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UK BlackBerry PlayBook Review

So, I found the time.

I have spent a good couple of hours focusing on the Playbook to see how it performs in an everyday situation. Of course now that we have tablets and use them daily (I know other people who do use their iPad daily!) it’s really not facetious to say something like that. Tablets have become an everyday item and I find that I increasing turn to mine for more and more tasks. I also find that I have a clear delineation between the tasks I use my iPad for and those I use my Android phone for – but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

So, the Playbook. As I have said, I like it. My first impression is that it feels good in the hands, more snug in my grip than my iPad, easier to manipulate one handed, lighter and somehow more immediate. The small size is no hindrance to handling the device. At this point I will add that the Playbook I am using arrived with an excellent rubberised case. The case comprises a hard shell that snaps around the Playbook with a thin screen overlay built in. Around this is fitted a soft silicone rubber casing that give a reassuring solidity and the feeling that you could throw this at someone and it would still work. The final part of the case comprises a hard plastic snap-on cover/stand. When in transit this piece acts as a tough screen guard; when you wish to use the Playbook the cover transforms into a (none too robust for typing on) stand. This case transforms the Playbook (alright, the name is just awful!) into a serious mobile workforce tool.

Upon spending a little time with it, I realised that the small size (the screen measures 7″) of the Playbook meant that I used it predominantly in landscape orientation – portrait was too restrictive for reading, browsing and especially typing.

The interface is excellent, extending beyond the screen to the border itself. Some features of the Playbook are initiated with a gesture that originates from the border and swipes across the screen. For example, a context-sensitive menu appears when I swipe from the top border down across the screen. Swiping from the bottom border up initiates a variety of navigation features, primarily an extremely well implemented app chooser that allows the user to select from a ‘carousel’ of open apps (like CMD-Tab on a Mac or Alt-Tab on a PC) that for me is superior to the iPad’s double-click of the button to bring up shortcuts to open apps. Toggling between this carousel and the main screen requires successive bottom-up swipes, which becomes second nature after a short period of use.

Other aspects of the interface are equally polished. Scrolling through the installed apps is as easy as it is on an Android or iOS device, though RIM have chosen to adopt a categorisation method for grouping apps, in contrast to Google’s and Apple’s page system. This is very intuitive in use, especially since the names of the categories are displayed in a bar at the top of the app area. As is usual, tapping on an app launches it or brings it to the foreground if already open, and swiping across the screen scrolls the category groups. Of note is the ‘all” group which allows the user to scroll through every installed app – very useful in real use. Even handier was the search facility, which I used as a launcher in addition to searching. Finally, I must mention the interface animations designed by RIM; they are smooth, subtle, well designed and very subtly implemented, giving an impression of quality that reinforced my already positive impression.

On the whole the device is nippy in use. The web browser is good and easy to use. I was impressed also by the multi-tasking capability of the Playbook, especially the way in which a video clip would continue to play in it’s carousel ‘window’ while I was browsing other apps. The media app/music player continued to play what’re track I had selected as I worked on a document. When an app that required a resource that was in use (e.g. Audio playback) was brought to the foreground, the background app would immediately release the resource, allowing a smooth, seamless transition.

Screen quality is good. The resolution of 1024 x 600 is high enough to make images look sharp and detailed. Colour reproduction was good, as was contrast. The graphics chipset has enough power to play video smoothly (the included demo clip was very impressive, especially for the quality of slow scene transition – I couldn’t detect any jitter or lag) and the backlight could be set to a high level, making images jump from the screen.

While I’m on the subject, the audio quality was also good, and I appreciated the inclusion of stereo speakers, which made an audible difference to the listening experience. The speakers are oriented for best performance in landscape mode.

Typing is terrible. I hated the keyboard. I could only make it work for me when I laid the device flat on a table and used both hands. Even so, the number of typos I made meant that I quickly became frustrated, and I really feel that I could only use the keyboard to enter small amounts of text. My iPad’s keyboard makes an embarrassment of the Playbook’s. One issue I feel that RIM could address is the actual implementation of the keyboard, which pops up each letter as it is ‘pressed’ like an iPhone or Windows Phone. I hated that feature.

