BlackBerry chief executive officer Thorsten Heins has growled menacingly (well, spoken to some tech hack) about how RUBBISH the iPhone is and how AMAZING BlackBerry is. To be fair, it’s not like he’s the only CEO to do this, and Heins does at least give Apple device a backhanded compliment:

Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market … They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon. There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that

He then followed up with:

And that’s why, for the most part, we’re copying Apple as much as possible.

Ha! Only joking! What Heins really said is Apple is doomed, he tells you, doomed. Here’s why:

History repeats itself again I guess … the rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly.

Ah, the old ‘Apple isn’t innovating but everyone else is—at light speed’ claim. Or, in this case, ‘Apple did innovate once, in June 2007, but has not remotely innovated since, the lazy gits’.

The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old.

Which would be terrible if that were entirely accurate, because, as everyone knows, it’s much more fun when interfaces radically change every six seconds, rather than improving through gradual and reasoned iteration. I for one am looking forward to my BlackBerry car, which replaces the steering wheel with a gestural system that requires me to mimic exciting karate moves, and eschews a gear stick in favour of an innovative Whac-a-Mole system, which is “far more fun” than just yanking a stick.

Paul Smith, Financial Review’s scribe for the aforelinked piece stopped quoting at this point, but nonetheless summed up another Heins nugget:

Mr Heins said one area that the new BlackBerry phones had surpassed the iPhone was in the ability to multi-task—running multiple apps at once—meaning that users could work in the same fashion on their smartphone as they liked to on a laptop.

There’s part of a good point in here. iOS is great for focussing on tasks, and its ability to perform certain basic tasks (audio playback, say) in the background but freeze others so to not kill battery life is useful, but it’s clear some people need a more traditional computing experience while working. On an iPad, having two-up app views could definitely be handy for performing certain tasks, although the user interface could take a kicking from a simplicity standpoint. But here’s the bit where it goes a bit squiffy for Heins:

… users could work in the same fashion on their smartphone as they liked to on a laptop

How big are these new BlackBerry devices? Do they have a battery the size of a truck?

Different devices solve different problems, and although an iPad or other tablet can conceivably be considered a laptop replacement if you’ve the right apps and services, the mind boggles that anyone could consider a smartphone a laptop replacement. And even if you get pedantic and argue Heins was merely saying BlackBerry would allow people to work similarly to how they do on a laptop, user experience isn’t always (or even often) about giving people what they want, but what they need.

Then there’s the reality of the system’s multitasking, which, when you do a direct comparison, doesn’t appear significantly different from multitasking on competing platforms anyway. Versus iOS, it appears there’s more potential to keep entire apps running in the background (a battery drain), gestures to move between them (available on the iPad, but not the iPhone—yet), and live thumbnail previews in the BlackBerry’s equivalent of an app switcher (versus iOS icons in the admittedly not very discoverable and very basic multitasking tray—something Apple could do with improving).

So it’s not very laptop-like and, from what I’ve seen so far, is really a case of gradual and reasoned iteration—exactly what I like in technology. Quite why Heins felt the need to trash iOS and claim it never evolved, then, is beyond me.

Also, to all commentators that are yelling about how BlackBerry’s now going to give iOS and Android a kicking, you might be wise to realise that companies do not sit still and let rivals take a lead. You can bet if Apple or Google has some improved multitasking ideas waiting in the wings (and, in Apple’s case in particular, if they don’t compromise the overall experience of the system), we’ll see them soon enough; any lead Heins thought BlackBerry had will be short-lived. Still, at that point I’m sure we can look forward to tech hacks running with a billion stories a second on how Apple ripped off BlackBerry (and precisely no stories if Google does the same, because that doesn’t get people rapidly clicking on links, in order to get annoyed about what they subsequently read).

Wired today has a small article on the three things Samsung needs to overtake Apple. Writer Christina Bonnington explains that Samsung is “almost there” in overtaking Apple (admittedly in part due to its substantially larger marketing budget, which Apple could match if Tim Cook acquires a penchant for flinging shit at walls and seeing what sticks). All it needs are the following three things:

Industrial design

Complete control over the consumer experience

Brand power

Sadly, the list appears to be missing a fourth entry, which is “a sneaky copy of Apple’s roadmap, so Samsung can copy what Apple’s going to do, before Apple does it itself,” along with a fifth entry, which is “figure out how to sell it to people without accidentally forgetting that it’s no longer the 1950s”.

I’ve had a bunch of people alert me to Stuart Campbell’s latest gaming piece, When games aren’t expensive enough. He presents a counterpoint to the negative reaction regarding Real Racing 3’s business model, which has irked many gamers.

That app is the latest in the well-regarded (although, in my opinion, somewhat dull) mobile ‘simulator’ racing series. Instead of being sold at a premium price point, it’s gone freemium. The app throws up relatively arbitrary doorslams, which you can get past by throwing money at the game. Reviews have so far been decidedly mixed, with Eurogamer being the most scathing.

Even broadly positive Real Racing 3 reviews (such as TouchArcade’s) grumble about the freemium structure, and so it’s surprising that Campbell argues of EA’s decision:

[It], contrary to what you might think, is a good thing.

His argument, though, doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me. He rightly notes EA’s financial model is essentially designed around gouging and that Real Racing 3 will make a lot of money. But the conclusion is flawed:

their existence is mana from Heaven for the rest of us, because they provide the long-term means by which the price of games can finally come down, at the sole expense of stupid people. By having braying cheats with too much money contribute most of the funding for big-budget “free-to-play” games, the likes of EA secure the funding which lets them make normal games cheaply.

