BlackBerry PlayBook stands out for not being one of the run of the mill tablets that are sprouting like mushrooms in the rain. It also stands out for a number of other reasons that haven’t done sales any good. The QNX toting professional grade tablet shipped out without native apps for email, calendar, and other features that you’d expect on a professional or even home use tablet. After a lot of updates that brought many things except the core functions, the only thing that’s still holding our interest in RIM’s creation is the promise of Android apps running on it. That too has been delayed now.
RIM had earlier announced that the BlackBerry PlayBook would include an Android app player on which Gingerbread compatible apps could be run. This functionality was to be ready by summer but there hasn’t been any news about it from RIM. Though news of the Android app player undergoing testing filtered out a while back, a reliable source has informed engadget that the tablet won’t see the Android player till late fall.
RIM isn’t talking about the delay or the reasons behind it so it’s up to us to go into the whys and why nots of this decision. Is the app player not ready or is RIM hoping to cash in on the holiday season? Well, seeing how RIM’s shares are going and the defections of senior personnel, we’d say RIM can’t afford delays any more.
News of new tablets keeps pouring in and the market scene is only going to get tougher. We don’t even know if RIM still has the oomph to win customers anymore, even with the Android player. But that’s all we can hold out as hope.
[via engadget]
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A rumor hit the internet yesterday in regards to the much-anticipated Android App Player for the BlackBerry PlayBook stating that the feature won’t arrive until “late fall” despite RIM previously stating that it will arrive late summer. The information was said to come from a “reliable source.”
I’ve been keeping pretty close tabs on this one since getting my in-depth App Player walk through during my recent trip to Waterloo, and from what I’m seeing/hearing things are still on track. As it stands now developers should be getting access in the next two to three weeks, and from there it should just be a couple more weeks before owners are officially running Android apps on their PlayBooks (devs will need a bit of time to bring over their apps and I’m sure RIM will want to ramp up a bit of marketing hype behind it too). So late August/early September still seems to be in the cards vs. late fall.
So as of now, I say don’t panic! If for whatever reason by the end of August we haven’t seen RIM roll out access to developers, then I’ll more seriously start to worry about delays.
This news article is not news, it is at best an unstantiated rumour, that most “LEGIMATE” writers put down to another gaffe by ‘endgaget”.
Crackberry.com which has a great insight into RIM, and many legitimate connections has stated that according to their legitimate sources the Android feature is on schedule for the end of August or start of September.
I suggest you go back to cleaning the lunchroom and leave the the writing to real journalists.
I’m thinking (well, hoping) that it’s being delayed due to the company reshifting it’s focus. They have been getting a lot of smack for delaying the release of their new blackberries, which were a proven source of revenues, and focusing too much attention on the playbook. It seems like all of their resources are spread about, so RIM isn’t meeting deadlines. Perhaps they’ve shifted their focus back to blackberries, so fewer people are working on that Android compatibility. Their massive layoff isn’t likely to help speed things up either, but at least it’ll shave off some of their excessive costs.
BlackBerry PlayBook Will Not Run Android Apps Till Late in Fall
I have to say it, “Aaaaaargh!”
Once again, a rumour from an unidentified source is reported as news, with a headline that presents this unsubstantiated rumour as fact.
So much for ethics.