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RIM Changes Stance On PlayBook's Android Support
hypnosec writes "It hasn't been long since the BlackBerry maker Research In Motion announced that its QNX based tablet device, the PlayBook, will be supporting Android implementation on it. However, it has been revealed now that a sizable portion of Android apps will be cut off from running on the moderately successful tablet device. The news thus leads us to a situation where Android developers might not be interested anymore in coming up with new apps for the QNX powered gadget. The Android apps that won't be working in the PlayBook include Android Live Wallpapers; apps that contain more than one activity tied to the launcher, the Android text-to-speech engine, and Android cloud-to-device messaging service, amongst a few others."
I thought we were talking about "a moderately successful tablet device", not "a near-total failure".
I just picked up a Playbook (because they've already plummeted in price, and I wanted to try one out), and when I heard someone tell me the Android support had changed, I got a little freaked out.
Then I read the list of things that won't work and rolled my eyes, because they're all non-issues.
What a waste of time this story and linked article are. Move along, nothing to see here.
Watch out for QNX, it's a beast of a multitasking OS, and it's not going anywhere.
At least, not until RIM's two delusion, washed-up CEOs finish driving RIM into the ground and all the ``intellectual property'' is stripped and sold to an SCO work-alike for lawsuit purposes.
of course its an android problem. google is allowing the OEM's and manufacturers to do this while Apple and MS don't
Wonder if any of that is motivated by avoiding patents. Samsung just signed an agreement to pay Microsoft a fee for each Android phone sold to lessen its exposure to Microsoft's legal moves against Google. Another company that did that (motorola?) paid MS $5 per phone.
Wonder if these apps lessen the amount of IP possibly being infringed upon.
More than one activity tied directly to the launcher, not more than one activity period.
When they have the firesale in another couple months, we can just put Cyanogen on it.
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From http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html, "An activity is a single, focused thing that the user can do."
So it sounds like only apps that have 1 window/ui screen.
These "missing features" are mostly due to not having Google services, which the Fire will also lack.
Not only is Google Maps missing, but any app that pops up a map itself will also break. Cloud-to-device messaging requires Google's servers. In-app billing, ditto. The text-to-speech and SIP VoIP components are also (AFAIK) specific to Google devices.
None of these features work on any non-Google-experience devices, including the Fire, the Playbook, the Nook Color, and all the cheapo crappy tablets too.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
fucking stupid BB Torch that randomly calls whores
Is there an app for that? no, seriously?
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
A friend of mine bought one, and I can confirm that it sucks ass. Not unlike the new BB phones. I will not be buying any more RIM products, and I have heard the same from many people. I didn't play with it extensively...
This got upvoted? There's not a single reasonable criticism in here. I've got a Playbook, and I use it constantly. I've never had a problem with the USB port, and the battery lasts me several days of intermittent use or around 3 movies on a flight. I honestly don't get the hate. If you have legitimate criticism, lets hear it - but what you've said here has no substance.
randomly calls whores and puts them on a three-way call with my girlfriend when I take it out of the holster
I have played with one too, and it is not as bad as you say it is, but without Android support it is going to be practically worthless. Your entire post has an extremely acerbic tone to it.
Perhaps there is an entire article, or possibly a movie screenplay, about the "whores", your girlfriend, and the hilarious shenanigans with your phone.
Questions. Questions. Questions.
1) Are these actual whores being called by your phone, or is the "whore" a characterization from your girlfriend?
2) Is the Torch in possession of AI sufficient to determine if a contact is in fact a whore?
3) Can the Torch apply something like least cost routing to your selection of whore contacts? Availability?
4) Why do you keep so many "whore" contacts in your phone?
5) Statistically speaking, how can the Torch alone be responsible for 3-way'n so many whores with your girlfriend? Not the good 3-way either obviously.
6) Have other phones in the past accidentally dialed contacts in your vast whore repo before?
Seriously. I don't think I am the only person here who wants to know more about this.
Please continue.
"randomly calls whores and puts them on a three-way call with my girlfriend"
Somehow - I think you'd be a douche no matter what. But, blame it on the phone, if it makes you feel better. "Yeah, people, if I had a better phone, I wouldn't be such a douche!"
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The users will blame android, that makes it Google's problem.
Hell, I'm a geek and I still blame Google for allowing the manufacturers to get away with ridiculous restrictions.
I suppose the point of this story is that there seems to be something in the water for big corporation's CEOs. HP's binning of the disastrous Apoteker, and now RIMs continual slide into irrelevance.
What RIM had with BB was a rock solid, entrenched-in-corporate-enterprise messaging platform. Trusted. Secure communication and secure devices with real on-device encryption, remote wipe etc. They had all this in a time before cheap, consumer smartphones did decent messaging and before Exchange ActiveSync etc was on iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
What they have now is a product that is totally outdated from a hardware and software perspective compared to the competition, their core messaging business is under attack from cheaper EAS (and CEOs that want to use an iPhone!), and they've squandered their reputation for security by allowing various governments across the world backdoor access to their systems.
Then they launch the Playbook. A device no-one asked for, that didn't even have messaging built into it on launch. The went up against Apple, Android and Windows Phone's ecosystems with pretty much nothing. No target market, not a chance in hell of competing in the consumer or enterprise space on features (no ecosystem), on price (Apple's purchase of their components outright in massive quantities means you can't build iPad quality devices cheaper than Apple can, and Android is owning the lower end) or anywhere else.
Doomed from the start - it'll be on firesale within the month, just like the HP Touchpad*
RIP RIM. I think your patent IP are probably the only value in the company right now.
* I have 2 firesale Touchpads. I really like WebOS and they were a bargain for the price. However at least WebOS has PreWare and a homebrew dev community and is pretty vibrant - see the recent massive resurgence in interest when they went on discount. It's the 2nd most popular tablet in the world now!
Whether a 2nd firesale-price tablet from RIM would be attractive to as many people is debatable...