RIM introduced on Monday the successor to its popular 8700 line, the trendy, but still business-minded 8800. Our sister publication, Macworld, writes of the new phone: The 8800 will debut later this month in North America through AT&T, the same carrier that will carry Apple’s iPhone in June, starting at $299 with a two-year service commitment. It’s also coming to Canada from Rogers Wireless. Like the 8700, the 8800 features a full QWERTY keyboard and 320 x 240 pixel color LCD display. Like the Pearl, the 8800 features a trackball navigation system. It also sports a built-in media player and microSD memory slot for storage of music and videos. The media player supports MP3 and unprotected AAC music files; it can also display MPEG-4 and H.263 video content. The phone supports polyphonic, MP3 and MIDI ringtones. Okay, so RIM was reading my and obviously countless others’ minds about staying competitive with styling and multimedia features now that Microsoft Direct Push leveled the push e-mail playing field for newer Palm and Windows Mobile devices. (See our 3GSM World Congress special report for more on Windows Mobile 6 and its Direct Push tech.) It’s no iPhone on style, but it takes some notes. But my Palm Treo 7100p may be looking old school but it’s sporting EV-DO; not found on this GSM/EDGE device, to be sold by AT&T (formerly Cingular). And the iPhone is not out for months and it to does not harness Cingular’s HSDPA high-speed cellular network. What gives, RIM and Apple? Looks ain’t all that if you’re stuck on a poky EDGE network. Technology Industry