[mjs416]

^ I agreed that Apps are important but the OP started this about an App for AutoCAD.
If you have used today's AutoDesk AutoCAD products I think you would agree an App inst going to cut it for use and a 7" tablet platform.

Watch it - you'll get scolded for missing the point of the thread. I said basically the same thing and his response was that my post was irrelevant.

[pmccartney]

Watch it - you'll get scolded for missing the point of the thread. I said basically the same thing and his response was that my post was irrelevant.

I saw that. If he wasn't particularly interested in an App from them then where did the AutoDesk response come from...did he not inquire with them? Perhaps it was simply a randomly chosen company.

[Rooster99]

I have one key business productivity app that would make/break my use of the Playbook as a stand alone unit for business. Here's the developer's take on the Playbook (I've XXX'd out the words that would specifically identify them):

"Honestly we don't have much if any info on the Playbook at this time at all. We don't have current plans to support it either. We might at some point, but we don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars and many months of time on a platform that hasn't proven itself yet and frankly has no XXXX support of any kind so we'd be building a lot of stuff from scratch because the OS doesn't have the hooks to support it yet."

So it's a definite "wait and see" here. I want the speed, flow and multi-tasking of the PBook but have to have the apps. If RIM doesn't deliver - soon - I will be forced to look at the iPad. Of course that opens the iPhone door so I, and our company, may never look back. I think I'm pretty typically of the masses of current Berry users - we want the PBook to succeed, but we're cautious now as RIM has burnt us too many times in the past. Our money is RIM's to lose, but if RIM wants us to open our wallets they need to step up to the plate and a huge part of that is making the apps. They need to build an eco-system to rival Apple's.

As background, I am a business user. Not corporate - I run a small business in Canada that is national in scope and dominates its niche. The developer I quote has Berry, iOS and Android products with a good reputation in all 3 worlds.

- R.

[ifarlow]

Developers being wary of the PlayBook doesn't surprise me at all, and the more momentum that apprehension gains, the worse it will be for the PlayBook app landscape.

[ptpete]

Actually, if you go onto the developer forums over at Blackberry, you'll see there is a lot of activity.

Flash apps are the ones hitting now, but as the other tools get rolled out, I think there will be many more quality apps coming out. There are basically 4 choices to develop in, which is quite open choice for developers.

1) Flash
2) WebWorks
3) Java
4) Native

Flash was the easiest to roll out and seems like a shoehorn to get some apps out, but most serious developers will go WebWorks or Java and real hardcore will go Native.

[ifarlow]

We'll see. I hope you're right, but as each day passes... well, I find it depressing that the native development environment isn't expected until fall. That's quite a long way off, and I have to wonder if it will be too late at that point.

[papped]

public beta in the summer = releases anyhow though.

[mjs416]

I think I'm pretty typically of the masses of current Berry users - we want the PBook to succeed, but we're cautious now as RIM has burnt us too many times in the past.

- R.

Can you expand on that? I've used Blackberry's since they were only offered in monochrome and never once have I felt burned by them. I will say they seem to be cautious in their overall approach to updating technology but dont ever feel like they have ever failed me.

That being said - I have played around with my wife's iphone and have never liked it (although the lack of a hard qwerty turns me off). If the ipad is an extension of the iphone - Apple can keep it. I want more out of my tablet than Angry Birds.

Also - why not evaluate the Android OS? I noticed you didnt mention that OS.

[ifarlow]

public beta in the summer = releases anyhow though.

Only if the developer is willing to have his software broken by later BETA (and final gold) releases of the development environment, changing API's, etc.

[brucep1]

Can you expand on that? I've used Blackberry's since they were only offered in monochrome and never once have I felt burned by them. I will say they seem to be cautious in their overall approach to updating technology but dont ever feel like they have ever failed me.

That being said - I have played around with my wife's iphone and have never liked it (although the lack of a hard qwerty turns me off). If the ipad is an extension of the iphone - Apple can keep it. I want more out of my tablet than Angry Birds.

Also - why not evaluate the Android OS? I noticed you didnt mention that OS.

See blackberry storm.

[papped]

Only if the developer is willing to have his software broken by later BETA (and final gold) releases of the development environment, changing API's, etc.

