[Hirazi Blue]

If we get no updates, playbook will dump us by year end.

True, but besides the point. As a legacy device with a supportive community the product could still live on after the company has abandoned it. Plenty of precedents for that BTW.

[duty14]

That is your hope? That community will keep the Playbook alive? Long shot aspirations.. + plus community are simple people not IT techs or developers... And they will have to do it for free with less moral rewards possible... I don't see a positive in that at all... You are very optimistic...

[Hirazi Blue]

At least I cling to something...
You're right, though, it is optimistic. But I for one do not have the option to write off the PB and make some other company happy ATM. So yeah, desperate times.

[Baconwich]

People are still working on the HTC Touchpad or whatever. At least the Playbook is a bit more solid, hardware-wise.

"In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas."

[Hirazi Blue]

You should see what Commodore 64 users are still up to...

[duty14]

They are as good as dead guys... Only people who like wasting time and maybe fans of those franchises for life.... In rest majority and normal people moved on... No? So yes holding on to other dead examples is desperate times... Use PlayBook while you can, I will be a shame to throw it out but realise that it's good as dead and it will have the same fate as examples you specified before...

[Hirazi Blue]

I get a strong "the glass is half full" versus "the glass is half empty, so let's throw it on the floor and buy a new one" vibe here...

[jarviser]

I get a strong "the glass is half full" versus "the glass is half empty, so let's throw it on the floor and buy a new one" vibe here...

If anyone can say how to update to,say, Flash 12 when it's needed without an OS update, I'll vote with the half full, brigade, but until BB say SOMETHING positive in that direction, even one of their discredited promises, to maintain the OS, the half empty brigade hold the high ground.

[9Jer99]

Platforms that have survived the end of life were able to be exploited or intentionally open via the manufacturer. BB has the Playbook locked up tight and because their main market is/was Government/Corporations they are NOT going to open it to the public.

[duty14]

I said use it cause it will be a shame to throw it... But the future will be only one... Even supported in time products are changed with new technology. The ones that aren't even supported by their makers will have a very short life... Sorry .. I wish i was optimistic like you but there is no optimistic sign in this whole PlayBook situation... BlackBerry make sure of it... Not only they leave you hanging by a cliff but they even cut the ropes... So in my opinion is no use hanging on... Use it as much as you can but in the future you will still need to move on...

[duty14]

Cause everybody did move on...

[FF22]

That is your hope? That community will keep the Playbook alive? Long shot aspirations.. + plus community are simple people not IT techs or developers... And they will have to do it for free with less moral rewards possible... I don't see a positive in that at all... You are very optimistic...

Okay, You are bitter and so are many of the rest of us. BUT my PB still works and I can still surf the web. I can still attach it to my TV (last night) and I can still watch video in my backyard (yesterday). I can still read pdf docs (no thanks to the native pdf crappy app) using pdf reader.

And I can still help folks who have pbs use them or provide the support numbers for warranty repair. I will stick around and so will my pb.

BB - well, frankly, I'm not very happy with them or their failure to fulfill their promises, including their early ones. They pretty much screwed up the entire pb during its history.

Yes, one day my pb will die. And I probably will not be finding any bb replacement nor probably looking for one.

[FF22]

If anyone can say how to update to,say, Flash 12 when it's needed without an OS update, I'll vote with the half full, brigade, but until BB say SOMETHING positive in that direction, even one of their discredited promises, to maintain the OS, the half empty brigade hold the high ground.

The glass most likely will remain half empty. I don't hold out much hope. But as Hirazi notes, the glass still functions and I can imbibe. Oh, my glass is not filled with cool aid but bourbon!!!

[Barracuda7772]

That is your hope? That community will keep the Playbook alive? Long shot aspirations.. + plus community are simple people not IT techs or developers... And they will have to do it for free with less moral rewards possible... I don't see a positive in that at all... You are very optimistic...

I guess you never heard of XDA. people do this stuff for free all the time, because they are a "community" of developers.......that's right community and developers In the same place.....who knew eh.

the community is what kept the playbook alive thus far and its what will keep it going fornthe foreseeable future...que origami browser. it seems the community has kept this browser alive giving the playbook a new lease on life.

