[kb5zht]

A quick overview of the podcast for those who havent listened; be warned, its not encouraging.

First, Kevin sounded very perplexed that OS 2.0 was never officially announced or remarked on in the keynote.. the android player was spoken about at the very end, almost as Kevin said, "like an after thought". The real depressing note was that Crackberry Kevin said he gets the impression that RIM is having trouble getting the player to work as they would like and regret ever having started the enterprise, but now that they have already announced it, its too late and they have to seenit through.

TAT's portion of the devcon seemed to be more encouraging.

Blaze made the comment that be is tired of being shown things by RIM and never given them.. and that with him, launch was strike one (leaving you to conclude he felt devcon was strike two perhaps).

Kevin wound up the podcast by including that this devcon had a lower attendance than the last one, and he (1) found this to be scary and (2) it should be a warning to RIM to start working their... rear ends... off to get this right. He also felt that rim should no longer have a large press presence there if they are not going to make any big announcements (Balsillie, he said, made an appearance and never clarified what was being done to "leapfrog the competition".

I applaud the podcast team for not sugarcoating anything, and shooting right from the hip and being honest... seems as though their general opinions were- sad as it is to say- that rim isnt as far along with either 2.0 or the android player as they would like to be. What does this mean gang? We have a longer wait than we thought.

Check out the podcast.

[FF22]

You have obviously misinterpreted what was said or our leaders have been kidnapped, taken over by pod (hmm, pad?) people and are not themselves but inhabited by trolls. Invasion of the Body Snatchers has come true, I fear. But a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down and the fanboys will rise again!

[kb5zht]

You have obviously misinterpreted what was said or our leaders have been kidnapped, taken over by pod (hmm, pad?) people and are not themselves but inhabited by trolls. Invasion of the Body Snatchers has come true, I fear. But a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down and the fanboys will rise again!

Go listen. My quotes are almost verbatim.

[notfanboy]

Go listen. My quotes are almost verbatim.

He was being sarcastic.

[Nashstruck]

He was being sarcastic.

Yea!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[kb5zht]

Yea!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Ah, my bad.

I was quite discouraged... after hearing so little secind hand and in blogs, i was waiting on the podcast hoping they had direct info to raise my spirits.

Alas, not so...

[Tre Lawrence]

Interesting perspectives.

[doejoe007]

I'd have to say... spot on.

The attendance this year was drastically lower than last and the year before that.

[lnichols]

I'm more with Bla1ze, DevCon was strike 2. 60 Days and Septermber 21st combined for my Strike 1. If 2.0 isn't out before Black Friday then I will assume that RIM doesn't give a rats *** about the v1 Playbook and we were just a bad experiment towards BBX. I do bet that some of the fanboys on here heads were about to explode during that podcast. It contradicted the distorted reality they've built up.

[world traveler and former ceo]

Let's just wait until Playbook OS2.0 comes out before flaming RIM .... I think you will be very pleasantly surprised!! ....

[anon3396357]

One reason why I respect the biggest BlackBerry Fanboy, Kevin, is because he is the exception rather than the norm. He loves BB phones like many of us do, but does not defend it blindly. If Kevin has posted the things he said in the podcast on CB forums using a "AppleLover" moniker he would be flamed to a crisp and possibly be banned from his own site.

I enjoyed the podcast a lot, because it was straight to the point, taking things as they are and analyzing from a fairly neutral point of view. It would be downright ugly if we hear Kevin mindlessly praising RIM for all the obvious faults they have made. Thankfully, our fearless leader is much more sensible than that.

[biggulpseh]

Let's just wait until Playbook OS2.0 comes out before flaming RIM .... I think you will be very pleasantly surprised!! ....

Been waiting since April.

[jvictor77]

Haha! Bla1ze smoking during the podcast....priceless!

[melander]

Bla1ze is my hero, he has the Balze to speak the truth

[Tre Lawrence]

One reason why I respect the biggest BlackBerry Fanboy, Kevin, is because he is the exception rather than the norm. He loves BB phones like many of us do, but does not defend it blindly. If Kevin has posted the things he said in the podcast on CB forums using a "AppleLover" moniker he would be flamed to a crisp and possibly be banned from his own site.

I enjoyed the podcast a lot, because it was straight to the point, taking things as they are and analyzing from a fairly neutral point of view. It would be downright ugly if we hear Kevin mindlessly praising RIM for all the obvious faults they have made. Thankfully, our fearless leader is much more sensible than that.

... and one of the posters in this very thread would have used his favorite term: troll.

[kb5zht]

I enjoyed the podcast a lot, because it was straight to the point, taking things as they are and analyzing from a fairly neutral point of view. It would be downright ugly if we hear Kevin mindlessly praising RIM for all the obvious faults they have made. Thankfully, our fearless leader is much more sensible than that.

I totally respected Kevin and crew for their honesty. They show optimism where it counts but also, especially lately, have really been holding rim accountable. This is good. i have said it a gazillion times... blind loyalty and never holding rim's feet to the fire will always garauntee mediocrity.

Sad note too: At the end of the podcast, Kevin brought up what he thought was the most exciting thing about devcon... the presentation and demonstration of blackberry kickstand ?!?!