You still have a release making $ in appworld that is not affected... And updating their app due to api changes is a problem even in non-beta BB development (also not ever single update will necessarily break every app in some major way).

[joefri]

To the OP - What would you expect to gain or accomplish with an AutoCAD app for a 7" tablet? Just for viewing dwgs, dwfs? Sincerely...curious.
I have been using AutoDESK, and Structural/Civil related, products since the mid 80's when we had 13" crt monitors. Now I use 2 - 24 inch monitors and don't have enough screen real-estate some days.
As you said yourself, pdf the dwgs to view them and possibly plot them but what else would you want to do on a 7" screen.

Since you are sincerely curious, I'll explain. As you know there's a lot more engineering disciplines than Structural/Civil. There is also a lot of new technology that has been developed by Autodesk to aid in the work flow of engineered drawings. I work for a global industrial engineering firm that deals with process & control, electrical, and mechanical engineering. I currently have 5 separate engineering projects going on spread across three states in the USA which require me and others to travel to these plants during construction phases or preliminary engineering phases. We have a drafting dept. that resides in the home office, we also have access to drafters in another one of our offices in India (cue the tv show outsourced) and yes our drafters all have dual 24" widescreens as well.

Field engineers and project managers can use AutoCAD WS to markup, add annotations, and label specific instructions directly on the drawings from the field. All the drawings are saved in a cloud which means everyone can share them. I don't like carrying around 100 drawings in the field, I certainly don't like packing them in my suitcase and while in the plant I don't like carrying around the drawings or a laptop, it's big, doesn't take the plant environment well and it's hard to hold it and type. I like the idea of being able to access every project drawing as I inspect the site, add notes or mark a change required and have it instantly shared back to the cloud were our Drafting dept. then within minutes can make a change and reissue. This process saves a lot of time and most importantly money.

So yes I am interested in having this app created. Our company IT policy does not allow Android or Apple products for business use.

[ifarlow]

You still have a release making $ in appworld that is not affected... And updating their app due to api changes is a problem even in non-beta BB development (also not ever single update will necessarily break every app in some major way).

True, but during the BETA phase, the odds of your software being broken are much higher. Plus, BETA software by its very nature is for testing only, and is not intended for early access. So anyone relying on BETA development tools is taking a big risk.

But hey, as I said earlier, we'll see what happens.

[mjs416]

See blackberry storm.

OK - fair enough. One model. Anything else though? The undertone of his post implied we have been repeatedly burned by RIM.

[Rooster99]

Can you expand on that? I've used Blackberry's since they were only offered in monochrome and never once have I felt burned by them. I will say they seem to be cautious in their overall approach to updating technology but dont ever feel like they have ever failed me.

That being said - I have played around with my wife's iphone and have never liked it (although the lack of a hard qwerty turns me off). If the ipad is an extension of the iphone - Apple can keep it. I want more out of my tablet than Angry Birds.

Also - why not evaluate the Android OS? I noticed you didnt mention that OS.

Storm
Storm 2

And to some degree, the Torch (usable as a phone and I like mine a lot, but hardly "flagship" worthy compared to the competition especially as the 3rd touchscreen iteration)

- R.

[mjs416]

Since you are sincerely curious, I'll explain. As you know there's a lot more engineering disciplines than Structural/Civil. There is also a lot of new technology that has been developed by Autodesk to aid in the work flow of engineered drawings. I work for a global industrial engineering firm that deals with process & control, electrical, and mechanical engineering. I currently have 5 separate engineering projects going on spread across three states in the USA which require me and others to travel to these plants during construction phases or preliminary engineering phases. We have a drafting dept. that resides in the home office, we also have access to drafters in another one of our offices in India (cue the tv show outsourced) and yes our drafters all have dual 24" widescreens as well.

Field engineers and project managers can use AutoCAD WS to markup, add annotations, and label specific instructions directly on the drawings from the field. All the drawings are saved in a cloud which means everyone can share them. I don't like carrying around 100 drawings in the field, I certainly don't like packing them in my suitcase and while in the plant I don't like carrying around the drawings or a laptop, it's big, doesn't take the plant environment well and it's hard to hold it and type. I like the idea of being able to access every project drawing as I inspect the site, add notes or mark a change required and have it instantly shared back to the cloud were our Drafting dept. then within minutes can make a change and reissue. This process saves a lot of time and most importantly money.