I understand not all of the community are devs and IT folks but many of this community participate in beta testing to improve these apps.

I myself insead of complaining am learning to code, so that I (part of the community) can help keep the playbook alive

[anon(6038817)]

The best thing BlackBerry could do to start to repair their damaged reputation in my eyes is unlock the PlayBook bootloader and allow us to load our OS of choice on there. I would absolutely LOVE to run a linux distro or Android-based ROM on my PB hardware.

[msps]

People are still working on the HTC Touchpad or whatever. At least the Playbook is a bit more solid, hardware-wise.

"In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas."

HP touchpad you mean.
Yeah.
Over 2 years old, 1GB RAM.

Installed the newest Android Jelly Bean 4.2
on it yesterday and it works like a charm.
Thousands apps, great OS, open source.
You don't realise how bad Deadbook is until you try any other tablet.


Custom cyanogen rom.
HP abandoned WebOS but unlike BlackBerry they unlocked bootloader and let the community work on it.

[duty14]

I guess you never heard of XDA. people do this stuff for free all the time, because they are a "community" of developers.......that's right community and developers In the same place.....who knew eh.

the community is what kept the playbook alive thus far and its what will keep it going fornthe foreseeable future...que origami browser. it seems the community has kept this browser alive giving the playbook a new lease on life.

I understand not all of the community are devs and IT folks but many of this community participate in beta testing to improve these apps.

I myself insead of complaining am learning to code, so that I (part of the community) can help keep the playbook alive

You think that community kept PlayBook alive till now? The waiting for promises kept PlayBook alive... The community most of them are normal people and users and the ones that are in the IT department do you really think they will work that much for free? Plus the code of software of BB is not open....

Even if you say you will try for PlayBook i am skeptical that per total this community will be able to keep PlayBook alive in the future especially if all roads are stopped by BlackBerry. Good intentions are always welcome but i am not so optimistic about it. I was optimistic until now with the latest news about PlayBook...
Sry this is my opinion...

[Barracuda7772]

You think that community kept PlayBook alive till now? The waiting for promises kept PlayBook alive... The community most of them are normal people and users and the ones that are in the IT department do you really think they will work that much for free? Plus the code of software of BB is not open....

Even if you say you will try for PlayBook i am skeptical that per total this community will be able to keep PlayBook alive in the future especially if all roads are stopped by BlackBerry. Good intentions are always welcome but i am not so optimistic about it. I was optimistic until now with the latest news about PlayBook...
Sry this is my opinion...

wow kinda hard to believe you were optimistic about anything.

and yes the community will keep things going. do you really think apple would be where it is right now without its developer community ? Steve jobs knew this. all we need are some devs that will improve upon the core apps we have because all things considering 2.1.0.1526 is pretty good and the best were going to get and devs like bumble bee computing and pcshun are doing just that making and improving core apps.

if the playbook no longer suits your needs move on. the playbook is more or less dead but it still meets the needs of a lot of people and that's perfectly ok. there really is no need to come here and drop all this negativity on everyone. like I said it is what it is we know the playbook is in a limbo re animated alive and dead at the same time kinda state.

as for me I will use it until it dies, but that will be awhile, because mines not even 6 months old

[WeAreNotAlone]

You think that community kept PlayBook alive till now? The waiting for promises kept PlayBook alive... The community most of them are normal people and users and the ones that are in the IT department do you really think they will work that much for free? Plus the code of software of BB is not open....

Even if you say you will try for PlayBook i am skeptical that per total this community will be able to keep PlayBook alive in the future especially if all roads are stopped by BlackBerry. Good intentions are always welcome but i am not so optimistic about it. I was optimistic until now with the latest news about PlayBook...
Sry this is my opinion...

+ 1

For those that talk about the "Community" keeping the PlayBook Alive:

You have a device in which you have a LOCKED-DOWN "SECURE" DEVICE and you are TOTALLY DEPENDENT UPON BLACKBERRY FOR UPDATES, FIXES TO CORE APPS.

"SECURE" means just that, you're LOCKED OUT.

(And we can see how that's worked out so far.)

