Tabletberry? What are you, insane?

Crackberry.com is relaying a rumor that RIM has ordered a shitload of 8.9 inch touchscreens. Naturally, Twitter (myself included) starts firing up the Speculate-O-Tron 4000, and a virtual echo chamber is born. This dropped two hours ago and I’ve already seen enough “ZOMG RIM TO DROP TABLE NXT WEak!” tweets for 10 lifetimes.

After a nanosecond of consideration, I’ve decided this rumor HAS to be pure unadulterated BS. Tablets are based on USER INTERFACES, which is the LAST thing I’d expect RIM to competently execute. Sorry dudes, I love your hardware and services, but your antiquated interface design makes even the baby Jesus cry. Realistically, the result would make the Palm Foleo look like those little touch dealies Geordi rocks in engineering. Please RIM, don’t bother.

The second integral component of a tablet, is a software ecosystem. Have you taken a look at the Blackberry App world? Now go look at Apple’s and Android’s implementation. Do I need to even keep typing?

Let’s cut to the chase. If RIM distracts itself by developing a mediocre tablet, if will be the death knell for their phones. At this point, every resource they have should be focused on that effort. I think failing on one device type is sufficient for now, let’s not complicate things by adding another.

I’m sure there’s more news to come…..

UPDATE:

Boygenius is has just posted up some more information. It looks like this thing is the real deal, so let me join the masses dropping to their knees and screaming WHY????

The worst part? It’s being designed as a “companion” device, i.e. it will be your phone’s big goofy brother. I’m so depressed about this move that I’m going to stop typing now.