Anyway, as i said, the podcast left me disappointed and still in possession of the idea that it was all a wash. No leapfrog clarification, no OS 2.0 demonstration... no qnx phones as was suppose to be involved...

It kinda makes you wonder, r they hiding something? Are they so perplexed with ironing out the problems of the playbook that they are only left with the tactic of not talking about it???

[anon3396357]

... and one of the posters in this very thread would have used his favorite term: troll.

Excuse me while I do some traveling and run my business.

[Bla1ze]

Blaze made the comment that be is tired of being shown things by RIM and never given them.. and that with him, launch was strike one (leaving you to conclude he felt devcon was strike two perhaps).

Spot on.. I even noted that to Kevin before that post went up, that I felt this (being devcon) was strike two.

[missing_K-W]

I for one was pleasantly delighted that there was no consumer perspective at Devcon.....This show was 100% geared towards the developer front...100% focus on the backend.

Android on BB's is here to stay IMHO...Recently QNX had 2 job postings on their website seeking engineer's to develop and support the Android runtime...In the posting it clearly stated that RIM has intentions of supporting the best Android runtime in the market, as what i mentioned was part of the job description...Link is down...I can't provide the link , as the positions must have been filled.

RIM is also commited to the FULL 100% open source adoption moving forward.....Very powerful SDK's on route and and abundance of API's to boot. BBX is going to be a heavy weight...Under the hood we should see some potent surprises

We as consumers saw very scarce tangible offerings at this Devcon as it was 100% focused on giving Devs an abundance of tools, resources and means to create some very promising apps. BBX is going to be a powerhouse, incorporating some very powerful SDK's....

I viewed the podcast. It may be a strike in terms of "here and now" tangible consumer offerings, however I was very delighted by the abundance of Dev resources made available...We should see an abundance of apps drop very, very soon

[Bla1ze]

Android on BB's is here to stay IMHO...Recently QNX had 2 job postings on their website seeking engineer's to develop and support the Android runtime...In the posting it clearly stated that RIM has intentions of supporting the best Android runtime in the market, as what i mentioned was part of the job description...Link is down...I can't provide the link , as the positions must have been filled.

I fail to see how having one of the best Android runtimes in the Market is in anyway helpful to their own platform other then to bait developers into BlackBerry -- thus far, Android on PlayBook is pretty useless.

You can spin it however you like but fact is, Android apps on PlayBook are running quite poorly, if they run at all. You see all these people with a TON of Android apps loaded up on their PlayBook and think "Wow, that's cool.. that's a lot of apps"..

Reality is, half of them don't work as intended because they can't access the Android functions as they need to.

RIM shouldn't be applauded for emulating Android, I'd rather be applauding for something they did right on their own. Instead, they've managed to take QNX -- a great platform and bastardize it by making Android the key, consumer facing addition.

What made this even more evident was the fact they showed off the Android Player -- yet, never once showed off native email or BBM on the PlayBook. Dev conference or not -- who in their right mind decided they not show off one of the most anticipated portions of the PlayBook OS 2.0 update?

[saalnaz]

i agree with blaize and hence, i never wanted to install an incomplete crap on my playbook.

my patience is running thin on one thing which many may think is trivial.

its the language pack for Arabic. i still have to go and use my laptop because it has the language packs with dual keyboard system.

its been 6 months and no language pack for Arabic and many other languages. what is RIM thinking about? this is beyond a disaster for me.

the more you think of it the more many believe that RIM should have waited before releasing the PB as it is incomplete now. its missing some basics really which is disappointing.

they should have got most of the top developers on board when they announced the PB a year ago and given them all the tools to develop and would have come up with something nice.

Apple, unfortunately, had a head start on the Apps thing. when they started it (and they started it with their genius owner apposing it..how funny in the one thing they didnt copy he was against it), noone else knew about apps so there was no pressure on them to develop them very early on due to lack of competition as everything they released it was first released on the ihpony.
the bad news for RIM is, they are behind in the game. people have seen and tasted the apps and they want them NOW! RIM cant afford to commit stupid decisions one after another as people in general nowadays are very impatient.

i have been patient and im not crying about apps but something so basic, yet so key for me like language is a deal killer. i mean, how difficult it is to release a language pack????!!!!

and everyone is in the dark to when this 2.0 will be released. i think many people could abandon the PB if no solid deadline is given with an actual release to meet the deadline.

the PB could be a perfect device to use your GPS and other stuff..where are the top GPS maps by top companies like tomtom/garmin etc??

[UrbanGlowCam]

I fail to see how having one of the best Android runtimes in the Market is in anyway helpful to their own platform other then to bait developers into BlackBerry -- thus far, Android on PlayBook is pretty useless.

You can spin it however you like but fact is, Android apps on PlayBook are running quite poorly, if they run at all. You see all these people with a TON of Android apps loaded up on their PlayBook and think "Wow, that's cool.. that's a lot of apps"..

Reality is, half of them don't work as intended because they can't access the Android functions as they need to.

