@hdtvi: The built in iOS mail app has hooks into various email services like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Exchange. A couple benefits:
* One unified inbox for all your mail
* Mail can be accessed offline
* Attachments can be opened and edited if you have the appropriate helper apps.
Non-web syncing occurs if you have any modern mail server. For example, a lot of businesses use Microsoft Exchange. I can receive/read/send emails on my iPhone. These actions are transmitted back to the server and sent to my iPad and Microsoft Outlook.
@scampbell: What about syncing of calendars? I know executives at several companies I work with that would go ballistic if they had to go to a web page to see their calendar.
Thanks for the info. I need to do some research and think about how to use these apps.
Question. One unified inbox for all mail. Is it possible to maintain separate inboxes? I really wouldn't want to combine work and personal accounts. Or do you just run 2 versions of the same app? I guess the way I currently deal with email needs to be updated to something around 2001
You can use separate inboxes or have them all combined. The combined view makes it easy to see all of your emails coming in at once when you reply it will go from the correct account.
hdtvi asked about apps. You don't necessarily need apps but they can be useful for allowing you to still have access to data when you are offline. For example, if you want to read the Globe and Mail on an iPad you can just use the web browser. But that won't work when you are on the subway or an airplane, or if you are outside of wifi range with a wifi only iPad. But you can use the G&M's iPad app and download the paper before you leave home.
In 2011, Gartner predicts 467 million smartphones will be sold of which RIM will sell about 62 million. (i.e./ about 1 in 8 smartphones sold this year will be a Blackberry)
My guess is that most people who buy a tablet will have a smartphone. If you don't have a blackberry, are you really going to be interested in the Playbook?
In simple terms, RIM has shut itself out the vast majority of the marketplace.
which I think is where they have deliberately placed themselves. They've always promoted the PB as an extender to the BB. Odd, IMHO, but they've never promoted it as anything else.
I think this form-factor will be very short lived ( <12 months) and they will aggressively work on launching all-in-one models based on QNX.
Well, being that the Playbook is WiFi only, are we forgetting that an iPhone can be set to create a WiFi hotspot, and thus, one could (why, I have no idea) tether the Playbook to the iPhone or Android's cellular data? So, "Blackberry-only tethering" is technically somewhat misleading.
Of course, there would still be no email, calendar, contacts, etc....
...at which time people will look back on the concern regarding the lack of an email app and call it what it is: Overblown. Indeed it was reported that an email app is on the way.
Tablets are in their infancy. It is an agile development approach to do what RIM is doing. The only people making an issue of it are the fanboys.
I was actually expecting at least one person to buy it on launch and report back.
I played with it at best buy today.
Things I liked: it seemed well constructed overall and the OS was snappy, felt good in the hand.
Things that I could probably get used to: The gesture system using the bezels, I'm not sure this is optimal but that's probably because I'm used to the iOS way and I do larger gestures which sometimes triggered the switching.
Things I didn't like: Didn't care for a lot of the 'chrome' of the apps (But I don't like the default Flex/Air UI and that's what it was using) The power button (The person who decided on that should be gone.)
I'm not really sold on the value of the 7 inch form factor but I appreciate that it appeals to some people.
Excerpt: The Playbook doesn't have its own e-mail client, calendar app, instant messenger, or contact list. But when it's wirelessly linked to a Blackberry, all those features are instantly enabled.
It makes it pretty neat when the two devices are paired up with each other, giving you a bigger screen to look through all the content on your phone.
That is, when it actually works. Customers with a Blackberry on AT&T, which is ironically one of RIM's strongest partners, receive the following message instead: "This application is not available on your device or for your carrier."
I think another factor thats going to affect sales is the fact that a very big percentage ( I believe >50% ) of Blackberry users have company issued handsets and are subject to BES policies.
In a company like mine (Fortune 50), IT is outsourced and will be very slow to evaluate and approve PB. They would never approve somehting within the first generation anyways. Once they do, it would most certainly be restricted to executives only.
I would certainly be loathe to invest personally in a small screen tablet that could potentially have a restrictive IT policy pushed onto it because I tethered it to a company mobile.
I would certainly be loathe to invest personally in a small screen tablet that could potentially have a restrictive IT policy pushed onto it because I tethered it to a company mobile.
7" is a better size because of the portability and the fact that, in portrait, you can thumb type. Unless you play in the NBA, good luck doing that with the Ipad Touch. The high resolution and 1080p video remove any viewing challenges some might fear at that size as well. Being the lightest tablet >=7" on the market, you can hold it for a long time without fatigue.
Understand as well that the PB acts as a dumb terminal when tethered. it holds none of the BES data locally. Disable the bridge on the BB and there is no evidence of BES content on the PB. i.e. no threat and any decision to not support the PB is out of fear and misinformation.
Sure... I'm quoting the article exactly as it was titled. I didn't write it. But at the end of the day, I don't think AT&T customers (one of RIM's biggest partners) care about who's at fault for what. Bottom line is they're on the outside looking in.
Someone is implying that RIM caused a problem here. They did not. What they offer is very secure. AT&T decided to block it and I know another company decided to gouge by charging extra for it. Both dumb ideas on the part of the 3rd parties.
He liked the device and the user interface but was negative on the inability to do email etc without being tethered to a blackberry and the lack of apps. "
Walt's review wasn't just negative, part of what he said was wrong.. the Playbook has higher resolution than the iPad... he just doesn't understand what resolution is.
Optics . the act, process, or capability of distinguishing between two separate but adjacent objects or sources of light or between two nearly equal wavelengths. Compare resolving power.
Resolution is about the density of pixels at a given distance... you can't correctly make the statement that since the iPad has 1024 X 768 pixels and the Playbook only has 1024 X 600 pixels that the iPad has the higher resolution because the screens are of difference sizes.... The tech industry has used the term "resolution" for comparing various display settings on the same screen.... and that's fine.
Assuming the distances at which the two screens are compared is the same, it's all about pixels per unit area (pixel density) when comparing the screen resolution of two devices.
The commonly accepted meaning you suggest must be used in the context of comparing the same sized screen or the word "resolution" is being used incorrectly.
The definition I have provided has been used for centuries and continues to be used throughout science right to this day.
Your reference supports my statements; right out of the wiki info: "Note that the use of the word resolution here is a misnomer, though common. The term “display resolution” is usually used to mean pixel dimensions, the number of pixels in each dimension (e.g., 1920×1200), which does not tell anything about the resolution of the display on which the image is actually formed".... this is entirely my point!
Sorry to belabor the point, but with some educational qualifications in the science of optics, it bugs me when I read tech review after review get it wrong - as Mossberg did.
Sigh. "Tech review after tech review" do not get it wrong. For the third time, the tech industry has a different definition for resolution than the optics field. From the article's first sentence which you conveniently ignored, "The display resolution of a digital television or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed".
anybody else tried playing the flash games for Facebook? I can't get any of the games to load. Maybe it's the Android version of Flash problem because I'm encountering the same problem with Galaxy Tab.
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