Less than a month before its first tablet computer goes on sale, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion announced that its PlayBook tablet will support applications written for Android, the operating system that powers many smartphones that compete with the BlackBerry.

The new 7-inch device -- to be launched April 19 -- will be smaller than Apple's hugely successful iPad. The PlayBook is a bid by RIM to snag a part of the growing tablet market at the same time that BlackBerry phones face increasing competition and slower sales growth as the iPhone and Android-based phones eat up more market share.

The PlayBook will support apps written for Android 2.3 and BlackBerry Java and will open up a wider field for both app users and developers. "The upcoming addition ... will provide our users with an even greater choice of apps and will showcase the versatility of the platform," RIM co-Chief Executive Mike Lazaridis said.

RIM posted fourth-quarter earnings Thursday of $934 million, or $1.78 a share. The company forecasted earnings for the current quarter ranging from $1.47 to $1.55 a share, which fell below analyst estimates. Its shares, which closed up $1.97, or 3.2%, at $64.09, plunged $6.70, or 10.4%, to $57.39 in after-hours trading.

RIM said that cheaper BlackBerry sales would make up a greater chunk of its revenue in the current quarter. The company also plans to sink more into research, development and marketing, with a special focus on the PlayBook.

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Photo: A BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Credit: Research in Motion

The BlackBerry PlayBook will start at $499, the same price as the Apple iPad, the current tablet-market leader.

And, Research In Motion also announced Tuesday morning that its 7-inch touchscreen tablet is also now available for preorder through Best Buy before the April 19 launch.

The PlayBook will be offered in three models with Wi-Fi connectivity: a 16-gigabyte unit for $499, 32-gigabyte for $599 or 64-gigabyte of storage for $699. This is the same storage-size-to-price structure as Apple's iPad tablet with Wi-Fi, which features a 9.7-inch touchscreen.

In the U.S., the BlackBerry PlayBook will be sold at: AT&T, Best Buy, Cbeyond, Cellular South, Cincinnati Bell, Office Depot, RadioShack, ShopBlackBerry.com, Staples, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and BlackBerry from Wireless Giant, RIM said in a statement.

In Canada, where Research In Motion is based, the PlayBook will be available at: Bell, Best Buy, Chapters / Indigo, Costco, Future Shop, Mobilicity, MTS Allstream, Rogers, Sasktel, Sears, ShopBlackBerry.com, Staples, Telus, Tbooth Wireless, the Source, Videotron, Wal-Mart, Wind Mobile, Wireless etc. and Wireless Wave.

The $499 entry level price seems to have been one of the iPad's strongest selling points, with many competitors such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Motorola Xoom coming in at a higher cost and not  offering Wi-Fi-only models.

The PlayBook, like the Galaxy Tab, features a noticeably smaller and more pocket-friendly form with its smaller screen than the iPad.

The BlackBerry tablet will weigh a little less than a pound and be less than 1/2-inch thick, feature a 1-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, 1080p HDMI output to a high-definition TV, dual 1080p HD cameras for photos and video with a 3-megapixel camera up-front and 5-megapixel camera on the back. (The iPad 2 has two cameras, but both are less than 1 megapixel in resolution.)

Research In Motion hasn't yet announced a launch date for a Wi-Fi and 3G model of the PlayBook, but it is expected and it's the 3G-capable model that wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon are likely to sell.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Twitter.com/nateog

Photo: A BlackBerry Playbook is demoed at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, 2011.Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The HP TouchPad, running WebOS, could be slick enough to attract more consumers than any individual Android tablets or the BlackBerry PlayBook -- but it has no shot at dethroning the Apple iPad, an analyst said Wednesday.

"Collectively, Android tablets are huge; the market is already flooded with them. But if you're looking not at the whole platform, but rather a one-to-one comparison, the TouchPad could make a good case for the No. 2 spot behind the iPad," said Sarah Rotman Epps, a tech analyst at Forrester Research. "The TouchPad could outsell the Motorola Xoom or the Samsung Galaxy Tab or the BlackBerry PlayBook."

