Blackberry Playbook

I've decided I need small, medium and large tablets

Playbook
ipad 2
Touchpad

 

I spent some time in BestBuy today playing with one. (Just got back from a Utah vacation so this was my first opportunity to try one.) Was impressed the the browser, multitasking, and UI responsiveness. I bridged to to my own bberry phone with no issues and played with the bridged apps. As expected, typing in portrait mode (thumbing) feels practically no different than typing on a smart phone. (It's comfortable...which is good.)

Though one consequence of the brand new OS is that the QNX keyboard and BBerry touch screen keyboard (I have a Storm) are different...so it will take a little getting used to and not as seemless when switching from the Storm to the tablet for typing. Hopefully with new revisions they'll make things a bit more consistent.

I've just about decided to pick one up...and at worst would return it during the return period. I might wait for one more OS update prior to getting it though.

The playbook would likely be my trveling companion...though I could also see getting a larger form factor for "stay at home use"...and one with more apps...iPad2 being the logical choice.

 

well there have been 2 or 3 updates since release,you might not have to wait long.

 

the only thing I would really like that isn't available is a good IM client. I wish the native sdk was available on day 1 because I think we'd see apps rolling out faster. Flash apps are not perfectly suited to everything, and neither is the web sdk. Hopefully there will be some announcements at the Blackberry conference next week.

 

Don't they push their BBM thing more than other IM services? I'm sure they'll get those too but I think they rely on BBM to keep people using their phones.

 

RIM makes MSN, Google Talk and a number of other IM clients for their phones as well. Plus, there will definitely be third party ones available. I'd also like BBM on my Playbook.

 

Wall Street didn't like RIMM's numbers for last quarter, taking the stock down over 10% in after hours.

Poor sales of Blackberry and lower guidance.

They did not change the guidance for the Playbook though. They need QNX to be successful, especially for new phone designs, to stop the bleeding.

 

Blackberry OS 6.1 now renamed OS 7 should be a very nice improvement, but I don't think it'll really draw attention the way QNX will.

I hope the Playbook can gain a bit of momentum, but I think until the native SDK or the Android player are out, the app world is going to stagnate.

 

Native facebook app is coming to playbook, even though the facebook site works perfectly in the browser.

http://crackberry.com/rim-outs-all-new-blackberry-bold-touch-ahead-blackberry-world

 

Interesting BBC feature on playbook with an interview with RIM's Mike Lazaridis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/

Highlights are

1) "...as we start focusing the entire company on the playbook platform for our super-phones that are coming..."

i wonder can we read from that, that QNX will be on RIM smartphones, if so, might it suggest a move towards TI for phones ? (The processor running QNX is the playbook).

2) he is clearly taken aback and the interview is terminated ("turn that off",pointing to the camera) when he is asked about the security issues that have bee raised in India (I didn't know this but apparently there is an issue that RIM's email encryption is prompting some countries to require an entry to allow emails to be decrypted if needed, including India who are threatening to ban blackberrys).

 

First that interview is fairly old, it actually preceded the playbook launch.

I don't think there was ever any doubt that QNX is going to smartphones, it's just a matter of when. They are just now pushing out a new OS (that is not QNX) for smartphones, I think they need the phone hardware a bit further along for QNX. I doubt it locks them into TI in the future as QNX already runs on a variety of hardware.

The whole countries targeting blackberry over security is retarded and just shows how out of touch governments are with technology. If someone wants to send encrypted data badly enough there's plenty of ways and there's really nothing any government can do about it.

 

dunno exactly when the interview was filmed but a search shows it was about 2 weeks ago. It was aired today on the BBC (Thats where I saw it) and is the lead video on their technology website "click". Regardless of that, its amazing that he was clearly not prepared for the question, but rather the PR bod behind the camera suddenly wanted the interview ended and the RIM CEO is ordering the camera to be turned off !

 

You have to admit, though, that the way the original question was framed had an implication that their system was insecure, rather than that some countries have issues with the level of security. I'm not surprised that they were a bit offended.

 

QNX is confirmed to be coming to future RIM phones. At least OS7 is going to be a pretty nice performance improvement over OS6, as a stop gap.

The way Balsillie described the issue with security in countries like India, is that they are national issues between the governments and the telcos, not issues for RIM. He basically said all federal governments have rules for legal wiretapping etc that telcos must comply to, and RIM provides telcos a way to do that, but RIM has no capability to do it themselves. It's all administered by the telco that operates the BES, or something like that. People who think India, or whichever country, will somehow be able to snoop phones in other countries are wrong.

 

BBM is now available via the bridge. You'll need the latest (just released) BBM client on your phone and and updated bridge app on your phone as well.

 

Awesome.

 

RIM releasing Playbook apps in May:

Facebook, May ?
Video Chat, May 3rd

The Astonishing Tribe has released their scrapbook app for free today http://crackberry.com/free-scrapbook-app-now-available-blackberry-playbook

Edit: Also you can now save bookmarks to the home screen for quick access.

 

Absolutely, but i think that a) it was just unintentionally badly framed, and b) if all that was wrong was that the implication was poor, Lazaridis would have quickly jumped on the fact that the issue is that its too secure for some countries' liking.

 

May 2nd.

Available now on AppWorld....

 

Cool. I like it!