WATERLOO and NEW YORK – Some consider this the make-or-break device for Research In Motion.
Losing market share rapidly in the smart phone arena to Apple’s iPhone and the various devices running Google’s Android, Waterloo’s RIM joined forces with AT&T on Tuesday to launch both its new BlackBerry Torch slider handset (pictured) as well as BlackBerry 6, the company’s new operating system.
“Adept for socially connected consumers and packed with the tools business customers love, the new handset is the world’s first smartphone to combine a BlackBerry keyboard with a full touch screen experience. Whether users choose to type out messages on the capacitive touch screen or easy-to-use BlackBerry keyboard, browse the Internet using pinch to zoom or fluidly navigate with the optical trackpad, the BlackBerry Torch allows them to communicate any way they want,” reads the press release.
The device appears to contain just about everything an engineer can imagine. Whether or not it’s everything consumers will want remains to be seen.
Click here and here for the full releases on the Torch and BlackBerry 6 OS.
The company also announced today a new Java SDK to support BlackBerry 6 and provide developers with the tools that will enable them to create rich, visually appealing applications on the BlackBerry Application Platform and make it easier to integrate capabilities that have traditionally been difficult for developers. Those developers have instead been working on iPhone apps (250,000+) and Android (100,000+) and not Blackberry (~5,000).
Click here for more on that.
