RIM Wants Taste of the Tablet Market, Will Take on the iPhone Too

Posted 06/16/2010 at 5:39am | by Paul Lilly

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It's probably fair to say that Research in Motion (RIM) has Apple envy, but then again, so do a lot of mobile companies. We say this in part because, if we're to believe a report in The Wall Street Journal, RIM plans to claim a slice of the tablet pie that's now dominated by Apple.

Naturally RIM is unwilling to confirm or deny the report, but citing people familiar with RIM's plans, the WSJ says the tablet device will serve as a larger-screen companion to its BlackBerry, which sounds an awful lot like the iPad, which serves as a larger-screen companion to the iPhone/iPod touch. Still in the early stage of development, the BlackBerry tablet, or whatever it will be called, will connect to cellular networks by tethering to BlackBerry phones, and it could be ready by the end of the year.

But it's not just the iPad that has RIM's design team working overtime, the company is reportedly working ferociously to build other devices and software to gain back market share from Apple. One of these devices is a touch-screen smartphone with a slide-out keyboard, which makes sense given that RIM and their BlackBerry phones are perhaps most famous for the hardware keyboards. The phone will sport a new version of the BlackBerry OS and purportedly will work like the iPhone, meaning you'll be able to swipe your way through screens and menus, enlarge images with your fingers, and so forth. You can also expect a universal search bar that will comb through not only the phone, but online data too, the WSJ says.

More details here.

Image Credit: sizlopedia.com