[anon(728548)]

So attatched is a picture of the PlayBook from the YouTube video of the Rogers conference



0:42 is where the SetUp screen is shown momentarily


In the SetUp menu, i spotted "PIN: 920829823" Maybe PlayBooks do have their own PIN????

[drjay868]

I think it was taylorbb who said saw something in the sdk that hinted that it would have its own PIN

[taylortbb]

It's more than a hint, the simulator has a PIN. RIM has also been advising PlayBook developers to use the PIN as a unique ID. It's no guarantee it has push services though, could just be a device ID like a serial number.

[anon(728548)]

It's more than a hint, the simulator has a PIN. RIM has also been advising PlayBook developers to use the PIN as a unique ID. It's no guarantee it has push services though, could just be a device ID like a serial number.

Yeah, noticing it has no letters like the usual bberry pins i was thinking it wouldnt have push services being its just numbers and a little longer showing it may have a different meaning

[taylortbb]

Yeah, noticing it has no letters like the usual bberry pins i was thinking it wouldnt have push services being its just numbers and a little longer

I'm pretty sure BlackBerry PINs are just hexadecimal, and so far this seems to be true on the PlayBook too.

[anon(728548)]

I'm pretty sure BlackBerry PINs are just hexadecimal, and so far this seems to be true on the PlayBook too.

thanks! makes sense i just want mine so i can do all the stuff he did :P if i was at that conference id be so tempted to run up and start playing with it

[JRSCCivic98]

Why are even the most recent videos of the playbook showing the same thing we've already seen in previous ones? Same videos, same pics, same progs multitasking, etc. I think maybe the only new thing might be the X on the upper corner of each app window when thrown into the switcher ribbon.

Really, if you look closely at the UI it's EXACTLY what the current BBs are. The program groups are what OS6 has, the multitasking ribbon is the same as our current app switcher ribbon except for the fact that it shows the view of the running program instead of just the icon for it, etc.

You'd have to be stupid to not see how easy of a migration this would be to the handheld. All it is is a different look and some added gestures, i.e. more eye candy. The overall core design is still the same. Am I the only one who's seeing this?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[UrbanGlowCam]

Why are even the most recent videos of the playbook showing the same thing we've already seen in previous ones? Same videos, same pics, same progs multitasking, etc. I think maybe the only new thing might be the X on the upper corner of each app window when thrown into the switcher ribbon.

Really, if you look closely at the UI it's EXACTLY what the current BBs are. The program groups are what OS6 has, the multitasking ribbon is the same as our current app switcher ribbon except for the fact that it shows the view of the running program instead of just the icon for it, etc.

You'd have to be stupid to not see how easy of a migration this would be to the handheld. All it is is a different look and some added gestures, i.e. more eye candy. The overall core design is still the same. Am I the only one who's seeing this?

The layout might be similar to OS6 but what's wrong with that? I personally like it. I don't think the categorization is needed but everything else is beautiful. My gripe with OS6 currently is how it lacks being able to run rich apps like the other platforms among many other things that the Playbook should fix.

Also, isn't have consistency to their current phones a good thing so there is a familiarity for pairing your current Berry?

[Duvi]

btw... i have had plenty of berries with numbers only.

i've had a few.

[Masahiro]

Interesting... Blackberry PINs start with either a "2" (GSM) or a "3" (CDMA).

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[JRSCCivic98]

The layout might be similar to OS6 but what's wrong with that? I personally like it. I don't think the categorization is needed but everything else is beautiful. My gripe with OS6 currently is how it lacks being able to run rich apps like the other platforms among many other things that the Playbook should fix.

Also, isn't have consistency to their current phones a good thing so there is a familiarity for pairing your current Berry?

Valid points and I completely agree with the "match what we have now, but candy it up a bit", however, one has to wonder how customizable that UI really is? The other thing is, how will people react in general once the new wears off and everyone comes to the same realization of what I said above? Again, I'm not saying it's not an improvement, what I'm saying is... is it enough of one to distance itself from what people know about BB and what's currently contributing to the bad taste in their mouths?

[MattyG27]

Valid points and I completely agree with the "match what we have now, but candy it up a bit", however, one has to wonder how customizable that UI really is? The other thing is, how will people react in general once the new wears off and everyone comes to the same realization of what I said above? Again, I'm not saying it's not an improvement, what I'm saying is... is it enough of one to distance itself from what people know about BB and what's currently contributing to the bad taste in their mouths?

