Originally Posted by
jlsparks As always, I have nothing but respect for JRS. Her technical and operational knowledge surpass 99.5% of CB members (myself included); she's extraordinarily adept at identifying flaws in RIM's firmware (or, at a minimum, relaying those flaws to CB); and she has access to information I don't.
That said, I take away the positive from your analysis. Specifically, that RIM is focusing on designing and developing for 512K+ devices. Broadly speaking this is a very, very, very good thing. To complain about lack of development on one hand, and complain about new development on the other, doesn't leave much wiggle room for you. I know you're really trying to be helpful, to share knowledge, and to inform, but to those (many) who don't have the mildest grasp on the inner working of tech a thread like this can have the unanticipated effect of creating fear, loathing, and misunderstanding.
Last week RIM reiterated its collaborative efforts with carriers to push out 5.0 to every device that can handle it. I'm wondering what's materially changed during the past week that would contradict RIM's restatement of their prior assertions.
For me it's sort of a Moore's Law type of situation, coupled with planned obsolescence. That is, app memory on smartphones has fairly closely followed Moore's Law, just as digital camera tech has, just as data storage tech has, et cetera. But, as with Moore's, you can't carry exponentials out forever. In smartphones though we're no where close to approaching the limits under Moore's. Therefore, it's only natural for not only RIM, but *all* manufacturers, to be 18-24 months ahead of release, at a minimum. No doubt there are 1MB+ RIM devices floating around in Waterloo. It seems like this is a perfect time for RIM to do what I've begged (as if I have any pull :p); namely, cut the losers and the fat from the global product line. Trim to 3-4 hard kb and 2 TS models. Do so over the next 12 months and you allow breathing room to accomplish everything you've said you're going to do, plus you'll decrease the current level of device/OS fragmentation, plus you'll make life easier for your own and the carriers' ccserv departments, plus you'll have fewer pissed off customers, since so many replace their handsets annually (or more quickly) now.
/monologue