RIM Responds to Apple's ‘Distortion Field’
For those of us who live outside of Apple's distortion field, we know that 7" tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience.
Context & Ripple Effects
RIM is answering Steve Jobs directly. In September the company was still quietly building its answer to the iPad; now, with the PlayBook's specs public, it has abandoned the caution of April, when its chief called the tablet market unclear (market unclear for tablets), and instead attacks the premise behind Apple's dismissal of 7-inch tablets.
The rebuttal landed the same week Apple extended the iPad line to Verizon's network (announced October 15, per confirmed reports), and it traveled fast: BetaNews ran 'What is Steve Jobs so afraid of?', while TechCrunch noted Android chief Andy Rubin firing his first-ever tweet at Jobs — evidence the argument is no longer RIM versus Apple but a coalition of rivals pushing back on Apple's framing.
First-order effects
- RIM has tied the PlayBook's identity to two bets Jobs explicitly dismissed — the 7-inch form factor and Adobe Flash support — meaning its upcoming launch will be judged as a referendum on those claims, not just on hardware quality.
- Adobe gains its highest-profile defender in the device market at the moment Apple's iOS continues to exclude Flash, turning a technical omission into a public positioning fight.
Second-order effects
- Google now has cover to join the attack openly — Andy Rubin's tweeted jab at Jobs, as picked up by TechCrunch, aligns Android with RIM's argument and pressures other tablet makers to declare which side of the 'real web experience' divide they sit on.
- Carriers and enterprise buyers evaluating tablets get a second, Flash-capable alternative pitched specifically against the iPad, giving Verizon-style distribution partners leverage to demand competitive terms across both platforms.
Third-order effects
- The tablet market is hardening into two camps — Apple's tightly controlled model versus a Flash-and-openness bloc led by RIM and Android — where marketing ideology, not just specs, becomes the basis of consumer choice.
- If the 7-inch segment does prove substantial, RIM's stance validates smaller tablets as a permanent category alongside the iPad; if it does not, RIM will have staked its first post-BlackBerry product on the losing side of the argument.
The trend: Mobile computing is splitting into an ideological contest between Apple's closed, Flash-free model and a rival bloc rallying around openness — with RIM's PlayBook as the first major test of whether the anti-Apple framing sells hardware.