Steve Jobs was wrong to dismiss seven-inch rivals to the iPad, according to Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive of BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion.
Jobs, the Apple chief executive, said this week that a seven-inch screen, with less than half the area of the iPad, “isn’t sufficient to create great tablet apps” and as a result most rivals to Apple’s tablet will be “DOA, Dead on Arrival”.
Jobs also said the BlackBerry has fallen behind in the smartphone market and will struggle to catch up.
Balsillie issued a prompt rejection of Jobs’ claims, largely based on Apple’s decision not to allow Flash on its mobile devices.
“We know that seven-inch 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,” Balsillie said.
“We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of web sites that use Flash.”
Apple has, to date, sold more than 7.5 million Flash-free iPads, almost 74 million Flash-free iPhones and several million more Flash-free iPod touches. RIM announced its Playbook tablet last month, which it said will ship early next year.
Balsillie also said that Jobs was wrong to suggest that BlackBerry phones have been eclipsed by the iPhone. Jobs said RIM had sold 12 million handsets in its last quarter, compared to 14 million iPhones.
“Apple’s preference to compare its September-ending quarter with RIM’s August-ending quarter doesn’t tell the whole story because it doesn’t take into account that industry demand in September is typically stronger than summer months,” said Balsillie.
“As usual, whether the subject is antennas, Flash or shipments, there is more to the story and sooner or later, even people inside the distortion field will begin to resent being told half a story.”
Balsillie shares CEO responsibilities at RIM with the company’s founder, Mike Lazaridis.
At least his response to Jobs’s comments was in English. Andy Rubin, Google’s vice president of engineering who oversees the Android mobile OS, opened a Twitter account to in which he explained what Google means by “open”.
“mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make,” which is the code required to download the Android source code.
In fact his response was misplaced. Jobs didn’t dispute Android’s openness — he only queried whether that was necessarily the best option for consumers.
But, former Facebook and Firefox developer Joe Hewitt does disputed Google’s claim to openness.
“Until Android is read/write open, it’s no different than iOS to me. Open source means sharing control with the community, not show and tell,” he wrote on Twitter.
Incidentally, Hewitt is no fan of Apple, having quit as developer of Facebook’s iPhone app in protest at the App Store review process.
