Blackberry Playbook

[Florin]

Had to do a factory reset as my lil darling somehow managed to set the browser to an 80+ size font, stuck in 'private browsing' mode, and the browser options button not working anymore so no way to undo either of those settings.

Having to reload all apps and books and remake bookmarks is a pain. Grrr.

 

[Florin]

List of changes for the the 1.0.5.2304 firmware which popped up for me today.

Nothing groundbreaking but steady improvements I reckon.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Some nice functional changes.

Battery button takes care of the power button complaints and the other added functionality (brightness, power off, restart) is nice. Upgrades available on main page notification is handy.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Heh, FWIW, the best experience I've ever had for moving around the house was my 12" ToughBook with a resistive touchscreen and stylus. Ah, if only the failed Android smartbook market had used resistive touchscreens instead of a touchpad...

Oh, and I don't know if I said this yet, but I bought a Playbook a few weeks ago. Very happy with it - although interestingly my main complaint isn't so much the lack of apps as the relatively low polish for the ones that are there. Crashes, slow startup, no copy paste, etc... And then there's the retarded power button. Still a very nice machine and I'm glad I bought it. I'd give RIMM a good chance of beating Palm in the tablet market and creating the 3rd viable tablet OS (or maybe 4th including Windows 8).

Copy and paste is a universal feature, isn't it? You just hold a finger over text and you'll get the marker plus toolbars for copy and paste.

I'm really liking mine, but I want some IM clients. I basically use mine as a browser, which is how I do 99% of what I need to do on my PC. A netflix client would be nice. I collect LPs so I don't use mp3s much. A client for streaming from my pc might be nice. Other than that, with solid browsing I don't have much use for apps. So my experience may not be the norm.

 

[wco81]

Lot of mobile apps. could be categorized as web content optimized for touch and targeted for mobile device screens.

Otherwise, you're browsing sites on a client with a lower resolution than most of the desktop/laptop computers accessing those sites.

It's not going to be enough for RIMM to cater only to people interested in web browsing and little else. But apparently they're going after some niches or niches which may potentially be a large market segment. There was an article on how they're trying to work with car makers and integrators for technology in cars (one example was limo builders who'd put in mounts for Playbook with built-in controls on the dash and elsewhere).

 

[Scott_Arm]

To be honest, I haven't found any sites, so far, where I've been unhappy with the browsing experience. There are a few sites, like Google Reader, where I use the mobile version of the site, which works quite well on a tablet. Obviously tablets are not the best form factor if you want to be reading several documents at once, which is what I do when I'm programming, and you need more screen space.

There are going to be some sites where perhaps a custom app would be better, like quick referencing of sports scores or whatnot. I haven't looked to see if those are already available. To be honest, I think if you can make a smaller and more concise version of your website, then your website probably needs to be redesigned. I'm more interested in the original vision of the iPhone, which was not app driver, but web driven.

 

[wco81]

Well the browser at the time was a revelation, making it easier to browse on a mobile device. They emphasized full versions of sites, not the mobile version and touted HTML email.

But even then people were demanding native apps, since Palm and Windows Mobile and Symbian had already deployed mobile platforms with apps. Now iOS and Android are a force in gaming -- the Vita announcement, esp. the pricing is an indication of what smart phones have done to portable gaming.

 

[wco81]

RIMM reported 500k Playbook sales in the first quarter, higher than expected. But they guided lower for the current quarter and the one after it. Shares dropped 15% in after market trading.

They're also suggesting the BB OS 7 and QNX for phones may be delayed.

Sounds like the market wanted QNX phones before tablets because their core phone business is under assault.

 

[Scott_Arm]

RIM is definitely in trouble.

 

[Arun]

RIM is definitely in trouble.

Yeah, not as bad as Nokia if Windows Phone 7 doesn't pan out though. Both RIMM and Nokia are still profitable, but while it's realistic for RIMM to remain so for some time even if they fail to deliver on QNX, the same cannot be said of Nokia. At least both have plenty of cash so they won't disappear overnight - it'll take at least a few weeks! Just kidding, but who knows given the level of uncertainty nowadays. And then there's WebOS which has strong financial support via HP but even harder to judge at this point.

As for QNX phones before tablets, phones would have taken longer, so all you'd have gotten by now is neither phones nor tablets and an even more skeptical market. And I think smartphone users would excuse a lack of applications even less than tablet ones. On the other hand, maybe it would have allowed them to have their first QNX phone in time for the holidays. What's done is done, they've still got time to get back on track if they deliver.