RIM shouldn't be applauded for emulating Android, I'd rather be applauding for something they did right on their own. Instead, they've managed to take QNX -- a great platform and bastardize it by making Android the key, consumer facing addition.

What made this even more evident was the fact they showed off the Android Player -- yet, never once showed off native email or BBM on the PlayBook. Dev conference or not -- who in their right mind decided they not show off one of the most anticipated portions of the PlayBook OS 2.0 update?

I definitely agree about them not showing native e-mail and BBM being a problem. It really is one of the most important features and basically the core function of a BlackBerry. I think they will execute it well but it's a shame that it has to take this long. We did see a demo of it at BlackBerry World, but then it was pretty half baked (ironic?).

Fortunately, while the Android player doesn't have me excited, all of these rich apps and games coming out recently do. We are seeing the potential of other top platforms in the app space and 2.0 seems pretty close to launching.

While I agree RIM has made this transition period between BBOS to QNX a bit of a disaster, I see good things in the near future. Yes, Android (Maybe?) and iOS are more polished, complete platforms currently. But iOS/Android were once a new OS with missing features as well. I've said it before, but if you actually see how far PlayBook OS / QNX has come in 7 months, it is pretty impressive. Everyone likes to bash RIM for missing basic features and deadlines (for the most part I agree) but I am personally impressed.

The PlayBook should have launched with more core features like native e-mail/contacts/calendar and not relied so much on Bridge. At the same time, it will likely be a pretty well rounded OS by its 1 year mark. While it's unfortunate that the PlayBook development has basically been a beta, I enjoy mine more and more by the day and still see a ton of value in it. Also, it's nice to know that the direction RIM/TAT/QNX are going will set up the future BlackBerry handsets nicely for a fairly polished launch. That is of course if they can execute it well. I have no doubt RIM can incorporate and design great hardware as they have been doing. It's always the software that is lacking.

Finally, I am confident that they will have a good combination of sw/hw for their next round of phones. I just hope they can market them well and win the tech world back.

Then I can finally stop listening to the constant bickering and negativity....wouldn't that be nice.

[biggulpseh]

I fail to see how having one of the best Android runtimes in the Market is in anyway helpful to their own platform other then to bait developers into BlackBerry -- thus far, Android on PlayBook is pretty useless.

You can spin it however you like but fact is, Android apps on PlayBook are running quite poorly, if they run at all. You see all these people with a TON of Android apps loaded up on their PlayBook and think "Wow, that's cool.. that's a lot of apps"..

Reality is, half of them don't work as intended because they can't access the Android functions as they need to.

RIM shouldn't be applauded for emulating Android, I'd rather be applauding for something they did right on their own. Instead, they've managed to take QNX -- a great platform and bastardize it by making Android the key, consumer facing addition.

What made this even more evident was the fact they showed off the Android Player -- yet, never once showed off native email or BBM on the PlayBook. Dev conference or not -- who in their right mind decided they not show off one of the most anticipated portions of the PlayBook OS 2.0 update?

Not to mention how many resources it uses. 1.0.7 was probably the most stable OS I've used in terms of reliability, but after installing 2.0 I've been seeing a huge number of crashes and app quits. I've even got the message "out of graphical memory" a number of times. The android player is basically a 200mb chunk out of the RAM that we can't choose to get rid of. Great.

Think about all the time, effort, and cash that RIM has put into making the app player work. Now think about if they put all of those resources into coding native apps instead, or paying developers to do so. It's honestly sad.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[ferganer]

I for one was pleasantly delighted that there was no consumer perspective at Devcon.....This show was 100% geared towards the developer front...100% focus on the backend.

Android on BB's is here to stay IMHO...Recently QNX had 2 job postings on their website seeking engineer's to develop and support the Android runtime...In the posting it clearly stated that RIM has intentions of supporting the best Android runtime in the market, as what i mentioned was part of the job description...Link is down...I can't provide the link , as the positions must have been filled.

RIM is also commited to the FULL 100% open source adoption moving forward.....Very powerful SDK's on route and and abundance of API's to boot. BBX is going to be a heavy weight...Under the hood we should see some potent surprises

We as consumers saw very scarce tangible offerings at this Devcon as it was 100% focused on giving Devs an abundance of tools, resources and means to create some very promising apps. BBX is going to be a powerhouse, incorporating some very powerful SDK's....

I viewed the podcast. It may be a strike in terms of "here and now" tangible consumer offerings, however I was very delighted by the abundance of Dev resources made available...We should see an abundance of apps drop very, very soon

Sorry but this is an interplay of supply (app developers) and demand (end users). Developers also should know when to expect the release of OS 2.0. Otherwise, with all the wonderful tools they've been presented and no official commitment to release the update (at least by a certain date or within certain period), they won't have any incentives to invest their time and effort in developing apps in the first place. Developers also need to plan according to some timeline, don't they?

[TRlPPlN]

wow, i only attended tuesday event and i thought it was an interesting keynote. it gave me high hopes on what's in store for us. but after reading this thread and seeing the opinions of team CB, i'm a bit confused on RIM's outlook now. i guess im just going to patiently wait along with other members on what the outcome will be for BBX and RIM.