The BlackBerry PlayBook Doesn't Exist | Hacker News Reader

The BlackBerry PlayBook Doesn't Exist

singularityhacker.com

108 pointsBinaryAcid36 comments

When you're the one who's first to market with a game-changing device, you announce it as close to ship date as possible.

Everyone else announces their me-too products as early as possible to show they're in the game. It's been like that for years now. There are few exceptions.

All RIM announced was a roadmap, but it's an interesting one because it includes an entirely new OS and tablet platform that will eventually become the platform for all of their future mobile devices (barring any software engineering disasters). To me, that's a lot more interesting that all these manufactures who rush to market with their 7" Android 2.2 phones and call them "tablets" merely to cash in on the craze.

QNX is not a new platform, it's older than Android and iOS combined. Its use as a specialized tablet / mobile OS is new though.

Also, I don't think QNX is the platform. For them QNX is the OS layer. But not the platform that you develop against. This is why the dev options are HTML5 and Flash. I bet the third API will be Java based. Like we are used to from RIM.

I remember playing with QNX when it was a 'fits on a floppy disc' OS. It’s really not a new kernel.

I learned C on QNX in college. 1987 or 88, IIRC.

QNX made PC-XTs much more interesting than they were running DOS. Last time I saw it, QNX was quite impressive.

"All RIM announced was a roadmap" Thats not what the CEO said. He didn't say "Announcing the PlayBook Project" or "Announcing the PlayBook Roadmap". He did't even merely say "Announcing the future of BlackBerry". He said and BlackBerry is saying "Announcing The PlayBook" and he walks out on the stage holding the supposed device.

The iPad was released 3 months after it was announced. The Playbook, just announced, is not scheduled to ship until 2011 sometime. So it's clear that RIM is not at the same production level Apple was when they announced the iPad. This is likely why no one was allowed to play with it (it's not done yet).

I up-voted you, but I don’t believe the author is making a claim any different than your own. The title may be hyperbole, but the point is that RIM shouldn’t announce a device if it isn’t done. As many others have noted in previous threads of this discussion, RIM seems desperate, and they (along with the customers they are clearly trying to keep from adopting iPads) have a good deal to lose if the final version doesn’t live up to the hype based on such limited details.

I wonder how many corporate IT departments are starting to look at iPad a bit too close for RIM's comfort. Time to drop a little FUD into the mix.

Corporate IT? Hell, most managers have already gone out and bought themselves one.

Managers are one thing, getting everyone in the company is the next step, and a lot larger number of orders.

Apple's Enterprise Management tools are headed into this space.

RIM + Microsoft should be very concerned about Apple as much as Android based devices.

> the point is that RIM shouldn’t announce a device if it isn’t done

"Real artists ship, dabblers create concept products

Pretenders don’t quite understand that design is born of constraints. Real-life constraints, be they tangible or cognitive...

Concept products are like essays, musings in 3D. They are incomplete promises. Shipping products, by contrast, are brutally honest deliveries. You get what’s delivered. They live and die by their own design constraints. To the extent they are successful, they do advance the art and science of design and manufacturing by exposing the balance between fantasy and capability."

http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/

I find it amusing that your idea of a company being desperate must lie somewhere between Apple announcing the iPhone six months before release and RIM announcing the Playbook nine months before release.

IIRC, Apple had real iPhones already working at that date, they just needed to clear FCC regulations, which took 6 months. Since they were going to submit a public application to the FCC anyway, it made sense to announce the iPhone first.

Nope, Apple had theirs behind glass as well.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/video-iphone-in-person-be...

they also did an actual demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwhG6LggOQU

Yep, with a camera over his shoulder showing that this isn't fake.

> the point is that RIM shouldn’t announce a device if it isn’t done

Great idea. They would, then, launch a new product without a single software title written for it. Until now, I think most products written for QNX have more to deal with heavy machinery than with cell phones.