Worse than that (unless you are a BlackBerry user, and even then….) is the need to tether the Playbook to a BlackBerry phone in order to access email, contacts and calendar using the native apps. Of course it is possible to access your email and other business data via the web browser, but that’s not the point. The thick client apps on the Playbook, which should allow access to information and emails even while the device is offline, will not launch unless connected to a BlackBerry. Who thought this was a good idea? It will appeal only to those businesses that have already rolled out RIM products to their users, where adding the device is incredibly easy (ah….), however for everyone else the decision to adopt the Playbook is a decision to adopt RIM’s entire product portfolio (not quite, but come on…..).

The selection of apps is small, which I am sure will change with time; the apps that were installed on the device are generally of high quality, and those available on the app store are by and large also of good quality. Of more concern is the noticeable delay when launching apps, and the frequent lack of response when tapping something – often I would have to tap repeatedly and more firmly than I was comfortable doing in order to activate a button or launch an app. I couldn’t see a pattern or reason for this, it was quite random. However, RIM are releasing updates continually to address issues, for example a recent update added a compete video-conferencing app to the OS.

This last point proves to me that RIM have released this in a hurry. Apple have them on the back foot in the tablet market, and it’s clear to see that RIM have responded with a work in progress. But what a work it is. Having used both the Dell Inspiron duo and BMX Win 7 tablet, I can say that the Playbook is a winner-in-waiting, and if RIM were to polish it to the point of seamless usability and lose the tethering I feel that they would have a great success story on their hands. As it is, I am impressed and will watch developments with interest.

Footnote:

I didn’t get an opportunity to measure battery life – RIM claim 10 hours (the iPad lasts almost 17).

What I found most striking coming to write this on my iPad is that the iPad felt like coming home. It’s amazing just how quickly my iPad has become an everyday part of my life. It’s like the computer all over again – you don’t realise how much you use something until you don’t have it.

Blackberry PlayBook

Been playing with a PlayBook this evening. It’s good, almost as good as the iPad. The smaller form factor makes it very immediate. Coupled with the ruggedised case it’s a great mobile workforce solution. If I find the time I will elaborate on this surprisingly engaging device.

Android OS

Just a quick note about my new Samsung Galaxy phone – it’s a great device (I’m posting this from it) that’s a lot of fun, I just wish that the battery lasted more than one working day (at a push). More later.

Cloud Storage: the risk to information

UK/EU Businesses take note: storing your sensitive/critical business data in the cloud could be a mistake if the vendor is US based – even if they have an EU datacentre. Microsoft’s head of Servers & Tools, Bob Mugila has gone on record as saying that MS would hand over any customer data to US Government agencies if requested. When queried, he confirmed that even if the data resided in their Dublin datacentre, MS would pull the data back to the US and make it available to the authorities.

This has serious data protection/regulation implications for every UK/EU business planning to store data in an MS cloud-based service.

iWork on the Mac App Store.

This is an update to a previous post about the Mac App Store.

The excellent (and under-rated) iWork apps – Pages, Number & Keynote – are available for £11.99 each, so buying all three costs half the price of the boxed product at an Apple Store. It’s also great to be able to buy just the app you need if you don’t want all three.

Apple Download Section.

The Mac App Store has supplanted the original downloads section, which made available a lot of apps and other items that don’t conform to the new App Store standards and TOCs.

However, a Google search and click-through will still get you there. Just google ‘Apple Download’.

Office 2011 for Mac – Outlook FAIL!

I have been enjoying MS Office for Mac 2011 for some weeks now, and it’s great not to have to load up a virtual app to edit Word/Excel documents in their native apps.

