The Real (and Virtual) Adventures of Nathan the IT Guy » BlackBerry PlayBook

Facebook Native App on PlayBook

Nathan Simon — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:03:51 +0000

PlayBook OS 2 is soon to be released. Want the scoop on what’s new for the PlayBook and how it interacts with social apps?

When we took our first official tour of the native messaging on BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2 a month ago at CES 2012, one of the services that was missing from the social messaging integration was Facebook. We *knew* Facebook would soon be joining Twitter and LinkedIn, but it’s good to see Facebook is now there too for when the highly-anticipated PlayBook software update drops later this month. You can hit up the video above to get a quick look of the Facebook addition within the Manage Accounts option screen and integrated into the native messaging client itself.

Go here to check out the full story.

BlackBerry News App for PlayBook

Nathan Simon — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:55:42 +0000

Have a PlayBook and want to stay on top of your RSS feeds in style? Look no further as BlackBerry PlayBook has one of the most straight-forward news readers I have ever used. The BlackBerry Bold version of new is also very clean and fast.

If you want to see some screenshots and download links go here.

What news reader do you use? Do you think its better? Leave a comment!

Blackberry Playbook OS 2.0

Nathan Simon — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:40:51 +0000

So the PlayBook is still on sale, should I buy one? I am not too sure. I have all but given up on the Asus Transformer Prime(word on the street is that they removed GPS support from their spec sheet because of its poor signal strength). I for one think there is a future for the BBX(or should I say BB10) OS. With the release of OS 2, new features like Android Player(download and install Android Apps), and native BBM and Enterprise Email support(no more Bridge needed!) should uplift the platform. The PlayBook is already pretty slick, OS2 is supposed to make it run even better…

PlayBook OS 2 brings loads more changes to the platform, and they’re squarely aimed at making the BlackBerry slate an easier target for developers. Adobe Air 3 and Flash 11 are supported, Open GL ES 2.0 and Open AL are baked in, and RIM’s Native SDK –which brings support for C/C++ apps — has been certified for release as well. RIM is also snuggling up to standards-based apps built using web code like HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and even WebGL with the introduction of WebWorks and a much-improved browser. Check out the video.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/42ZTO5uynnI" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

This link has instructions on how to download PlayBook OS 2.0 Beta. This site also has a little bit more info!

Also note that all PlayBooks are $299.00 CDN, that includes the 64GB version, until January 9th 2012.

*If you enabled Developer mode on your PlayBook and downloaded OS2, you do not need to side-load the Android Player on your device, its built into OS2.*

Got a Playbook?

Nathan Simon — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:48:53 +0000

Did you get a BlackBerry Playbook but not sure to do with it? Crackberry.com has a great page that gives you the 101 on how everything works, and what you can do with it… i have included in insert below…

Since the day it was announced, it was clear the BlackBerry PlayBook would be a powerful presentation tool. Connecting easily through the HDMI port, slideshows; images; music; and video are all shown on the big screen in high definition clarity. Both the videos app and SlideShow To Go offer presentation modes that allow the action to continue on screen while the presenter does something entirely different.

Check out the full story here, or check out these links for more information. GizmoCanada and TechTarget Blog Roll

Miss the BlackBerry Playbook Boat?

Nathan Simon — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 23:29:36 +0000

So who got a Playbook? I tried to get on and they are sold out everywhere. I hate to say this but RIM copied HP, and that’s fine, at least they don’t intent to close the QNX doors like HP did with Web Os and the Touch Pad. Well if you missed the boat and were unable to get a Playbook, have no fear, because an affordable tablet($299) is coming out way, armed with Tegra 3 hardware.

So far what is the biggest threat to the iPad’s largely unchallenged supremacy in the tablet market? The answer has certainly got to be Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which sports a very enticing $200 price tag. Even though the Kindle Fire is probably the only non-iPad tablet to have generated iPad-like buzz, it’s not the only affordable tablet on the market. The ranks of sub-$300 tablets are constantly swelling. And if NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is right, soon there will be a number of Tegra 3 tablets in this price range.

We are talking about 4 core CPU and a 12 core GPU, and the tablet will have up to 2GB of memory, not to be confused with actually storage, as it will most likely support up to 64GB of storage. Go herefor more information on Tegra 3.

Meet the BlackBerry PlayBook

Nathan Simon — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:31:59 +0000

Okay, so here comes something that may actually stand up to the iPad, and hopefully it does. Based on some of the specs below, how can it go wrong? I especially love the fact that it comes with HDMI out, Micro-USB, and streaming capabilities, I’m a big multimedia fan, and those things are a must on long plane rides!

Ideal for games, media, apps and everything the real Internet offers
Full Adobe® Flash® 10.1 enabled
Built-in support for HTML 5
No-compromise, beautiful rendering of text, graphics and video
7″ LCD display, 1024 x 600 screen resolution
5.1″ x 7.6″ x 0.4″ (130mm x 194mm x 10mm)
0.9 lbs (400g)
Built-in microUSB connector
Multi-touch capacitive screen
Wi-Fi® 802.11 a/b/g/n
Powerful, user-friendly QNX technology – it’s what the World Wide Web runs on
On-screen keyboard
True multi-tasking
Crystal clear HD display
Rich stereo sound
3 MP high definition forward-facing camera
5 MP high definition rear-facing camera
Codec support for superior media playback, creation and video calling
1080p HD video; H.264, MPEG4, WMV HDMI video output
Micro USB, Micro HDMI, and DLNA media streaming

You have to check out this video![kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/eAaez_4m9mQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]