They are moving their entire line to QNX. They need to get developers started right now and letting them know they will have to target it is a very good start.

The next step would be to release SDKs that include emulators. That should happen before they show final hardware.

2011 is only 3 months away. Just saying.

...or 15 months away. Just saying.

It should be noted that they announced it at DevCon. Apart from keeping investors happy, the idea was to let the developers know that such a product is coming and to let them know the tools that they can use to develop for it. Its only slightly different from the WP7 announcement. I believe RIM is releasing (or has released) the SDK. The SDK definitely needed to be announced and provided to developers 5-6 months before product hits shelves so I dont see why other people have a problem with it.

It doesn't exist to me either without knowing: (1) the Price, and (2) the projected Battery Life

This is the actual URL of the article.

http://www.singularityhacker.com/2010/09/blackberry-playbook...

"great artists ship"

I was having a hard time grasping the fact that they have three problems to manage (OS-wise): evangelizing BB 6.0 (for torch sales), keeping older versions of BlackBerry OS, and now Declaring that the QNX-based OS is the future.

People keep using the expression "great artists" to refer to a company that makes an out-of-date phone that's only popular because Enterprises can turn the camera off and force users to have a 1 million character password that they have to type before every operation.

RIM is not a "great artist". RIM merely does exactly what people with a lot of money tell them to do, and then they charge the people with a lot of money a lot of money. Then they make a lot of money. It's not art. It's business.

what? I wasn't saying RIM is a "great artist" at all, they're terrible. The quote is supposedly from steve jobs.

While I'm writing, my opinion is that the big problem with RIM's tablet is that they didn't think at all about designing hardware that met the enterprises needs, or as you say "people with a lot of money". If they did, they would have made a tablet great at capturing employees thoughts and ideas. My opinion is that this requires two things:

  1) A tablet that handles multitouch AND pen input very well (i.e. get n-trig / wacom hardware/licensing for the touchscreen)
  2) A tablet that doesn't have a small 7 inch screen. The screen size equivalent to a stenographer's book is 10 inches. It's great for writing down lists of things down.

RIM used to be creative, BlackBerry devices used to be a game-changer - where did all that innovative thinking go? I like Apple products, but hate to see every other company just following what Apple is doing and not coming up with their own WOW concepts. I mean, the future of mobile devices can't be just the tablets, aren't there any other possibilities?

Sorry BlackBerry fans, I can't help but feel distasteful of the PlayBook.

The author is wrong. Why so serious? It was nothing more than a tease to excite the platform developers. Proper announcement/demo will happen at an appropriate time.

- Attended the keynote + currently working at RIM as an intern

So have you touched the PlayBook yet? Is the OS actually at that level as of this moment? At least that's what you're implying there by saying you're interning at RIM.

So it's real?

  Why so serious?

Because people presenting deviced did not sai "hey, just kidding" at the end of the presentation?

Having played with a Torch... yes, that ad is simulated imagery. Yes, the actual Torch isn't quite as snappy as the ad. But, its almost as snappy as the ad. As in, if you really weren't paying attention, you wouldn't notice. This isn't like the N97 debacle.

Granted, Storm sucks. Everyone I know working at RIM admits it. But the Torch is definitely a solid device, with a solid touch interface.

I can't speak to the rest. I would like to think that companies showing simulated demos would be truthful in their simulations. In my heart, I really want RIM to be that type of company (their campus is right next to my school). And I think that by and large, they are.

That said, there's a long tradition of BlackBerry prototypes being leaked looong before any type of announcement. The Torch (and the clam shell) in some form of the other has been floating around for nearly a year before they were announced.

I was kind of believing the video until that scene where the guy is taking a picture and rotates the tablet...and the picture rotates, antialiased, in real time.

I was just surprised they didn't tuck a keyboard in the Playbook somewhere. That would actually be a differentiator.

This story just got picked up by Daring Fireball and ZDNet.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/09/30/blackberry-playb...

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/blackberry-playbook-ill-believ...

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