However, Outlook is a shambles; here’s why:

No IMAP integration with my Hotmail/Live account- just the basic folders. Outlook 2010 on Windows has the Outlook Hotmail connector, but no such luck for Mac users. Adding the account as an automatically configured POP account is also awful – all archived messages are date stamped with the date and time of download!!!

Integration with GMail is better, in that all mail folders are synchronised and local copies are created. Also, the correct date and time data is retained – genius!

However, in both instances neither calendar data nor contacts are downloaded! How can this be? Am I missing something? I don’t think so!

Synchronising/Importing the calendar with iCal is non-existent.

Synchronising with the Apple address book works, and this is the only way to sync Outlook contacts with Google(!), since Address Book CAN sync with my GMail account. Of course this means a convoluted three-step process that isn’t worth the pain. This is 2011 and this stuff should just work.

Added to which it takes ages to load. It works fine with Exchange, however as a personal productivity app this Outlook 2011 in it’s present form is a total fail. I cannot believe it s so poor, especially when Outlook 2010 on Windows is so good.. Unless you MUST HAVE OUTLOOK the defaul Mac apps (Mail/iCal/Addres Book) beat this terrible app hands down, and they support Exchange and GMail without fuss (although I did have to buy an excellent app called mBox Mail for Mac to get my Hotmail/Live account to sync using IMAP).

Seriously, if you are thinking of buying Office for Mac 2011, do yourself a big favour – save £100 by not buying the edition with Outlook, unless you are a student, teacher or parent, in which case head to Software4Students to buy it for £37.95.

Sorry for the tone of this rant – I have been banging my head against the wall for too long trying to get Outlook to work.

The new Mac App store – great free apps & iLife and iWork are cheaper

This is obviously first impressions, and from someone who not a habitual app addict!

The service looks to be the usual well presented Apple effort, and I have already found a couple of useful free apps that I knew nothing about before today. I note that the Apple iLife 11 apps are actually cheaper than on the Apple Store (£46 with the VAT increase) since you can download only the one(s) you need at £8.99 each, plus iWeb and iDVD aren’t included (they weren’t updated in the ’11 release). This means it’s possible to upgrade iLife from iLife 09 to ’11 for just under £27.

The excellent (and under-rated) iWork apps – Pages, Number & Keynote – are also available for £11.99 each, so buying all three costs half the price of the boxed product at an Apple Store. It’s also great to be able to buy just the app you need if you don’t want all three.

There are of course plenty of cheap, throw-away apps, and I’m sure Apple (and developers) have another success on their hands.

One strange thing I noticed while browsing was the number of free apps rose then fell again……

OK, back to work!

Storing data on a personal computer

By personal computer I mean the classic sense of the term: a computer that is personal, not a PC – I use Macs.

Anyway, I think it’s interesting to observe the move away from traditional paradigms of data storage that is being driven by apps, especially on the iOS platform, but also on others such as BlackBerry, Android, and so on.

On an iPhone, iPod or iPad, one usually doesn’t have to deal with where files are stored – the app handles that. This is sometimes because the app is the front end for a web-based service (e.g. Twitter clients, even if they store a cache for off-line viewing), and sometimes because the app stores the data on the device (think ‘Notes’). Either way you don’t have to chose a location to ‘save’ to. The whole concept of files and directories (I’m going to avoid confusion by not referring to folders here because these devices support folders for organising/categorising apps) that is so familiar to MacOS, Windows and Linux users is redundant – the app stores the data, and you access your data directly via the app. There is no Finder/Explorer to browse files that you then ‘double-click/tap’ to open in the appropriate app.

Obviously not all apps behave in this way, and it is extremely convenient to be able to utilise a service such as DropBox to sync files between a desktop/laptop and a portable/pocket device, however – and I think this really is a big deal – the total immediacy of the touch interface and the changes that the apps on these devices are bringing to how we view/access our data represent a fundamental shift in the visualisation of data and the storage thereof. i believe that this immediacy will cross-over back to the desktop/laptop personal computer – even if touch never makes it big on these machines.