The price of Blackberry’s tablet has recently dropped by 60% at retailers such as Best Buy and Sears. The cheapest model is now $200, down from the $500; such a dramatic cut is alarming for the Playbook’s future, which was considered RIM’s only real hope in reviving its crippling franchise. Originally criticized for being hastily released, the tablet lacks Blackberry’s strongest features such as email and calendar applications.

Nevertheless, many reviews have touted it as a smooth and snappy piece of technology, and predicted it to be one of the iPad’s strongest competitors. Why, then, has this project failed so miserably? Blame it on a fruit.

The tablet market was created by Apple with the introduction of the iPad; while it was new and “revolutionary”, as Steve Jobs likes to say, it was really just an enlarged iPod Touch. The foundations were there – all they needed was a powerful marketing pitch. I feel that it’s because of this fact, and Jobs’ skill at making the consumer feel the need to have his product, that the iPad succeeded so tremendously. The latter enjoyed enormous first mover advantage, and all other mobile tech companies have been struggling to catch up since.

For more info, see The Globe & Mail and their video review.