BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins speaks on Apple’s iPhone in an interview with Australian Financial Review and feels “The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old”, in other words he feels it’s outdated.

Heins did acknowledge “Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market”, he also stated, “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.”

Technology on smartphones has advanced in the last few years and consumers are always looking for the next best thing and Heins feels “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.” BlackBerry can relate as the company took a big hit once touchscreen devices became the new standard.

“One area that the new BlackBerry phones had surpassed the iPhone was in the ability to multi-task-running multiple apps at once” said, Heins. This allows for users to work on their smartphone as if they were working on their laptop or desktop.

Heins made some good points when it comes to Apple’s iPhone and it’s also nice to see that the company has their confidence back. It took BlackBerry a few years to find themselves and introduce a platform and handset that can compete in today’s market. Apple has stuck to a ridged product lifecycle that seems to now be hurting them as device manufactures are turning out updated OS’ and devices continually.

BlackBerry hopes to reach 100,000 apps in BlackBerry App World for the Z10 launch in the United States. With their daily app submissions they should reach that goal if they can get them all approved.

To read the entire interview with Australian Financial Review you can follow this link.