Hey Guys! Many people have been asking lately, where is Blackberry Music, Blackberry Video, Blackberry Podcasts, Youtube, Twitter, Slacker Radio and many more essential apps on your Playbook. The purpose of this small tutorial and video tutorial walk you through what you need to do on your PC and then on the Playbook to make it happen.
VPN or Virtual Private Network allows your Playbook to access an IP. All of the apps mentioned above are region locked to the USA and if you use a VPN on your computer, it will not work. You need to get a good VPN from HIDEMYASS.com and click on the IP/PORT Proxies list. Select a USA based address with a good speed and connection. Sometimes you have to try a few for it to work.
Next once you got a small list of IP addresses you want to fire up your Playbook and go to settings/WIFI/ click on the drop down list so it says "Saved WIFI" and then tap on your connection and you can edit it. Next scroll down and turn on HTTP PROXY and enter the IP and port number and click save. Fire up the Playbooks web browser and visit whatever page to see if it works. If you established connection then you should receive a small 40 MB update. This gives you access to tons of new apps. Only Blackberry Video doesn't work if you disable the VPN IP, but the rest work on your normal WIFI address.
This video explains the entire process from start to end and you can find a better step by step tutorial written by Good e-Reader - http://goodereader.com/blog/tablet-s...eos-and-music/
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0UU69OW3II[/YT]
- 02-25-12, 06:31 AMkozmonautTutorial: How to setup VPN on Playbook to get Blackberry Videos, Music, Podcast
- 02-25-12, 08:56 AMstacym75
THank you so much! Question. Once Ive updated to the US version of OS 2.0 can I go back to using my original wifi setting or will i need to keep the settings as they are from now on?
- 02-25-12, 11:02 AMkevinchiYea I was wondering the same thing what if I go on the wifi of school and don't want to enter the proxy this what will happen ??:D
i mean will it give u and new outside us update ? - 02-25-12, 11:54 AMrkennedy01
The answer is no, it won't reset you back to a non-U.S. state. I just tried this - wiped my PB, installed fresh using a U.S.-hosted VPN (thus receiving all the N.A. bits), and then checked for updates again. It simply responds that I have the latest version installed.
Note: Your AppWorld selections will be limited unless you connect to a proxy before loading the app. Otherwise, it seems to work flawlessly in this configuration, so...
No worries! :)
RCK - 02-25-12, 12:58 PMstacym75
Just so I am clear, in order to see US specific Apps in BlackBerry Apps World I will need to connect to a US VPN prior to opening Apple World. Is this correct?
- 02-25-12, 02:07 PMrkennedy01Yes. Otherwise, you'll see the mote limited "international" catalog.
RCK - 02-25-12, 04:02 PMstacym75
eww, i didnt mean to say Apple , playbook auto correct. :)
- 02-25-12, 04:04 PMkozmonaut
Yeah, when you install the update all the apps you downloaded as part of the upgrade to the OS will work without the VPN. The only one that won't is Blackberry Video, so if you want to buy/rent/watch you have to be connected to the VPN, same with the US version of the app store. But at least people now have a way to get the dedicated Youtube app, music, podcasts, and all that jazz.
really, we did this video because most people were trying to setup their vpn using the vpn settings, which was confusing because it mentioned cisco routers and everything and people were feeling lost. Most people had no clue you could edit your vpn within your saved WIFI connection. - 02-25-12, 07:59 PMpragmaticjack
I'm puzzled. I got my PB a few weeks ago, in Canada. I have remained in Canada, and until now, have not set up a proxy server/VPN. It was set up to the point where I had to enter my BB user info (I already had a BB phone and BB account). My Playbook already had, or was able to download Blackberry Music*, Blackberry Video*, Blackberry Podcasts, Youtube, Twitter, and Slacker Radio. Today when I set up the HTTP proxy to use an american IP address, It connected fine, but did not give me a message that there was an update available. Do you think that my PB was set up through an american proxy before I received it?
*(I'm not sure if these are the same programs that you are referring to.) My Videos (sic) does not give me an option for downloading.
Notice that I do not have the option to delete Music, Podcasts, Youtube, or Videos. These came pre-loaded. I installed Slacker Radio, and Twitter before setting up the proxy server, and have the option to remove them.
- 02-25-12, 09:07 PMkozmonaut
cool well you lucked out!
- 02-25-12, 10:28 PMmasterscarhead1
Same here. It seems to me that it may be that if you were on the 2.0 beta, you just got the goodies. However, no matter what I do, i can't get video store on it, even with vpn :S
- 02-26-12, 12:24 AMkozmonaut
If you had beta, you have to fully wipe your device via Security Wipe and then install it fresh.
- 02-26-12, 03:48 AMhd56fox
Yes it does, thanks.
- 02-26-12, 05:02 AMmadoon
thank you so much for this,
i have been dieing to get the Podcast app,
first few didnt work (all 8080) then i tried one with a strange port number and that worked fine. - 02-26-12, 05:28 AMkozmonaut
Yes its true, hopefully the USA based open source zip will arrive soon and I can extract the individual bar files from the OS so i can post these apps individually.
- 02-26-12, 06:23 AMfbloise
somehow is not working for me. The Appworld still shows the UK market. I did the browser trick going to google.com, normally it will take me to google.co.uk, this one remained in google.com and the ip shown is the proxy ip which is the correct.
so the proxy trick is fine, but the appworld is not kicking into. is there any way to clear the appworld cache? - 02-26-12, 06:29 AMkozmonaut
I am not sure about the cache, its a bit beyond me. I would say wipe it, but i think when you first boot your playbook from a virgin wipe, you HAVE to establish a WIFI connection and you don't have the option of setting a VPN at that time. You might be stuck with the UK app market but you can at least pull the USA update.
- 02-26-12, 08:43 AMzzbsb
Hi kozmonaut, how does the Skype work for you? Any voice/video function?
- 02-26-12, 10:14 AMzzbsb
Hi I tried your solution and it doesn't work for me. I put in the proxy in my wifi connection and I can browse Internet and I'm actually using it right now to post this. But I didn't get any updates. When I check my ip using speedtest.net it still shows my rogers ip.
- 02-26-12, 01:12 PMpragmaticjack
Today I tried a different American IP address, and immediately the system message regarding the OS update came up. After the reboot, I now have Video STORE app on my PB. The video store app is completely different from videos, the player included with the PB. You should edit your OP, and change "Blackberry videos" to "Video Store" .
- 02-26-12, 02:00 PMzzbsbHi can you share the ip and port? I tried different ones, even if am getting us ip address when using speedtest.net to test, it still doesn't work for me. Tks.
- 02-26-12, 02:28 PMpragmaticjackI couldn't share it even if I thought it would work. I didn't write it down. It stopped working within 30 minutes. I have tried a few since then, to download from redit, but it seems to know that I am in Canada, regardless.
- 02-26-12, 03:56 PMkozmonaut
It all depends, some internet service providers block certain ports. Sometimes i have to try 5 to 10 for it to work, other times it works on the first try.
- 03-01-12, 08:13 AMMorgothor
I got my playbook in the beginning of february and always had slacker radio and podcast installed and I'm in Canada.... Weird...
- 03-14-12, 12:25 AMDapper37
Thanks kozmonaut. The video work great walking me through. The process took on the third try.
One thing though, my browser is now very slow, very very slow! Is it possible I have done something wrong here. I'm in Thailand, I have two PlayBooks. The other on the thai proxy still works great on wifi? Any thoughts are appreciated.