RIM demos PlayBook OS2
Finally, native email... a month from now
CES 2012 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 email, contacts and calendar. But the PlayBook goes a good deal further in providing a universal inbox for all one's communications, as well as putting LinkedIn contacts on a par with business associates.
The CrackBerry blog has video showing the new native applications, which include a calendar that RIM calls "people-centric" and a contacts list which is apparently "relationship-centric", so if you're trying to remember when to start a relationship that's probably ideal. The new applications pull their data from the usual sources – notably LinkedIn and Twitter – not via cloud-based corporate aggregator but onto the tablet itself.
The fact that the PlayBook lacked a native email client at launch opened it up to much ridicule, despite RIM's hope that such functionality could be left to an accompanying BlackBerry handset. In RIM's world, every PlayBook owner had a BlackBerry, and the PlayBook's ability to operate as an extended BlackBerry screen rendered a native PIM redundant. Sadly for RIM, it wasn't a world where anyone else lived.
Last month RIM's CEO was forced to deny stories that it was having insurmountable difficulties porting BlackBerry's native email client to BlackBerry 10 OS – formerly known as QNX – which is used on the PlayBook, and at a glance this demonstration might seem belay those stories entirely.
But the native email being demonstrated by RIM is using Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol, and not via RIM's own infrastructure or protocols. And while the company makes great play of integrated social networking, there's no mention (in demonstrations or specifications) of BlackBerry's own, highly successful, messaging service BBM.
PlayBook 2.0 will support remote management with BlackBerry Mobile Fusion and separate work from personal stuff with BlackBerry Balance. Both of these integrate nicely into enterprise device management. There's also a corporate shelf in the application store, so employees can download company-specific applications – all of which is important if the PlayBook is going to make any headway into the enterprise space. ®
COMMENTS
Was it just me
...or did anyone else have flashbacks of another doomed enterprise caled OS2?
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.
