The story of the Torch contacts list debacle is just astounding. How on earth could a system ship with redundant, easily-desynchronized versions of the contacts database? To me, that says the architectural problems run deep, and further, that there's no effective user experience apparatus in place to even try to deal with the usability problems that inevitably bubble up from it.
One thing the author doesn't really touch on, though, is the acquisitions that would appear to be directed right at remedying these problems. QNX has already been integrated into the Playbook, and by all appearances it's destined for BlackBerries, where hopefully it will sport things like a non-ludicrous contacts list API. The acquisition earlier this month of Swedish UI design firm TAT shows they understand that need, and could actually be a huge turnaround if TAT is actually given enough latitude within the company.
One thing the author doesn't really touch on, though, is the acquisitions that would appear to be directed right at remedying these problems. QNX has already been integrated into the Playbook, and by all appearances it's destined for BlackBerries, where hopefully it will sport things like a non-ludicrous contacts list API. The acquisition earlier this month of Swedish UI design firm TAT shows they understand that need, and could actually be a huge turnaround if TAT is actually given enough latitude within the company.