A major advantage that Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad could have over tablets running Google's Android operating system is its screen size, Rotman Epps said.

"Every Android tablet is slightly different, and Honeycomb, the first version of Android optimized for tablets, isn't out yet," she said. "So what you've had so far is a smart-phone operating system on a bunch of tablets and not many Android apps actually built for tablet use."

The mix of inconsistent specs for Android tablets has made it tougher for developers looking to make tablet apps on Android, Rotman Epps said.

"What HP has to overcome is that the only apps out there built for tablets right now are really built for the iPad," she said. "If your tablet is going to succeed, it needs apps, and making the screen on the TouchPad the same size as the iPad should make it easier for developers to port apps over. If developers start doing that, then HP can build an app ecosystem which will attract consumers."

The screen size isn't the only specification that matches the iPad, she noted. Both the iPad and the TouchPad run on Wi-Fi and 3G Internet service, weigh 1.6 pounds and have processors running at about 1 GHz.

The TouchPad features a front-facing camera for video chat, and the next-generation iPad, which should hit retail sometime this year, is widely expected to also feature a camera on the front to utilize Apple's FaceTime video-chat standard.

"It is not at all a mistake on HP's part that the TouchPad and the iPad are so similar," Rotman Epps said. "HP is explicitly trying to compete with Apple in having its own hardware and having its own operating system. So far, Apple has been by far the most successful in the tablet space, and HP is looking to replicate that success on its own. Not with Android and not with Windows."

It's noteworthy, she said, that HP isn't offering its first consumer tablet with Microsoft's Windows 7 -- the same operating system that runs on its HP 500 Slate tablet aimed at business users.

"If you're making boxes that run Android or Windows, you have the problem of competing with all the other boxes that run Android of Windows," Rotman Epps said."But it does say something about the failure of Microsoft to position Windows 7 as a winning operating system for tablets that HP is willing to go out on its own with WebOS. This is really another missed opportunity for Microsoft in tablets."

Nothing HP announced on Wednesday puts it ahead of Apple, but the TouchPad running WebOS is a bet that its brand strength and retail channels are strong enough to compete with Apple, she said.

With HP attempting to build WebOS up as a major operating system for tablets and smart phones, the trimming of the Palm brand from the name and marketing of the new WebOS devices isn't a mistake either, the analyst said.

"People love Windows, and HP now has the challenge of convincing consumers to want HP devices that don't run Windows," Rotman Epps said. "HP is trying to differentiate itself and unbundle itself from Microsoft, and that means they're losing a bit of the Microsoft brand and marketing power that could have helped their tablets, but keeping the Palm name around wouldn't help them."

HP is a high-ranking brand and a name consumers trust, she said.

"Palm is not," Rottman Epps said. "In our studies, HP ranks pretty high and Palm always ranks pretty low. HP recognizes that in the U.S. and globally, it has a much stronger brand than Palm to try and build a tablet ecosystem on."

HP made a big deal of getting apps for Netflix and Amazon's Kindle on its WebOS phones and on the TouchPad when it announced the new devices on Wednesday during a news conference in San Francisco. Having an app for Netflix does put WebOS ahead of Android -- which still doesn't have an app that can stream video from the popular movie-and-TV-show subscription service.

But such apps are expected by consumers at this point, she said.

"Kindle and Netflix is not a differentiator, but it's necessary, and having them on board is what HP needs to do to gain serious consideration from consumers," Rottman Epps said.

And if HP can do that, then spending $1.2 billion to buy Palm last April could pay off.

Forrester has forecast that more than 24 million tablets will be sold in the U.S. in 2011, with the lion's share of them being the iPad. Apple sold more than 14 million iPad's last year, with 7.33 million units sold last quarter.

