[Superfly_FR]

I'd say that you also have to deal with security issues ...
Direct inputs via external sources have always been a security danger, while over a identified network (with its own protection rules), it flatterns the risk (at least the PB is not directly involved).
so, once again, network support, like DNLA is probably the best way to do it...

[FourOhFour]

Couple of points...
USB host support would be easy enough to enable in QNX, but there's a whole ecosystem of services that need to be installed to support it as a solution on Playbook. Mounting volumes, permissions management, filesystem indexing, metadata (media) parsing, associated GUIs, etc. If the Blackberry TV box ever ships, those sorts of things should hopefully get sorted out and backported, as a set-top-box should probably support USB drives as a basic feature (although, does AppleTV do it?). I would reckon this is probably also going to be when we'll start seeing DLNA support on the PB.

As to the speculation over why RIM doesn't communicate more... it's a double-edged sword. If they are more forthcoming with their roadmap, then all of their competitors get a head-up on what is coming down the pipe, and any competitive advantages are lost. Does Apple publicly announce iPad/iPhone features 6 months in advance? No. That would be crazy. If they are less open, then as some people point out, prospective customers may look elsewhere. I think it's fairly safe to say that customers tend to purchase devices based on what they can do NOW, rather than what they will be able to do in X months, so there's really not much to gain by being more open. Now, for developers, the story may be different. RIM would very much like to be enticing developers at this time with their features and roadmaps, and they can do so when NDAs are involved.

[blackjack93117]

Why haven't they released the Android Player? Why haven't they released the Native PIM/e-mail? Why haven't they released the USB Ethernet adapter for the Playbook? Because obviously the QNX integration and implementation isn't going as smoothly as they thought and/or RIM can't deliver on promises. Maybe USB/OTG will be in the 2.0 release which will be available sometime after devCON which in no way implies soon after devCON, because it is RIM an they forecast with lawn darts.

Why haven't you stopped complaining about RIM yet? Must we endure this even in a 99 percent technically useful thread? C'mon there are threads for that, too many of them.. Tired of hearing the same old pissing and moaning EVERYWHERE. At least keep it in context. Quite sure I'm not the only one. What's happened man, you once had respectable useful input. Now every post is a clone.

Listen slowly:

Stuff ... takes... time.
Unless.. you.. want.. it.. to .. come..out...like..crap.
If... they... released ..it... prematurely... guess..what...would...happen??
I ...think...we...just...got...done..witnessing..... ............................................. that.
.
.

[awattwell]

Why haven't you stopped complaining about RIM yet? Must we endure this even in a 99 percent technically useful thread? C'mon there are threads for that, too many of them.. Tired of hearing the same old pissing and moaning EVERYWHERE. At least keep it in context. Quite sure I'm not the only one. What's happened man, you once had respectable useful input. Now every post is a clone.

Listen slowly:

Stuff ... takes... time.
Unless.. you.. want.. it.. to .. come..out...like..crap.
If... they... released ..it... prematurely... guess..what...would...happen??
I ...think...we...just...got...done..witnessing..... ............................................. that.
.
.

Oh bj, you always give me a chuckle. I swear you disappeared for awhile. Glad to have your troll blastin' 6 shooters back.

[wrwrx]

I'm not sure if it is viable for the playbook to be able to supply enough power to the external HD via microusb port. On top of that, there is the matter of the average battery life of the PB itself then it has to bleed additional power to another device. It might work if the external device had it's own power supply, but if you had it connected to the microusb port to the PB and were watching a movie and ran low on juice ... well movie over.

RIM would've crushed it if they included a MicroSD reader in the PB, but that would leave less incentive to purchase the 32/64GB. It would be nice to be able to hook up a thumb drive for quick transfers tho.