I agree also, we've saw the same demo almost everytimes we've saw the PB in the wild. Although I do think it looks great it's gotten kinda boring in showing the main screen. I mean throw a weather app up in one of the corners or something, do something else to spruce up the homescreen. Show us a widget on the homescreen, just something different to stop things from looking plain. Obviously I'm assuming thats where TAT is gonna come in and maybe they haven't gotten that far yet but it's getting awfully close to when they say and we THINK it may be released and I just hope it's not gonna look like that.
While I'm not a fan too much of OS6, I'm beginning to see the reality that OS7/QNX(if thats what it will even be called) is pretty much gonna look like the same thing but with the QNX kernel it seems.
Back to my point about the plain homescreen, maybe they could have a weather app that effects the whole homescreen and has animation with your weather outside reflecting what is going on with the backdrop of your skyline. For example in the top right corner it could show your location and temp. Then if it's cloudy with some wind, they could show the clouds moving and an occasional blowing of the wind with trees moving or something. Just an idea to throw out there, like Civic said, just something to jazz it up and not make it so plain like I still believe OS6 is.

[grahamf]

Anyone else tried inviting that pin? It erred out because it had 8 characters, which is one more than the 7 character norm.
Does that mean that the PlayBook will have 8 character PIN, or was it just a typo?

[UrbanGlowCam]

Oh alright I got what you guys are saying. That's true....I have a feeling we'll be seeing some widgets on this thing though. There's room for it when he slides the icons down and out of the picture.

From what we've seen, I'm sure you can change the wallpaper. If what they say about QNX being a distant cousin to Android is true, then we might able ton expect some customization on this thing.

It does look a little plain to me right now but the os just runs soo much smoother than os6. I'm more concerned with the performance first. It's not released so hopefully we have some more surprises.

I'm not trying to sound like a BB fanboy making conclusions before this thing is released....and I never thought I'd say this.....but QNX is really starting to look like a contender to Android/iOS/WP7. I'm starting to think it'll be much better. Just the way the multitasking works in real time is what makes it stand out.

I'm sure CX is out there saying "I told you so "

Add the hardware to it and hopefully some rich apps by release and you'll definitely have something that'll catch the eyes of both consumer and enterprise users. Finally, some positive energy on these forums.

[howarmat]

I agree also, we've saw the same demo almost everytimes we've saw the PB in the wild. Although I do think it looks great it's gotten kinda boring in showing the main screen. I mean throw a weather app up in one of the corners or something, do something else to spruce up the homescreen. Show us a widget on the homescreen, just something different to stop things from looking plain. Obviously I'm assuming thats where TAT is gonna come in and maybe they haven't gotten that far yet but it's getting awfully close to when they say and we THINK it may be released and I just hope it's not gonna look like that.
While I'm not a fan too much of OS6, I'm beginning to see the reality that OS7/QNX(if thats what it will even be called) is pretty much gonna look like the same thing but with the QNX kernel it seems.
Back to my point about the plain homescreen, maybe they could have a weather app that effects the whole homescreen and has animation with your weather outside reflecting what is going on with the backdrop of your skyline. For example in the top right corner it could show your location and temp. Then if it's cloudy with some wind, they could show the clouds moving and an occasional blowing of the wind with trees moving or something. Just an idea to throw out there, like Civic said, just something to jazz it up and not make it so plain like I still believe OS6 is.

stealing a cue straight from HTC lol....although i dont know if HTC really came up with that or not

[MattyG27]

stealing a cue straight from HTC lol....although i dont know if HTC really came up with that or not

Exactly Matt, however correct me if I'm wrong here, but on those devices they just have animations of the weather. They don't interact with any sort of back drop, like a skyline or anything correct?
I know a lot of us live in small towns or suburbs outside main cities, but I was thinking just have a back drop of the closest main city. What would also be cool is if they had it from a view of whatever direction your town or city is from the main city the weather is coming from and have the view from that angle. Then have the sun and clouds or whatever move thru-out the day with the back drop.
I know i'm kinda getting in-depth here with more or less maybe an app that would probably have to be made instead of something build-in the UI but they really need something to make it look less plain. I mean come on I'm even getting sick of the green grass background or whatever it is.
With the multi-tasking capabilities of the PB, the weather background shouldn't be any sort of problem on this device. Even if it's not a weather feed. Give me a news bar, RSS feed or something running across the top of the screen(IE Continuum style) that makes it look better. Also like Android devices do, let me have a panoramic picture as my background and as I'm scrolling right and left in the OS the picture scroll to different views in the background also. I'm copying a lot of things here but I'm just trying to give examples to not make it look so plain and nothing to it. TAT has gotta be able to think of better ideas then I just gave, thats why they bought and hired them in the first place right??

