Blackberry’s CEO Calls iOS’ UI Dusty And Old

There seems to be a fair of banter going on in the smartphone world these days, especially with the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4 which saw many manufacturers taking shots at each other, trying to outdo the competition. In the latest bout of potshots, Blackberry’s CEO Thorsten Heins, in an interview with the Australian Financial Review, was quoted as saying that the iPhone is no longer considered to be the state-of-the-art smartphone that it once was, and is actually starting to look a little “dusty”. “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 […] The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about, is now five years old.”

Heins does admittedly have a point. iOS has not really changed that much since the day it was introduced. Sure there are new features added, slight tweaks to the UI, but generally speaking it looks almost the same since day one. Of course the argument could be made for, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but with platforms such as Blackberry 10, Android and Windows Phone offering alternatives, perhaps Apple could do well to provide a more significant update. Heins did go on to acknowledge Apple’s success, “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.” What do you guys think? Do you agree that iOS is starting to look a bit “old”?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: BlackBerry, iOS