RIM demos PlayBook OS2
PlayBook owners should be getting native email next month, but as RIM's tablet gains independence it's also shifting away from the infrastructure which has served RIM so well. RIM has been demonstrating the latest version of its PlayBook OS at CES, and has finally got native PIM applications running on the tablet – including …
-
Wednesday 11th January 2012 12:47 GMT jai
instant fail before it even arrives?
so... i thought the reason everyone wanted a RIM tablet was because it'd use the same secure email as the blackberries and therefore your enterprises existing infrastructure around that. but instead, they've provided email that's no more secure than on any other tablet? can't see how that's going to win back any fans also "putting LinkedIn contacts on a par with business associates" worries me somewhat. I don't want people i worked with 10 years ago to be alongside my current colleagues and contacts. that's why current contacts are in my address book, and old friends/collegues and job agency recruiters are on Linkedin so they don't get in the way every day when i'm looking for someone's details.-
Wednesday 11th January 2012 16:41 GMT Giles JonesWell by the time it arrives the iPad 3 will probably be around with much better specs. Especially if the rumoured resolution doubling takes place. Remember, the original Playbook was pitched as an iPad killer. When it was pretty obvious they hadn't gone the extra two miles to surpass the extra mile that Apple put in. The problems RIM had with email on the 1st release were not impossible just they thought it "would do for now", which is not how you beat a market leader.
-
Thursday 12th January 2012 07:57 GMT CheesyTheClown
Using a Windows 8 Tablet myself
Frankly... I have my Windows 8 Samsung Series 7 Slate here and I've pretty much ditched my iPad... I just keep in near the couch I read bedtime stories to the kids from because the Kindle app for Windows Metro hasn't arrived yet.
I get all the bells and whistles of iOS, Blackberry and Android and I can also run real applications on it. I just stick it into the dock on my desk at work and I have a PC connected to my 24" screen, keyboard and mouse. When I am done at the end of the day, I just pick it up and then I can watch films or listen to music on itunes, check mail in Exchange, or play AngryBirds. When I get home, I plug in a game controller and play DC Universe or up to 4 player Dungeon Defenders on it.
Ok... the battery life still needs work. It only lasts about 3.5 hours with the current version of Windows 8, but the new beta coming out should get it to about 5 or 6 by shutting down nearly all the unused devices when it's in tablet mode. That's about the same as my year old iPad which has been charged every night since I got it.
Microsoft decided with their tablet OS to no bother playing catch up and instead decided to take such an incredible technical lead over iOS and other that they'll be playing catch-up for years to come.
Oh.. and the Series 7 Slate is just as damn pretty as my 8 year old daughter's iPad 2. Just a little heavier :) I'll probably buy an ARM based tablet with Windows 8 when it comes around to program for it.
-
-
-
Wednesday 11th January 2012 12:57 GMT NoneSuchBBM and Corporate lethargy are the only things keeping RIM in business right now. With more Android and iDevices in the Enterprise, GOOD Technology is emerging as the leader there as they support those platforms. Corporations resist changes but they are starting to move from RIM based tech due to the instability of that company. The Playbook was just another mis-step in a series of bungles from RIM. To recover RIM will have to do this perfectly the first time or the rest will abandon ship.
-
Wednesday 11th January 2012 15:23 GMT quarkyGood Technology? Are you joking? That is the the biggest piece of garbage around. The exec's love it because it means they can use devices with an apple logo on, but the notification system is crap, trying to read new emails when you are on the train is crap, and it regularly fails to sync appointments. Apart from all that though, well, it is still crap. As for BB email, it will still be there on the device, it is no optional. So you can have your secure BB mail and your personal mail.
-
-
-
-
Thursday 12th January 2012 11:28 GMT TeeCee
Hmm, I was about to contradict you there by quoting the bit from the QNX website about how QNX Neutrino underpins the BB Playbook, like I did last time this came up.
However, it seems to have disappeared. I guess they've decided that the stench of death around the thing is too awful to be associated with.
