[sf49ers]

Granted Playbook is not making any money for RIM as they anticipated and even it is selling at a loss don't you guys think it is doing more good in the form of ramping up the App ecosystem and developer transition for upcoming BBX. Lately I am seeing a uptick on a lot of good apps and games in the app world.

I think by the time BBX debuts on Phone it will have more apps than current BBOS platform. My wishful thinking is that BBX will have the top 100 most common apps or it's alternatives. Now with NDK released, support for opensource native frameworks like Qt, Box2D etc, developers all over jumping on the HTML 5 bandwagon , and finally the Android Player should give BBX much needed boost.

More importantly IMO, Playbook is serving as good beta device for RIM to get user feedback and work on the bugs/features.

[howarmat]

I agree its not doing any good for RIMs rep or their books for the past couple quarters but i agree on the app part. Its a good way to get apps ready for the change over and not be starting new like the PB was. As long as the new BBX phones arrive before 2013 i think all will be well and RIMs darkest days will be over

[southlander]

I think in retrospect the PlayBook would have been better off if offered as a sort of beta dev device. Kinda like Microsoft is going to do with Windows 8.

Rim maybe should have:

Released the PB in April 2011 as a year long beta.

Charged just above cost instead of pricing a version 1 product to match the iPad. Say 250.00.

Sold *one* version for the beta, the 16GB model.

Sold the PlayBook direct only, or perhaps using a single partner like Amazon. No physical stores.

Not committed to timelines for native email, etc. Instead just say that when the product leaves beta, everything will be there, and polished.

This would have avoided all the criticism over the missing features since it would be considered a beta product. And with the lower price, the sales might even have exceeded what they have been (which is not a lot).

Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk

[shootsscores]

If you know your stuff, the quality is obvious.

Nothing on the market can match what is offered by the RIM duo of the PB and BB.

[mustangv8]

Granted Playbook is not making any money for RIM as they anticipated and even it is selling at a loss don't you guys think it is doing more good in the form of ramping up the App ecosystem and developer transition for upcoming BBX. Lately I am seeing a uptick on a lot of good apps and games in the app world.

I think by the time BBX debuts on Phone it will have more apps than current BBOS platform. My wishful thinking is that BBX will have the top 100 most common apps or it's alternatives. Now with NDK released, support for opensource native frameworks like Qt, Box2D etc, developers all over jumping on the HTML 5 bandwagon , and finally the Android Player should give BBX much needed boost.

More importantly IMO, Playbook is serving as good beta device for RIM to get user feedback and work on the bugs/features.

Playbook has hurt rimm very bad. Financially for sure, and imo another hit on rimm's image. all that wasted time and funds on the playbook and rimm puts their handheld customers on hold while android and apple destroy them.

Smart rimm, thought you could come out with a price point that matches the ipad with a much smaller screen. Playbook will continue to falter as the kindle destroys it on price and people willbe flocking to the new ipad 3 whenever it comes out. Even with the higher price.

Rimm, should have focused on higher quality assembly of the bold.

[greatwiseone]

I think the PlayBook hasn't achieved what RIM expected it to do. However, as part of the PB OS development, it really allows them to work out the kinks before they launch the BBX phones, their bread and butter devices. The tablet market is new and much smaller than the cell phone market, and even if RIM fails in the tablet market at this point, the development work done on the PlayBook is being/can be used for current/future BBX development.

This isn't something like Microsoft buying Sidekick, spending R&D on the Kin, and then removing it from market after 48 days on the market. MS spent an estimate of one BILLION on development of kin and ditched the device. The PB is nothing like that.

Even if RIM discontinue the PB, the lessons learned from the PB will only be beneficial for the BBX phones...

[CommanderElvis]

The PlayBook brought me back. So far I have been more disappointed with my Torch than the PB. But I would still like to see them treat us guinea pigs early adapters better. I need mine on a daily basis, and ride it hard, so OS 2.0 is too risky at this time. Time to use that data they're gleaning from us to help us too.

[Dapper37]

I do enjoy my playbook, bought it in the first week, use it everyday. Its just the product I knew it was, not the product I wished it would soon become. With perspective you need a long term view, the playbook is a seed that will grow into something massively beautiful!! Even in one year (short term) most people should understand that. Best part is that the hardware is strong so current playbook will still be relevant!
OP your spot on, the playbook as it is today is a help for the reasons you stated. This baby is coming together nomater what the naysayers think.

[urbanguy]

I've been awake since 3:30 am (insomnia) playing with my PB, primarily trying to get the Kobo app to work again. No dice.

In the last 3 hours of fairly heavy usage, the browser has crashed 5+ times (including once when I clicked "Clear Cache"!), my Bridge will not connect to my BB (ever since I got my 9900), and I had a weird thing where App World wouldn't load until I did a hard reset.

Without Kobo (which I know isn't a PB problem but rather a Kobo problem, but it doesn't help my perception of this tablet!), without Bridge, and with a flaky browser, the PB is being used less and less by me.

Oh - but I did work out a Kobo solution! See the pic.

[aneftp]

Playbook is currently an after thought in the minds of the general public. Most people barely have heard of it.

The people who do realize the Playbook exists. Most of them still think RIM put the older Blackberry OS in the playbook.

So since the Playbook is an after thought in the mind of most of the public, in the overall scheme of things. It has not hurt RIM's imagine.

What has hurt RIM's imagine is their phones. Simply cannot competent with current generation of IOS, Android, or even windows phone 7.5 (which itself is having a hard time gaining traction and MSFT has billions more than RIM to keep it going.