So yes I am interested in having this app created. Our company IT policy does not allow Android or Apple products for business use.

Since you are no longer scolding people for deviating from the self proclaimed point of this thread - why is it again you want to add lite capabilities to CADD on a 7" screen?

[mjs416]

Storm
Storm 2

And to some degree, the Torch (usable as a phone and I like mine a lot, but hardly "flagship" worthy compared to the competition especially as the 3rd touchscreen iteration)

- R.

As I mentioned above you will get no argument out of me regarding the Storm phones - they are crap.

I played around with a Torch and the combination of touch screen and hard qwerty is awesome. While not flagship worthy I agree - definitely a nice model.

[brucep1]

OK - fair enough. One model. Anything else though? The undertone of his post implied we have been repeatedly burned by RIM.

One model, but people locked into two year contracts with a phone that doesn't make phone calls.

I know, because I survived the storm.

Instead of people being helped or replaced by RIM, we were told to wait for the update. No update could fix that device. Jesus Christ himself couldnt.

[papped]

A lot of people really liked the S2 though... It didn't have the huge hardware issues with the surepress that the S1 did.

The largest issue for them was probably the huge gap until the next model upgrade.

[pmccartney]

Since you are sincerely curious, I'll explain. As you know there's a lot more engineering disciplines than Structural/Civil. There is also a lot of new technology that has been developed by Autodesk to aid in the work flow of engineered drawings. I work for a global industrial engineering firm that deals with process & control, electrical, and mechanical engineering. I currently have 5 separate engineering projects going on spread across three states in the USA which require me and others to travel to these plants during construction phases or preliminary engineering phases. We have a drafting dept. that resides in the home office, we also have access to drafters in another one of our offices in India (cue the tv show outsourced) and yes our drafters all have dual 24" widescreens as well.

Field engineers and project managers can use AutoCAD WS to markup, add annotations, and label specific instructions directly on the drawings from the field. All the drawings are saved in a cloud which means everyone can share them. I don't like carrying around 100 drawings in the field, I certainly don't like packing them in my suitcase and while in the plant I don't like carrying around the drawings or a laptop, it's big, doesn't take the plant environment well and it's hard to hold it and type. I like the idea of being able to access every project drawing as I inspect the site, add notes or mark a change required and have it instantly shared back to the cloud were our Drafting dept. then within minutes can make a change and reissue. This process saves a lot of time and most importantly money.

So yes I am interested in having this app created. Our company IT policy does not allow Android or Apple products for business use.

Thanks for the explanation from your perspective. While I can appreciate your situation re the cloud (we have offices in > 80 cities on 4 continents), a laptop or tablet pc is still a much better solution than a Playbook.

[joefri]

Thanks for the explanation from your perspective. While I can appreciate your situation re the cloud (we have offices in > 80 cities on 4 continents), a laptop or tablet pc is still a much better solution than a Playbook.

Only because they haven't made a QNX version of AutoCAD WS.

YouTube - ‪AutoCADWS's Channel‬‏

[sportline]

torch got lots of usable apps. but pb got fairly none.

[_StephenBB81]

I have 2 worries: The first is that the 250k PB sold were to rabid BB fans, and the rest of the population will not really catch on. We really need to see sales after 3 months to see where this is going. My second worry is that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is getting a bunch of very positive reviews, and the tablet momentum might shift toward Android, leaving the PB as a footnote.

The reason for these worries is that I've been trying to get IT to support the PB, but it's been molasses in terms of progress. We need to see some good business adoption of the PB, as well as AT&T support (most of our BBs are AT&T because of GSM), and it's all a crapshoot for the moment.

I have to say in the Canadian market it for sure has not been the die hard bb lover.
I have seen more regular users who don't even visit forums and just like their 8830's and 8330's buying playbooks and upgrading their bbs
and it has not just been 1 or 2 with my job I travel a lot and have found more than 10 casual users who purchased playbooks and of a sampling of about 25 people I personally have met with paybooks that is a high sampling of non bb faithful, more bb faithful are waiting to pick up new bb's with OS7 than jumping on the playbook