[howarmat]

Right its very basic on HTC Sense and beautiful widgets has it also so all android devices can have this feature. It just displays an overlay of whatever the weather is, raindrops, lightning or snow falling like it is right now. Some people like it others hate it. To me it adds to the user experience and that is what Sense is all about. BB does not have anything that can enhance the user experience IMO. The universal search that is so highly talked about is really nothing special that hasn't been done on other phones for quite a while. its just RIM finally is catching up once again.

That is all they ever do. The playbook is RIMs first shot of being ahead of the game MAYBE. they still havent delivered the PB to anyone to review and in 3 months others will have plenty of other manufactures that have tablets released or close to it for them to compete with. We will see in the coming months and also maybe get some better info on upcoming phones. It can either be a great year or horrible year for RIM. The ball is in their court and they control their future and this will be a deciding year for them

[UrbanGlowCam]

I think once we see this thing completed it will look more "full". I watched the Playbook promo ad again and got more excited. The media player, calendar, etc. looks awesome. I actually like that it looks like BB6. While I liked what they added with it, having the same underlying as OS5 made it not reach its potential. I think they wanted to launch QNX, couldn't complete it in time, then decided to make BB6.



Notice how when it first shows the Playbook "in action", its in a portrait view. We haven't actually seen it use the accelerometer yet. The real time views of the tasks are also shown in a portrait layout vs landscape. Obviously, this is expected as the Playbook is in portrait view itself, but if we see it reorientate everything like that in real time, that's pretty amazing and definitely needs a decent GPU to do it. I can definitely picture this view on the upcoming phones. It looks like BB6 on steroids. Yeah it's a simulation, but they've shown to be pretty close to their simulated promo with BB6 IMO.

Now that I think about it, I kinda like the lack of complexity. I think BB has always been about SIMPLE. Android is cool with all of its widgets but gives me a headache when my friends let me play with them and they have icons and widgets everywhere. I don't think more is always better. Then again, it would be nice to have some more flashy eye candy.

Oh and as far as the weather stuff goes, HTC definitely seems like the one to make that popular. I used to love what they did to Windows Mobile. Now they're doing it on Android and even this cool WP7 addon that they might go for.

[MattyG27]

I hear you Matt and Cam. Again, like you said Cam more isn't always better and I wouldn't want it to be too complex to the effect of completely gaudy or cheesy. I'm just saying give us something that catches our eye, however really it's not our eye they should be worried about. They need to have something that is better and flashy to catch new customers eye and make people be interested in the devices on things besides just the great hardware in it.
Which inturn brings me to Matt's points. RIM is always just catching up to other platforms is a completely true statement. It's also why a lot of people on here are upset, bored with RIM and wondering when they are gonna WOW us with a FINAL product that can compete on a level playing field with stuff that's already out. The PB may have great specs but by the time it's released the market is gonna be flooded with tablets. Therefore QNX better be really smooth, ultra snappy and just an amazing user experience when you pick the PB up or else its just gonna get lost in the mix. Then unfortunately again RIM would be back to right where they are at now.

[taylortbb]

I know a lot of us live in small towns or suburbs outside main cities, but I was thinking just have a back drop of the closest main city. What would also be cool is if they had it from a view of whatever direction your town or city is from the main city the weather is coming from and have the view from that angle. Then have the sun and clouds or whatever move thru-out the day with the back drop.

Samsung had a phone that did this years ago, the SGH-D900. It's what I had before getting a BlackBerry. Wasn't sold in North America so most people here don't know it existed (had to get an imported unlocked one). It didn't follow the weather, but it was an animated responsive homescreen. It showed a picture of whatever major landmark was closest. The weather changed to reflect your signal strength, it would become grey and cloudy when it was weak. The time of day in the picture also reflected the current time, it would slowly get darker as it got later. Even when not changing information it was animated, you'd see birds flying through. Whenever I had a new notification then planes flying loops would join the birds.

From what we've seen, I'm sure you can change the wallpaper. If what they say about QNX being a distant cousin to Android is true, then we might able ton expect some customization on this thing.

You can definitely change the wallpaper, as you can in the simulator. There's no UI in settings to do it though. I only managed it when exploring QNX from the command line after rooting my simulator. I've learned a LOT about the PlayBook that RIM isn't willing to officially state yet.

