RIM to launch "Playbook" to "rival iPad"

[GoinAllTheWay]

http://start.shaw.ca/start/enCA/News...c=playbook.xml

At half the size, I"m not sure how great of a tablet it will be but sounds like it's compact for the business user.

The uncompromised browsing remark made me lol a bit.

[Rathji]

Not big enough for my tastes.

With this announcement and the recent Slate, unless something totally new surprises me, it looks like I will be going the iPad route when the next version is released.

[Ducay]

At least they didn't go with the terrible BlackPad name

[Madman]

I like it's ability to tie into your Blackberry to both use its cellular data and to access data and email/contacts - this is where it will win big with existing business users.

[sclitheroe]

It runs Flash and Blackberry phone binaries....translation: It’s got no native apps and we don’t anticipate anyone is gonna write any.

OK, that was cynical of me. Let’s be honest instead; they shoehorned QNX as-is onto this thing and spent zero time optimizing the UI or developing a proper mobile/touch API that builds on the strengths of the hardware. QNX is a neat little OS, but this whole thing reeks of desparation and me-too.

Fortunately, by “early 2011”, all the competitive current gen tablets should basically be out, so we’ll have plenty of alternatives to choose from.

[kermitology]

With the specs on the device and the size of the thing, I'm really wondering what the battery performance is going to be like..

[sclitheroe]

The OS demo video for this thing looks almost as good as OS 6 did in demo videos, and we know how that turned out

[FanIn80]

I was looking forward to this, too. Oh well.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I was looking forward to this, too. Oh well.

I’m looking forward to all tablets; I’m keenly interested in the product space. I just have very low expectations for this thing. If RIM delivers a winner, I’ll be hugely happy as a enthusiast and as a stockholder.

I don’t think that is this tablet though.

Balsillie says he has had briefings with company chief information officers and "this is hands-down, slam-dunk what they're looking for."

At least somebody has sipped the kool aid I guess. I’d probably ask my core market, not my immediate staff members, though, about whether the product has merit.

[teamchachi]

Way too little. Way too late. Only the most ardent Apple & Google haters will be considering this device. Apple iOS and Android are going to eat RIM's lunch on this one I'm afraid.

[HotHotHeat]

RIM sure has lost it.

[Russic]

Feels like they are showing their hand a little early. It does some cool things, but as it was said already, the next iPad will be out soon after this. Hell, multitasking for iPad will be old news by the time this comes out.

BB users are a loyal bunch though and they definitely aren't trying to appeal to the same market, so perhaps it'll appeal to those consumers.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

RIM sure has lost it.

Oh come on, I’m sure it will run BB Messenger in emulation.......as long as it’s nearby your phone....

hahahaha

[McG]

i saw a bunch of little things that i thought were important...if i was to go down a check list of what i think this device needs to be "in the game" then definitely, the presser had it. it was a presser of course...so no guarantees. no home runs either...but lots of appealing little things.

From a business perspective, leveraging the BES environment was smart, expected, and necessary. the bluetooth tethering into an onboard cache looked good too. people don't give the BES environment enough credit; once it is up and running it is pretty good. bringing iphones and ipads to the same level in a corporate environment can be a challenge.

i will be interested to see what the anti apple alliance comes up with - rim, oracle, sap and ibm. sap in particular could really assist with the sales of this product if they can get some credible integration with the device. haha who are we kidding with that.

i saw lots of things in the presser that i expect apple and google to be able to do in their next iterations, and with the lead time of this announcement i fully expect a big "me too" from the competition.

people want this in their hands ASAP and yet...early 2011 is the best that i have seen.

i don't think that this is a slam dunk for any vendor.

and depending upon the price point and battery life, i expect many BES shops to at least have a look at this device.

[sclitheroe]

OK, this is an incredibly different device...check out these developer options: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/tablet.jsp

You get to write your app in ..... HTML5....or FLASH!

That’s it. No professional development environments. No portability of your C, C++ or Obj-C code from the other two platforms you have to support in the mobile space...nothing!

And lookie here, Adobe is all over this: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/f...ackberrytabos/

Wacky stuff!

This is like the line in the sand for Flash development on mobile devices. If this thing tanks, I can’t see how Adobe will have any compelling argument left that Flash belongs on tablets and phones.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by McG

i will be interested to see what the anti apple alliance comes up with - rim, oracle, sap and ibm. sap in particular could really assist with the sales of this product if they can get some credible integration with the device. haha who are we kidding with that.
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i don't think that this is a slam dunk for any vendor.

and depending upon the price point and battery life, i expect many BES shops to at least have a look at this device.

I don’t think SAP, Oracle or IBM are all that interested in doing development in Flash...do you?

[Flames0910]

There's more info here (including video). I think it will do moooore than fine. Remember that blackberry still makes tonnes of $$ on phones despite stiff competition from android and apple.

Tethering is big. Dual core processor actually seems pretty big too.

Big Q's on battery life and not a fan of the release date seeing as it's almost a year away...

[BlackArcher101]

I really really like the idea of using it as an extension to my existing BB screen, with access via the phone.

However, I'm betting I will have upgraded to an Android phone before this is released.

[Titan]

I like this only because I would be able to convince my IT department to give me this way before I could convince them to give me an iPad.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by Russic

Feels like they are showing their hand a little early. It does some cool things, but as it was said already, the next iPad will be out soon after this. Hell, multitasking for iPad will be old news by the time this comes out.

BB users are a loyal bunch though and they definitely aren't trying to appeal to the same market, so perhaps it'll appeal to those consumers.

Please don't kid yourself, "multitasking" on iOS is a joke, and doesn't even come close to what you should be able to do. Hell, you can't even open or reply to an SMS without closing your apps.

I had to jailbreak my iPhone 3G[s] and iPhone 4 just to get decent multitasking.