99.99999999999% of PlayBook owners are dependent on the BlackBerry "mothership", just like a week old baby is upon it's parents.
You have a device in which it is very unattractive to the hacker, modders, coders of the world due to:
High cost @ release
Target market = Business and Government.... Most of those types of people aren't the hacking type.
Etc.

*Note, there might been a few hacker types willing to pay the big prices upon release but modder /hacker interest tends to be tied to the PRICE of the item. As price goes UP, fewer people can afford to perform operations that can and do "brick" the device.
****************************
"Rooting or "JailBraking" the device:

Due to the factors noted above (Plus some others) There are very few "Rooted" PlayBooks out there, unless something has recently changed. (I have not been following the rooting forum, only popped in to see that there is some work being done now to "crack" the PlayBook)

(Very few were rooted because the PlayBooks are setup to Auto-Update upon first boot.)

All of these factors mean the pool of people who know the OS is very small.

Compare this to probably 20-30 MILLION rooted Android /IOS phones with hundreds of thousands of person from around the world messing with the internals EVERYDAY.
Unlike with Android, Apple, and maybe Windows machines there is only a handful of people that know the internals of the BlackBerry PB OS , and fewer still that would be willing to share their knowledge.

The expression "You could fit all of them on the HEAD OF A PIN" comes to mind.

We have literally (1) guy (Xsacha) who (was) able to figure out how to "root" early PlayBooks and "knows" the OS to any degree (Root and other wise I would assume), and Blackberry fixed that by encrypting the bootloader so that would never happen again.

On the Android, Apple boards they have probably a 1,000 Xsacha's from around the world logged at any one time.

Developer support is dropping day by day.
(Especially since 2013-06-28, the Day the CEo of BlackBerry Thorsten Heins very quietly during a "EARNINGS CALL" to investors, not a Press release announced BlackBerry was going back on their WORD all PlayBooks would be getting a update to the BB10 OS.)

Beyond maybe a handful of developers, you can expect most have moved to the BB10 model. (Making apps for BB10 OS)

Another aspect of the "Locked-down" aspect of the OS. I would bet if a group of developers that had access and the skills to go into the OS and start fixing things would be in some kind of legal trouble with Blackberry, or would be at least "banned" from everything that is BlackBerry so to speak... BlackBerry I would think would not look too kindly on such a group.

Then there is a scenario in which say a group of people get together and fix /patch /modify the current OS and BlackBerry pushes out a "Security Update" that purposefully breaks everything and encrypts the device further so save face.

Their spin on the story will be "We had to patch SECURITY HOLES" in the OS, we've got to keep the OS locked down you know.

.

[qwerty4ever]

So I or others now need a light weight 7 inch hdmi equipped tv that runs for 8-10 hours on battery.

That should eliminate Sad Old Man's need for a very long power cord for his wheelbarrow-based mobile computing experience when he visits hus watering hole.

Posted via CB10 from the BlackBerry Z10

[Hirazi Blue]

The best thing BlackBerry could do to start to repair their damaged reputation in my eyes is unlock the PlayBook bootloader and allow us to load our OS of choice on there. I would absolutely LOVE to run a linux distro or Android-based ROM on my PB hardware.

This will NEVER happen (but I'm happy to be proven wrong! ):
BB will never give away any keys to their security kingdom,
as their whole empire is based on their fabled security...

[bambinoitaliano]

This will NEVER happen (but I'm happy to be proven wrong! ):
BB will never give away any keys to their security kingdom,
as their whole empire is based on their fabled security...

Unless the empire crumble, then anything goes!

[Hirazi Blue]

I think you misunderstand: there are some things even BB would take to the grave, so to speak...

[bambinoitaliano]

When a company dies it can't take anything with it. Just like people. Those who would divvy up the tech of BB will eventually share or open up the secret vault.

[Hirazi Blue]

When a company dies it can't take anything with it. Just like people. Those who would divvy up the tech of BB will eventually share or open up the secret vault.

The fabled BB security and all of the technology pertaining to it are the only asset worth protecting from the poor huddled masses I'm afraid. Someone might "crack" it through less than legal means, but BB will never give up this info willingly...