[shootsscores]

I've been awake since 3:30 am (insomnia) playing with my PB, primarily trying to get the Kobo app to work again. No dice.

In the last 3 hours of fairly heavy usage, the browser has crashed 5+ times (including once when I clicked "Clear Cache"!), my Bridge will not connect to my BB (ever since I got my 9900), and I had a weird thing where App World wouldn't load until I did a hard reset.

Without Kobo (which I know isn't a PB problem but rather a Kobo problem, but it doesn't help my perception of this tablet!), without Bridge, and with a flaky browser, the PB is being used less and less by me.

Oh - but I did work out a Kobo solution! See the pic.

Just do a simple restart. I've never cleared my cache in 6 months of heavy use and performance remains excellent. I think I've done a hard restart maybe twice in those 6 months.

I posted a thread sometime back called "Understanding your OS" or something like that. QNX is like nothing most people are familiar with. It's practically ***** proof.

[kbz1960]

I think it's helping them. As southlander said they should've just said here is a beta device that you can buy cheap and help us transition with feedback.

For the ones saying they should've forgot about the playbook and focused on phones, how would you like a phone with their new OS on it missing things? Think they would've helped them? Nope it would've certainly killed them.

[urbanguy]

Just do a simple restart. I've never cleared my cache in 6 months of heavy use and performance remains excellent. I think I've done a hard restart maybe twice in those 6 months.

I posted a thread sometime back called "Understanding your OS" or something like that. QNX is like nothing most people are familiar with. It's practically ***** proof.

I'm trying to figure out what word you typed to get censored. Bullet proof is the phrase I expected, but not sure what **** proof is.

I've restarted many times, usually just a regular shut down is ok, but last night I was doing the hard reset as well (both vol buttons & power button). The OS is good, the browser has flakiness.

I'm in the process of doing a security wipe and we'll see if that resolves my Bridge problems and see if Kobo miraculously gets going again.

Edit -> Security wipe got Bridge working again. My Kobo is still not working though.

[kbz1960]

Hasn't kobo been having problems? Seems there are threads on that and I saw one that said it is working again now.

[sk8er_tor]

I agree, the app ecosystem is going to be nice when the new BB smartphone comes out.

I don't think the PlayBook is a beta device. It's simply a new device on a new OS. Just like the iPhone didn't launch with copy/paste, MMS, and many other features, the PB launched with missing features. I actually think that since it's a NEW OS, RIM/QNX have been moving quite fast getting things out, even though it's not as fast as we'd like. I work for a software company and I can tell you that even incremental upgrades take forever to come out.
Look how long it took Apple to bring copy/paste to the iPhone!
Hopefully in a few months, we'll see a device that has all the features everyone's been asking for.... and then bring on all the cool things from recent aquisitions!!!

Edit:
I wanted to add that like the user above, my browser also sometimes crashes when I clear the cache.

[lnichols]

It's doing what it was intended to do:

Get the OS out there in the world, start working out the bugs and get the BBOS features needed integrated into the OS so the phones running this OS can hit the ground running, get apps and ecosystem in place.

So yes it is doing what it was supposed to do, but RIM made it sound like these things would happen much sooner than they are. They will probably lose some customers because of how badly they have rolled out the Playbook and all the misleading statements made during it, but luckily so few people bought it that it won't be a huge hit for them. I'd say if the BBX phones aren't out by Summer 2012 though then RIM will be die a slow death till they are bought. Just my opinion.

[FF22]

Oh - but I did work out a Kobo solution! See the pic.

Ah, I see that Rim has packaged the Kobo reader with the PB - well, done. This is like the other suggestion for a Calendar on the pb - take a picture of a MONTH and add some text to it.

I guess that's the good aspect of the pb - it exercises one's mind to get the most out of it.

[FF22]

I'm trying to figure out what word you typed to get censored. Bullet proof is the phrase I expected, but not sure what **** proof is.

I've restarted many times, usually just a regular shut down is ok, but last night I was doing the hard reset as well (both vol buttons & power button). The OS is good, the browser has flakiness.

I'm in the process of doing a security wipe and we'll see if that resolves my Bridge problems and see if Kobo miraculously gets going again.

I suspect it was 1diot proof. Let's see if ***** makes it.

edited to add: Oh, was it a 4 letter word? Hmm.....

[peter9477]

I wanted to add that like the user above, my browser also sometimes crashes when I clear the cache.

Hmmm.. I've never cleared my cache, ever.

Other than to reclaim what little flash storage it's probably consuming, why would you? Is this supposed to make things work better? Normally the stuff in the cache makes it work better (faster), not worse.

[shootsscores]

I'm trying to figure out what word you typed to get censored. Bullet proof is the phrase I expected, but not sure what **** proof is.

I've restarted many times, usually just a regular shut down is ok, but last night I was doing the hard reset as well (both vol buttons & power button). The OS is good, the browser has flakiness.

I'm in the process of doing a security wipe and we'll see if that resolves my Bridge problems and see if Kobo miraculously gets going again.

You can't write !diot apparently.

Kobo was working this morning for me when I checked it. It was a Kobo problem not a PB one.

[dagerlach]

I certainly think RIM hurt themselves by the early release of the Playbook. They had some great advertising and a lot of excitement leading up to the release. They had me hooked. I couldn't wait to get one....

No matter how well they adapt QNX to the Playbook, the device and RIM are scarred.

My biggest fear is that when 2.0 is released, it is so riddled with issues and does not fulfill expectations, that sales of the Playbook continue to decline and RIM gives up on the tablet. The competition is getting better and just lowering the prices hasn't improved its market position.

dg