RIM hits back at Apple’s ‘reality distortion field’

Jim Balsillie, chief executive of Research in Motion, the Canadian company behind the BlackBerry, believes there is a market for smaller tablet computers, despite Apple’s claims.

 During a quarterly earnings call on Monday, Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, provoked the ire of rivals by claiming that 7in tablet computers were so small as to be unusable, and that the category would be “dead on arrival”.

It prompted Jim Balsillie, Research in Motion’s chief executive, to respond with a blog post in which he criticised Apple’s “reality distortion field”. He said that the iPad’s lack of Flash support meant it didn’t fulfil the needs of customers, and that Apple was only telling people “half the story”.

RIM has recently unveiled the PlayBook, it’s answer to the iPad, which uses a 7in display and supports Adobe Flash.

“For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we known that 7in tablets will actually be a big portion of the market, and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience,” wrote Balsillie.

“We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of websites that use Flash.