 

[AlphaWolf]

The market is an idiot, QNX phones still wouldn't have been shipping even if the playbook wasn't first and now at least when it does it will have had months of exposure.

 

[wco81]

Why is that, is QNX not ready to work with baseband processors?

It is surprising that they haven't introduced any new phone models this year.

As time passes by, the more iOS and Android phones are seen as acceptable in big companies, RIMM's base erodes. Manageability of Blackberries seems to have garnered RIMM a lot of support in IT, whose resistance to other vendors is slowly breaking down.

Apparently RIMM is going to provide support for iOS and Android through BES as well.

 

[AlphaWolf]

1.06 is out. Flash 10.3 support i guess is the reason.

Not sure of any other changes, just installing now.

<edit>

Browser seems snappier (scrolling especially), and flash performance seems quite a bit better.

 

[Lazy8s]

Wow... they're really on top of the browser capability and keeping it top notch.

When I was playing around with one recently, I had way too much fun trying to stress out the OS with multiple combinations of running app windows... still such a novelty, but the concept of messing around with the limits of a mobile OS and mobile processors fascinated me.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I really like this thing. The browser is great. I barely use my laptop anymore, but where's the native dev kit?!

 

[wco81]

RIMM shipped 500k units to the channel but they wouldn't say how many was sold through. Furthermore, they cut estimates from 2.4 million (for the current quarter?) to 800k and even that may be optimistic.

Aside from the apps. situation it sounds like a product with a lot of things going for it. But it may ultimately be like BeOS or even WebOS -- platforms which deserve a bigger market than they were able to achieve.

 

[Entropy]

Another one bites the dust?
http://n4bb.com/7608/10-playbook-production-stopped-in-favor-of-first-blackberry-superphone

 

[Arun]

Another one bites the dust?
http://n4bb.com/7608/10-playbook-production-stopped-in-favor-of-first-blackberry-superphone

The idea that the first QNX phones would use a 1.2GHz single-core is absurd - they won't come out before 1H12 at the earliest, and RIMM can't possibly be so stupid that they'd release a 'superphone' with those kinds of specs in that timeframe. Maybe for a lower-end derivative but on the high-end the only real contenders IMO are OMAP4, Armada 620, MSM8x60, and (if they're aggressive and we're talking Q2 2012 at the earliest) MSM8960.

So while I can believe the 10" Playbook is dead (for now), I'd take the rest of that rumour with a lot of salt.

 

[tangey]

.... Maybe for a lower-end derivative but on the high-end the only real contenders IMO are OMAP4, Armada 620, MSM8x60, and (if they're aggressive and we're talking Q2 2012 at the earliest) MSM8960.

I think Omap4 has to be the favourite. If the alledged issues that RIM had with Marvell re the playbook are correct, then they may not feel like they want to immediately give them another chance. Also with RIM already having a QNX/Omap solution working on the playbook, you'd assumed they'd stick with that unless there is compelling reasons not to.

If it does turn out to be Omap4, then TI will be getting some good Omap4 design wins, given that it looks like they are the reference platform for ice cream sandwich, and also seeing the suggestion that they are in the google nexus prime phone (which would tie in with the ice cream sandwich thing).

 

[Arun]

I think Omap4 has to be the favourite. If the alledged issues that RIM had with Marvell re the playbook are correct, then they may not feel like they want to immediately give them another chance.

True, although we're talking about the Armada 620 here, which is one full generation beyond the Armada 610 they supposedly had problems with. And they're still using Marvell chips for some BB 7.0 phones. So they're clearly not the favourite but I wouldn't put them out of the running just yet...

If it does turn out to be Omap4, then TI will be getting some good Omap4 design wins, given that it looks like they are the reference platform for ice cream sandwich, and also seeing the suggestion that they are in the google nexus prime phone (which would tie in with the ice cream sandwich thing).

I'm still not sure I trust that rumour about Ice Cream Sandwich. I think it was said recently that Google might be working with multiple partners to release Ice Cream Sandwich phones based on different platforms in roughly the same timeframe. That makes more sense to me. However it It would also make sense that the next-gen Nexus uses OMAP4 though as Google seems to be taking turns on partners for that. Maybe LG which hasn't made a Nexus yet and is already using OMAP4 in the Optimus 3D?