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Photo: HP Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, shows off the new HP TouchPad tablet during a Hewlett Packard WebOS press conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Feb. 9. Credit: Associated Press

Images: (Middle) The front of the HP TouchPad tablet and (bottom) the back of the device. Credit: Hewlett-Packard

Last year, 26% of apps on iPhones, iPads, Androids, BlackBerrys and Windows Phones were discarded after just one use, according to a study by a mobile app analytics firm.

"The thing that grabs headlines is 26% of people throughout the year only use it once, but you could turn this around and look at this as 74% of people use an app more than once," said Brian Suthoff, vice president of market development at Localytics, the company that performed the study. "It's actually very positive for developers. It shows that people are willing to try something out and test it and see if they like it on mobile devices."

Localytics, a firm that sells real-time analysis data of app usage to mobile app developers, conducted its study using data from only its customers. It didn't look at the usage rate of every app available -- which includes more than 400,000 iOS apps and more than 200,000 Android apps.

Suthoff declined to give an exact number of how many apps it looked at for the study, but said there were thousands.

The Boston-based company put out the study to help sell its own services, but also to question a bit the way the success of an app is measured, he said.

"As an analytics company we think that focusing on understanding how people engage with your app over a longer period of time is more important than looking at just the number of downloads an app has," Suthoff said. "Developers need to figure out what type of people use their apps and how to attract those type of people for the first time and as returning users. Raw download numbers don't tell the whole story."

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Photo: Jerry Penacoli looks at his iPad after purchasing it an an Apple store in Los Angeles. Credit: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times

BlackBerry Internet access has been reportedly blocked in Egypt on the third day of violent protests calling for political reform in the country.

On Tuesday, Twitter and Facebook were blocked by the Egyptian government, which has been run by President Hosni Mubarak for more than 30 years.

Mubarak's grip on power is a central issue fueling the protests, and demonstrators have demanded the 82-year-old leave office and that term limits be created as well.

The BlackBerry Web shut-down has been reported by Twitter users from Egypt who have accessed the site using third-party applications and other loopholes in the governments blocking of the site.

The take-down of the BlackBerry Web access was also reported by the site TechCrunch, which noted reports aren't clear whether all Internet usage has been blocked or just parts.

Officials at Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry smart phones, were not available to comment on the Internet service blocks Thursday.

The moves to cut Web access and stifle the use of social-media services such as Twitter and Facebook have been cited by many as an attempt by the Egyptian government to disrupt the mobilization of the demonstrators.

The Internet, and social media websites in particular, have become a tool for protesters to organize themselves and also to report on what's taking place.

Similar moves took place last week in Tunisia, where protesters overthrew the government and used social media websites, along with YouTube and other Web technologies, to plan protest events and spread reports on the unrest.

But in Egypt, just as in Tunisia, people have also reportedly found ways around Web roadblocks, using third-party applications and proxy servers to access websites and services.

The news of the BlackBerry block coincided with word Thursday that the former head of the United Nation's nuclear regulatory agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, returned to Egypt from his home in Vienna to take part in the protests.

ElBaradei, who is also a Nobel Peace Prize winner, heads up a group known as the National Front for Change, which is also calling for Egyptian constitutional reforms and increased political freedoms.

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Top Photo: A protester is carried away after being fatally shot allegedly by riot police during clashes in Sheikh Zuweid in the Sinai, about 214 miles northeast of Cairo, on Thursday as Egyptians demanded the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Credit:AFP/Getty Images. Middle right photo: An antigovernment protester throws objects at a riot police vehicle in the port city of Suez,about 83 miles east of Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday. Credit: Mohamed Abd El-Ghany/Reuters. Bottom left photo: Mohamed ElBaradei, seen in a January 2008 file photo, returned to his native Egypt on Thursday to take part in protests against the government. Credit: Farzaneh Khademian/Abaca Press/MCT.

Verizon Wireless acknowledged that BlackBerry users on its network have been facing delays and outages with e-mail and data transfers this week, saying that fixes to its network were in the process of rolling out. The company said it was working alongside BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. to investigate the underlying cause of the outage.

