Apple lacks innovation and its iPhone is “still the same”, according to BlackBerry’s chief executive Thorsten Heins who has finally launched the BB Z10 in the United States.
BlackBerry has a 5.9 per cent share of the US smartphone market, compared to Apple’s 38 per cent, but it did not stop Heins taking a shot at the American tech giant while speaking to the Associated Press on Thursday.
Heins specifically picked out the fact the iPhone could not multitask, unlike the new BB10 operating system which allows users to flip between apps and check emails without leaving other tasks.
Heins said: “It’s still the same. It is a sequential way to work and that’s not what people want today anymore. They want multitasking.”
He added: “We’re changing it for the better because we’re allowing people to peak in the hub.”
Heins also described the iPhone as “just kind of sitting there”.
The other BB10 device the Q10, which features the traditional BlackBerry physical QWERTY keyboard, is not expected to be launched for another two or three months.
While BlackBerry remains popular in Africa, its fall from grace in the States has been problematic and Heins sees its revival across the Atlantic as essential.
He added: “You got to win here to win everywhere else. That’s just the way it is. We’ve lost market share quite a bit, to put it mildly, and we absolutely need BlackBerry 10 to turn us around.”
