lazaridis, will focus on the next generation tablet OS platform. It won’t focus or really feature any hardware, unfortunately. Our source said it would be unlikely for RIM to announce the mysterious tablet device during a developer event. We agree. Is it possible there will be a shot of hardware on a slide during the presentation, or even a non-working device somewhere? It’s possible, but again, this will be about the platform, the developers, and software. Don’t count on a device announcement/availability.

Separately: we have heard the tablet OS is a pretty long way away from being completed. Also, the QNX-based OS that is rumored to extend to the traditional BlackBerry lineup is barely even started at this point; since internally it’s not confirmed that it will in fact power BlackBerry smartphones. We have also been told porting all of RIMs advancements like battery optimization, email compression, BES integration, etc. is a very tedious process.

Our friendly FedEx guy just dropped off a present for us — the BlackBerry Bold 9780, replacing the Bold 9700 sometime in the next month or so. As far as the physical changes, well, the device features a glossy jet black bezel, with everything else outside staying the same. We leaked an internal document highlighting the changes in the Bold 9780, and we can confirm that the device seems to be using an updated CPU, even if the clock speed is around 624MHz. The phone boots up very fast, even faster than our regular 9700 with OS 6. The 512MB of RAM in the handset leaves around 300MB free at device start up, and like we said before, OS 6 really works great on a non-touch device overall. We have a boot up comparison video of the current BlackBerry Bold 9700 with the upcoming BlackBerry Bold 9780 side by side as well as photos if you want to get your viewing on. It’s all past the break, folks!

Click on over to our BlackBerry Bold 9780 hands on gallery!

It’s getting a little clearer now… We reported that the Storm 2 would be getting a follow up device that is very, very similar to the existing model. What is looking almost confirmed now, is that the follow up device is a Storm 2 refresh and not the BlackBerry Storm 3. A new leaked OS screen shot seems to confirm this by showing off a model number of 9570. If that sounds familiar, its because the current model number for the existing Storm 2 is 9550. It appears RIM really needs OS 6 to run on a minimum of 512MB of RAM, and a quick hardware refresh will buy some time while the company prepares and finalizes their next OS strategy in addition to having slightly better hardware on the market.

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