iMessage ready to grab BB Users Article
iMessage: iPhone 5 release date attracts BlackBerry users as RIM folds : Beatweek Magazine
BlackBerry users who didn�t already get the message that their platform is crumbling even as Apple looks to woo them with the forthcoming launch of the iPhone 5 now have additional evidence which should serve to drive the iMessage home. RIM, the company which makes BlackBerry, just laid off more than ten percent of its workforce even at a time when the overall smartphone market is booming. That�s a sign that RIM, which is a comparatively tiny company in comparison to smartphone competitors like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, is in a uniquely self-created mess. It�s also a sign that the BlackBerry line of phones, which an increasing number of longtime users have begun to decry as being outdated once they get a look at the iPhone 4 their friends are using, is no longer a safe bet for users when it comes to investing in another BlackBerry phone along with BlackBerry-specific apps which they won�t be able to take with them if and when the RIM ship sinks.
But Apple isn�t banking on BlackBerry refugees choosing the iPhone 5 over other options like the Android or Windows Phone 7 by default. Multiple steps are being taken by the iPhone maker in order to court BlackBerry users. The most blatant of which is the launch of an iOS 5 feature called iMessenger, a service which is meant to be a replacement for the �BlackBerry Messenger� service which RIM offers to its users. While very few non-BlackBerry users have any knowledge of this service or have even so much as heard of it, some BlackBerry users have cited it as their primary remaining reason for sticking with RIM. By launching iMessenger even as most outside the RIM world are merely shrugging at it, Apple is making a clear play for getting BlackBerry users to switch to the iPhone 5 with this feature.
There are other moves involved as well. While current BlackBerry users are spread out among all four major U.S. carriers, the iPhone was long tied strictly to AT&T. This prevented most outbound BlackBerry users from moving to the iPhone without changing carriers, and many of them ended up on Android as a result while others opted to remain with BlackBerry until the iPhone finally finds its way to their carrier. Apple has solved more than half that problem by setting up Verizon to have the iPhone 5 from day one after having soft-launched the iPhone 4 on Verizon a few months ago. And while Sprint and T-Mobile are small enough that they don�t have as many customers as Verizon combined, Apple may still need to expand the iPhone 5 to both of them in order to ensure that BlackBerry users who are ready to divorce RIM end up with an iPhone 5 instead of an Android, which is already available in various variants on all four carriers.
As to the final piece of the BlackBerry puzzle, the one in which users swear they�ll never be able to leave their physical thumb-board keyboard behind, Apple has an iMessage of a different kind: get over it. Former BlackBerry users who�ve found their way to the iPhone have generally concluded that the iPhone�s virtual keyboard is more sophisticated and modern tool than the tiny physical keys embedded into the BlackBerry, and after a brief period of adjustment, have been just fine in time. In other words, those looking for Apple to add a physical keyboard to the iPhone 5 are as outdated in their thinking as RIM is in its products. Here�s more on the iPhone 5.