"BlackBerry customers have been experiencing an issue with some delays," Verizon spokesman Ken Muche said. "We have escalated it with tech folks at RIM and our company on the network side."

A number of users online, many of whom say they are from California, have reported trouble receiving e-mail and surfing the Web on their devices.

Two days ago, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton joined the chorus of frustrated users when he tweeted that he would switch to a different carrier if Verizon didn't "get your #BlackBerry issues fixed ASAP! Grrrr!"

Similar reports could be found across Twitter and in the blogosphere.

Verizon's Muche said the company did not yet have a final analysis of the problem. Asked if the outage affected systems on which the upcoming Verizon iPhone would run, he said, "I haven't seen any evidence of that at all. I want to make sure that our root cause analysis is completed before I can give a definitive answer either way."

Verizon has not yet said if it will offer affected users a credit for the service interruption they experienced.

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Gartner Inc. on Wednesday predicted that mobile application revenue will nearly triple in 2011, to $15.1 billion, from $5.2 billion last year.

That will come from 18 billion downloads of the programs that run on a growing variety of smart phones and tablets from Apple Inc., Android, BlackBerry and others.

Apps were largely popularized by Apple after the release of its App Store in July 2008, which at the time had about 500 apps available for the company's iPhone and iPod Touch.

The store now has 350,000 apps available, including 60,000 designed for its iPad tablet computer. Last weekend Apple said it had sold 10 billion apps since the store had opened.  Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi estimated that Apple drove 90% of app downloads in 2010. 

As Verizon Wireless markets the iPhone next month, Apple's dominance stands to be bolstered even further.

Google's Android Market, the main competitor to Apple, has an estimated 200,000 apps, but has difficulty catching up to its more established rival, and according to Forbes, is "not happy" about it.

"Many are wondering if the app frenzy we have been witnessing is just a fashion, and, like many others, it shall pass. We do not think so," Stephanie Baghdassarian, a research director at Gartner, said in a statement. "However, applications will have to grow up and deliver a superior experience to the one that a Web-based app will be able to deliver."

Gartner said that about 80% of app downloads are free, but that over the next few years, users will begin paying for more of them as they come to trust the apps and associated payment mechanisms.

The company also said that by 2014, almost a third of app revenue will come from advertising, up from 16% in 2010.

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 Photo: Apple's app "hyperwall" at its retail store in San Francisco.  Credit: Florianplag / Flickr.

Starbucks customers can now pay for their skinny caramel macchiatos with an iPhone, iPod Touch or BlackBerry.

The coffee giant is expanding its mobile payment system to all of its U.S. retail stores –- more than 7,500 locations, including many inside Target stores.

Those craving coffee can enter their Starbucks Card number onto their Apple device or BlackBerry Tour, Curve or Storm. Baristas then scan the bar code that appears, which is linked to the customer’s credit card.

The program kicked off a pilot run last year at more than 1,000 shops.

Mobile payment systems -- in which smart phones act as digital wallets and are swiped or scanned in lieu of a credit card -– are gaining momentum with start-ups such as Square and partnerships from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.

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Steve Jobs and Apple might have picked the most ideal time possible to announce his medical leave -- on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, when the U.S. markets are closed, and just before releasing news of a 78% earnings increase.

And the decision to announce Jobs' break from day-to-day duties at Apple is probably a calculated one, as are many of the moves made by the secretive tech giant.

Andy Zaky, writing for Seeking Alpha, said he found the Jan. 18 release date for Apple's fiscal first-quarter earnings report "extremely peculiar" when it was announced a month ago.

"Here's why: Since 2007, Apple has always chosen to report earnings during the last week of the month in order to avoid the manipulation that usually comes with options expiration week," Zaky wrote. "If you go back at least 14-16 quarters, Apple has reported during the last week of the month in every one of those reporting periods."

The Tuesday earnings announcement, however, makes a lot more sense given Jobs' announcement that  he was taking an indefinite hiatus because of health issues.