I don't think describing QNX and Android as distant cousins is accurate. Yes, QNX is a Unix-style operating system and so is Linux (what Android is based on). But Web OS is also based on Linux. iOS is also a Unix-style operating system, being based on the same underlying platform as OS X, another Unix-style operating system. Maemo is also a Linux based platform. Really, all the new platforms except WP7 are Unix-style operating systems. So although they share technical-level similarities, this does not carry through into the user experience. iOS and Android are about as closely related as QNX and Android are.

[UrbanGlowCam]

You can definitely change the wallpaper, as you can in the simulator. There's no UI in settings to do it though. I only managed it when exploring QNX from the command line after rooting my simulator. I've learned a LOT about the PlayBook that RIM isn't willing to officially state yet.

I don't think describing QNX and Android as distant cousins is accurate. Yes, QNX is a Unix-style operating system and so is Linux (what Android is based on). But Web OS is also based on Linux. iOS is also a Unix-style operating system, being based on the same underlying platform as OS X, another Unix-style operating system. Maemo is also a Linux based platform. Really, all the new platforms except WP7 are Unix-style operating systems. So although they share technical-level similarities, this does not carry through into the user experience. iOS and Android are about as closely related as QNX and Android are.

I didn't know that. I just played around with the simulator but don't know anything about programming.

As for the distant cousins statement....I'm not trying to put anyone on the spot but CX did mention that. I would assume he knows more than us about it.

"As for the PlayBook, you're obviously entitled to your opinion, but the QNX Tablet OS is and will remain far superior to iOS or Android(although they're distant cousins)."

Again, I don't know a thing about programming so I'm not saying you're wrong either. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about what the Playbook hides. If you ever wanna BBM....

[taylortbb]

As for the distant cousins statement....I'm not trying to put anyone on the spot but CX did mention that. I would assume he knows more than us about it.

"As for the PlayBook, you're obviously entitled to your opinion, but the QNX Tablet OS is and will remain far superior to iOS or Android(although they're distant cousins)."

Again, I don't know a thing about programming so I'm not saying you're wrong either. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about what the Playbook hides. If you ever wanna BBM....

I was trying to speak to user a experience perspective. On a technical level they are distant cousins, but it's an irrelevant point unless you're writing apps. From looking at as an average user does, you're not going to see any relation. It was just in response to how you read into it meaning QNX would be customizable like Android, it doesn't mean that.

I've learned that when speaking in non-programmer forums it's best to ignore technical details most people don't care about, and speak in user experience terms.

Most of the stuff I've learned has been posted here in one thread or another. Stuff that hasn't has been because it's not that exciting. On the last developer webcast RIM wouldn't say anything about the maps API and what platform it would be using, leaving people wondering BlackBerry Maps or something else. Based on the simulator I can say it's Google Maps. I found a config file which states which programs are used to open which URLs. maps:// URLs are set to open in Google Maps. It's neither exciting or groundbreaking so I haven't mentioned it previously.

[UrbanGlowCam]

Oh I didn't mean to use that as to saying their interface will end up being the same. I meant their underlyings might be similar. That could lead to having the same potential for the interface. It all depends on which route their designers decide to go. It's just nice to be able to say it's unix-like instead of all java based now. It brings it closer to the capabilities of Android and maybe other platforms. It could have capabilities to do creative thing with lots of eye-candy like Android...not necessarily the same thing.

I think it's important for non-programmers like me to understand where they're going and it helps us learn where some of the output in the OS originates. Similar to when we started (barely) seeing Open GL apps for the Storm series because we found out before that the chipset supported it vs. other BBs without it.

Google Maps huh? Could that be a temporary solution until they end up having a revised BB maps in future revisions?

[the one and only M]

Why are even the most recent videos of the playbook showing the same thing we've already seen in previous ones? Same videos, same pics, same progs multitasking, etc. I think maybe the only new thing might be the X on the upper corner of each app window when thrown into the switcher ribbon.

Really, if you look closely at the UI it's EXACTLY what the current BBs are. The program groups are what OS6 has, the multitasking ribbon is the same as our current app switcher ribbon except for the fact that it shows the view of the running program instead of just the icon for it, etc.

You'd have to be stupid to not see how easy of a migration this would be to the handheld. All it is is a different look and some added gestures, i.e. more eye candy. The overall core design is still the same. Am I the only one who's seeing this?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Nope. I noticed that also when I watched the hands on videos.

[Skeevecr]

Anyone else tried inviting that pin? It erred out because it had 8 characters, which is one more than the 7 character norm.
Does that mean that the PlayBook will have 8 character PIN, or was it just a typo?

8 characters are the norm for pins though.