BlackBerry CEO Sees Tablet Advantages, Aims to Improve Usage Ease

By Joshua Cheng
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BlackBerry Conference, Tuesday, May 14, 2013, in Orlando, Fla. John Raoux / AP

Blackberry CEO Thorsten Heins said on Tuesday that the company is looking at the future of tablets and investing R&D dollars into those projects.

“We believe in a single element of mobile computing: one on your hip,” Heins said during a Q&A session with the media at the BlackBerry Live conference in Orlando, Florida.

However, Heins said last month that he didn’t see a place for tablets in five years.

In a brief interview with CNET, Heins explained, “The industry got stuck on the term tablets.” Despite his prior comments, he does see a role with larger-screen devices. “We want to create something that’s easier to use.”

Hein’s goal is to create a device that relies on the BlackBerry as the brain; the tablet could be a larger screen without an OS of its own, the CNET reported.

BlackBerry launched its PlayBook tablet, but it flopped and failed to bring in the expected growth. It lacked the key BlackBerry features, such as e-mail and instant messenger service.

While the company is working on developing more advanced form of its tablet, Heins isn’t eager to come out with another tablet.

“The pure hardware play isn’t making a lot of sense today,” he said, according to CNET.

During the keynote presentation, Heins said he expects the BlackBerry 10 to be embedded in other devices, such as cars, a scenario that the showed off.

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