The mistake is in thinking EA has any intention of continuing with making normal games, when the company’s CFO has explicitly stated all future EA games will feature microtransactions. Even the likes of Tetris aren’t safe. A year ago, I wrote about the new iOS Tetris and how it was wrecked by microtransactions, and the upcoming Tetris Blitz appears to be far more heavily in the freemium space. When these games make money, why will EA ‘risk’ making any ‘normal’ games that are released for a fixed price and that lack gouging? And when iOS device owners regularly baulk at a new game costing a few quid, why will other companies risk not following suit? Why wouldn’t they instead gradually chip away at gaming’s soul and replace the bits that fall off with components from a cynical, hateful business model?

Cambell argues:

[Every] penny they’ll happily hand over is a penny that the rest of us don’t have to pay in order to keep a stream of videogames that cost less than a bar of chocolate coming our way until the end of time. […]

So hurray for Real Racing 3. It’s a shit game that sucks money out of dimwits and to all intents and purposes gives it to you and me, so that we can spend it on vastly more enjoyable ones that cost literally pennies. Why would you be upset about that?

But in reality, we’ll just end up with loads of crappy games and nothing to spend money on, because everyone will be obsessed with gouge-oriented freemium garbage that’s a business model first and barely a game second.

A design exploration by Peter Zigich has been doing the rounds on tech blogs, exploring a possible future for the iPhone line. His aims were to improve on the iPhone 5, compete with cheap smartphones and also take on ‘phablets’—a very tall order. However, the ideas Zigich comes up with are often problematic.

His first thought is that the iPhone Home button takes up too much space, and so he repositions it on the side of the device. Presumably realising this causes problems for people who use their device with the hand that would cover the button, he then duplicates it on the other side of the device. From an ergonomic and usability perspective, this often-used button would become, at best, awkward in that position. Also, with Apple devices getting skinnier with each iteration, this design takes a discoverable, satisfyingly clickable, necessary button and makes it much smaller along with placing it in the realm of ‘secondary’ interaction. It’s no longer front-and-centre, but in a place where controls live that only occasionally need to be used. From an engineering perspective, you’re now also complicating matters with two identical buttons and also doubling the risk of failure through what was previously a single set of mechanical components. (On Twitter, @jseths also points out this would cause major problems regarding cases.)

The sole benefit from this change is a larger display, because the space originally taken by the Home button is now freed up. Again, though, this feels wrong from an ergonomic standpoint. I recently wrote about not being convinced by the iPhone 5’s form factor, but turning the area currently occupied by the Home button into a space for very regular interaction would require some spectacular thumb gymnastics. Zigich also complicates matters with ideas such as adding functions that combine the multiple home buttons, such as:

double click left Home button then single click right Home button

On this blog, I still get plenty of traffic for instructions on using AirPlay with the BBC iPlayer app, due to the AirPlay button’s poor discoverability. The thought of double-clicking one button and then single-clicking another is clearly a non-starter.

Zigich then expands the line-up. Along with his revised iPhone 6 (more or less the iPhone 5 minus its home button), he adds the iPhone 6 Mini (an iPhone 6 with two rows of icons hacked off) and an iPhone 6 XL (an iPhone 6 with a display that could accommodate five icons across and seven down, plus the Dock). This looks like a wet dream for anyone who wants the iOS device ecosystem to mirror Android, but some kind of nightmare for developers, who’d suddenly be faced with dealing with more resolutions and screen ratios. From a manufacturing standpoint, this would also be tricky; and from a user perspective, you’d have issues relating to buyer’s doubt and also basic usability with the larger model.

That said, the iPhone 6 Mini has some interesting ideas. The screen Zigich has used is identical to the one in the iPhone 4, it’s very pocketable, and it looks useful for people with small hands. That said, the lack of the existing Home button would, as already noted, be an issue. (My hope for another iPhone in the line-up remains a retooling of the iPhone 4 form factor, for the most part.) The iPhone 6 XL, on the other hand, just looks ridiculous. Zigich calls it “perfect for one-handed use”, although neglects to add “for giants”, and it strikes me as something Apple wouldn’t bother with, unless Cook went nuts and decided to fight for a relatively niche market (say, people who want to do a modern recreation of Dom Joly’s cell phone sketch).

Zigich’s final suggestion is to amend iOS. He complains finding apps on iOS is getting complicated, with the average user having 100–150 apps on their device. I’d personally like to yell “citation needed” at this point, given that I imagine the majority of iPhone users have significantly fewer apps than that. What’s odder, though, is his concept that he says could solve this:

In a few easy clicks users can, narrow the search for the right app on ther phone (even if you have 1000 applications installed). I call this process “Distill”

Maybe I’m going mad, but I’m pretty sure Apple already called that ‘Spotlight’.

Apple is doomed without Steve Jobs and its grip on tablets and smartphones has been weakened as Android sinks its teeth into corporate and consumer markets. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft.

Figures released today show Android’s share of the pie has grown from [SUB: PLEASE INSERT 2011’S PITIFULLY SMALL FIGURE HERE] to a whopping [SUB: PLEASE INSERT 2012’S SLIGHTLY LARGER FIGURE], showing how the iPad is struggling to compete against the robust, flexible, exciting Android ecosystem. [SUB: CHECK WITH ADS—SEE IF WE CAN MAKE OUR SPONSORS LESS OBVIOUS] Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft.

[SUB: ADD SOMETHING HERE ABOUT APPLE IPAD SHARE. TRY TO BURY IT. WE DON’T WANT DICKS LIKE GRUBER FIGURING OUT WHAT WE’RE DOING] Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft. Argle wargle bargle fargle. Blah blah blah blah. Wibble fweee. Burble burble burble pffft.

So, as you can see, 2013 is going to be a very tough year for Apple. It’s hard to see how Tim Cook will see out the year as CEO, and unless Apple reinvigorates a new market by the summer, I predict AAPL will be trading under $5.