-
-
-
Wednesday 11th January 2012 15:31 GMT DrXym
My guess
RIM discovered that their email stack / app was 15 years of accumulated spaghetti touched by hundreds of developers and porting it to their tablet was virtually impossible in the timeframe. So they concocted a story that the tablet had to bridged to a phone through an ugly kludge "for security" and were amazed that nobody else shared their view. Problem is of course is now they're very late to the party and I expect enterprises are wondering why they need blackberry at all. After all, it's not like the iOS or Android powered devices are *that* enterprise hostile and Windows Phone / 8 is another option. RIM really is starting to look redundant. -
-
Wednesday 11th January 2012 19:03 GMT ItsNotMe
Guess I'm one of the "small number of people"...and glad to be so.
My Playbook does all I need it to do. I can tether it to my cell phone (not a BB) for Internet access, and that is how I get my e-mail anyway. Only set me back USD $199.00 for a 16 GB model...so I'm happy.
Looking very much forward to the OS upgrade for the few Android apps that I use on my phone.
-
Thursday 12th January 2012 04:25 GMT bazza
@ItsNotMe: Me too!
Same here, except I've got a BB phone. I really really like the way email, calendar and contacts are bridged to my blackberry phone. I'd hate to lose that feature.
I use my Playbook at home, and the bluetooth reaches my 9800 Torch anywhere in the house. Then when I go out everything is there on my handset without needing a battery or data sucking sync to some stupid cloud somewhere.
I think that Playbooks are a real bargin at the moment, and if you have a BB phone then they're almost a no brainer because of the price. If the OS update means that all those Android apps start working too then suddenly the Playbook will be highly competitive from a technical point of view. RIM are going to have to do a lot of demonstrations to the public to get the message across...
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 20th January 2012 00:37 GMT John Sanders
Yes I do read the comments
But most importantly I used to be an enthusiastic RIM user until BES 5 and OS 6 arrived. Seriously I recommended RIM BES & Smartphones to everything that moved.
Now my only form of relief (after being forced to use the turds that RIM smartphones have turned into every single day) is to affirm:
YES RIM LOST THE PLOT AT SOME POINT, AND IT IS NOT FINDING IT SO FAR.
My next phone is not a RIM one, and I'm recommending everyone not to buy a RIM phone ever again until they do not manufacture something akin to the year 2012 expected specifications for a £400 smartphone.
-
-
-
Wednesday 11th January 2012 18:46 GMT mark l 2
I really hope the version 2 of the playbook OS can help sell some tablets for RIM if only just to see QNX live on as an OS as the original QNX was a superb OS, found in everything from hardware controlling nuclear reactors to medical equipment because it was so reliable and customisable.
I still have the floppy disk somewhere that had QNX running an OS with a working web broswer from a single disk.
-
Monday 16th January 2012 11:23 GMT the-it-slayer
@ItsNotMe: Happy now, unhappy later
Why? Because RIM will ditch the PlayBook as fast as it can dump all the spares in the sea when it costs them more to catch-up and the 2nd rendition gets initially reviewed as an ultimate failure. Then you'll be left with a device aging quicker the hardware can kill itself rate.
When I saw a meddle-geek play with his new PlayBook on the train a fair few months ago, he was spending more time trying to work the damn thing rather than being productive with it.
RIM will be falling into the pit of long-lost creativity along with Nokia.
-
Friday 20th January 2012 17:16 GMT James 100
I had to use a BlackBerry handset for a short time fairly recently. After proper smartphones, it was painful - from the literal discomfort (the stupid pointy little keys dug into my fingertips!) to a user interface which made me say "so THAT's where the MS DOS Shell went".
It's a great shame QNX fell into the hands of these turkeys - let's hope someone better pulls it out of the wreckage when RIM finally gets garbage-collected. Up against Apple, the Android handset manufacturers and Windows Phone, they haven't got the hardware edge, haven't got the UI, haven't got the applications - all they have left is an installed user base, and that's shrinking fast too. Rather like Lotus and WordPerfect a few years ago, in fact...