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RIM’s finally let loose its second attempt at a PlayBook OS that’ll finally add things like a native email client, calendar and contacts apps, as well as support for BlackBerry App World and Android apps. Maybe now RIM’s tablet might be worth buying.
The update is available for free for all PlayBooks, so time to get updating PlayBook owners. [RIM]
Update: For those curious about what exactly RIM’s native email client and socially connected PIM apps look like, as well as its new phone-to-PlayBook hook-ups, here are a couple of new PlayBook ads to demonstrate it all. [via The Verge]
You might want to be careful how you phrase the Android app compatibility, as it’s not compatible with binary APK’s at all, infact developers need to recompile their Android code to run on the playbook (and given that it’s a dead platform, most are unlikely to do so), and even then, many API’s are not supported meaning sourcecode changes and removed features.
Given that Android apps at a source-code level is basically Java, even calling it Android compatibility on Playback is very misleading, as if you have to go back to Java source before you compile for Blackberry Playbook…
The whole Android App comparability thing is a huge deception on RIM’s part. When people see it as a bullet point they think “great, I’ll be able to get all those Apps that are on Android but not Blackberry, but as you point out. It’s going to be a small subset of these apps that would be comparable without changes and an even smaller subset of people who will submit their apps for the necessary conversion. Admittedly even a fraction of a fraction of Androids App catalogue would bolster Rim’s App store.