John Gruber, writer of the popular tech blog Daring Fireball, wrote: "With the holiday yesterday and blockbuster results today, I think it's fair to say that yesterday was the single best day of the entire calendar year on which Jobs could have announced a medical leave of absence."

Apple reported a $6-billion profit on a record-setting revenue of $26.74 billion, largely on the success of the iPhone and the iPad.

One unintended consequence from Jobs' temporary decrease in duties at Apple is an apparent benefit for its competitors, as reported by Times columnist Tom Petruno over at our sister blog, Money & Company. Petruno wrote:

What's potentially bad for Apple -- co-founder Steve Jobs' surprise decision to take another medical leave of absence -- might have been viewed as good for the company's many tech rivals.

Nobody ever accused Wall Street of having a heart, after all.

While Apple dropped $7.83, or 2.2%, to close at $340.65, shares of Google Inc. surged $15.45, or 2.5%, to $639.63, a three-year high. Google's Android smart phone operating system is going head-to-head with Apple's iPhone, of course.

Among other tech giants and Apple combatants, Microsoft Corp. added 36 cents, or 1.3%, to $28.66; Oracle Corp. gained 28 cents, or 0.9%, to $31.53; and Dell Inc. was up 5 cents, or 0.4%, to $14.10.

BlackBerry smart phone maker Research in Motion Ltd. rose as much as 2.6% early Tuesday before falling back to close with a gain of 45 cents, or 0.7%, to $65.22.

Read more about how Apple might be helping their rivals in Petruno's post, Apple falls but its rivals gain, pushing Nasdaq index to 3-year high.

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Photo: Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks at an Apple Special Event on Sept. 1 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

A day after co-founder and Chief Executive Steve Jobs disclosed he was taking a medical leave, Apple Inc. announced that its first-quarter profit surged 78% to $6 billion as consumers clamored for iPhones and iPads.

Net income rocketed up to $6.43 a share in the first quarter while sales soared 71% to a record $26.74 billion, the company said after markets closed Tuesday.

The blockbuster numbers seem to have deflected some of the concern about Jobs, who said Monday that he would take his second leave in two years to focus on an unspecified condition for an uncertain amount of time.

Worried investors had caused Apple shares to deflate 2.2% to $340.65, though most analysts continued to recommend the stock.

Sales of the popular iPhone continued to boom, reaching 16.24 million units, up from the 14.1 million it sold in its fiscal fourth quarter. Apple recently said that the smart phone would no longer have an exclusive partnership with AT&T and would be available on the Verizon Wireless network beginning Feb. 10 -- a move that analysts expect will push sales only higher.

And the iPhone continues to outsell smart phones from Research in Motion Ltd., a prediction that Jobs made in a rare appearance during the conference call for the previous quarter’s earnings.

But the Cupertino, Calif., company has still more competitors to worry about. Though sales of its iPad clocked in at 7.33 million units, rivals such as Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. are bringing a deluge of alternative tablets to the market bearing Google’s Android operating system.

And some analysts worry that the iPad could cannibalize iPhone sales if consumers decide that the smart phone is obsolete.

Apple also sold 4.13 million Macs and 19.45 million iPods, thanks in part to high demand over the holidays.

Speculation about Jobs’ future role at Apple and what his status will mean for innovation at the company could briefly depress the stock, analysts predicted.

“But this worry stage will likely run out of fuel relatively quickly, because convincing evidence of how Jobs’ presence or absence is impacting Apple’s fundamentals won’t present itself for years,” analysts from Oppenheimer & Co. wrote in a note to investors.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, filling in for Jobs, will soothe investors, said Gleacher & Co. analyst Brian Marshall. Cook “has performed flawlessly in the past” and could take over the chief executive position with Jobs playing senior advisor, Marshall said.

And with a global expansion of the iPhone in the works and the second-generation iPad in development, Apple has enough forward momentum with or without Jobs, analysts said.

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Photo: Steve Jobs with the Apple iPhone in early 2009. Credit: John G. Mabanglo / European Pressphoto Agency