Hasta La Gadget!

The BlackBerry PlayBook as it was released back in April of 2011 was a mess, but the first BlackBerry 10 tablet certainly doesn’t have to be. Have a look back at our original BlackBerry PlayBook Review and you’ll find that right out of the gate the machine was far too “rough around the edges” to be a real competitor with the likes of the iPad or even the first big Android release with the Motorola XOOM. The direction the company is going with BlackBerry 10 presents a unique opportunity to take the tablet market by storm by hitting several specific arenas at once.

1. Brand Power

Back when RIM introduced BBX, the system seemed like an exciting enterprise to BlackBerry users across the board. Fast forward to 2013 and the company formerly known as RIM is now called BlackBerry and the mobile operating system is called BlackBerry 10. The brand name BlackBerry is the most valuable asset the company has, and if they decide to create a new tablet, they need to call it the BlackBerry Tablet.

If BlackBerry decides to call a new tablet something fun and new and unique, it will fail. The name BlackBerry PlayBook implied that there was a built-in audience for the device, people who loved BlackBerry and would therefor, inside that brand awareness, purchase a tablet called PlayBook. I can say iPad and you know that Apple made it. To a lesser degree I can say Galaxy Note or Galaxy Tab and you know Samsung made it.

If I say to a random stranger “hey, do you own a PlayBook?” They’ll think I’m speaking about a book of plays. If I ask that same stranger if they have a BlackBerry tablet, they may not know what that device looks like (yet) but they’ll understand what I mean. The BlackBerry Tablet must be the direction the company goes with the name.

2. Near-impossible ease of use in connecting with PCs and Macs

Two trends exist with tablets today regarding how they connect to larger, more powerful computers. The first is that a tablet will be powerful enough in and of itself that it does not appear to need to connect to any other computer, all of its connections appearing between itself and the internet. The second is a tablet that connects to a keyboard, becoming a laptop in the process.

The BlackBerry Tablet needs to skip the keyboard dock altogether, first of all. BlackBerry creating a keyboard dock implies that they don’t feel the basic unit is awesome enough on its own, and it has to be. The BlackBerry Tablet should be able to exist with an on-screen keyboard alone at all times. If users want to use a keyboard, they’ve got hundreds of Bluetooth keyboards on the market already (most of them made for the iPad, at the moment) that’ll work just great.

With the BlackBerry tablet you need to be able to work with a PC as if it were a folder. This functionality has been lost as a secondary function with essentially every modern tablet because it’s assumed that users want to work with apps like iTunes. Business users need to be able to plug the BlackBerry Tablet in to their computer with a USB cord and have it appear as a folder where they can add or take files easily.

If I plug an Android tablet into my computer, the reaction my computer has depends solely on the version of Android I’ve got running on the tablet and the USB connection status I’ve selected in the software. This cannot be so with the BlackBerry Tablet. If I plug an iPad into my computer, iTunes pops up. This leads us into the third and most important insane step BlackBerry must take with the BlackBerry tablet:

3. A User-Developed User-Experience

Though I’m not entirely sold on the “UDUX” shortening of that term, a user experience as user-dependent as possible is what BlackBerry needs to create for the BlackBerry Tablet. They’ve hinted at this – in a way – with the BlackBerry Android toolset we’ve just posted about again today regarding apps. With this toolset you – as a developer – are able to rapidly and easily convert an APK (the file type for an Android application) into a BlackBerry-ready app for submission to BlackBerry for consideration in their official app store.

This toolset has the right feeling – it’s a good step in the right direction as far as being open to the developers of the world who have already done a lot of work for operating systems that aren’t BlackBerry 10. Now this drive needs to be pushed to the actual operating system itself. The BlackBerry Tablet needs to have BlackBerry 10 existing as an experience for the user that never stops being open to changes and open to modifications.

The BlackBerry Tablet running BlackBerry 10 must be able to work for anyone and it has to be irresistible to not just business users, but all users. If a 5 year old has a BlackBerry Tablet in their backpack, a 35 year old should be jealous, and ready to find a way to save up the three $50 bills it’ll cost them to buy one of their own.

The BlackBerry Tablet: Available This Summer

Do you think we’ll see this magical unicorn of a tablet appearing this summer? What do you think it’d take for BlackBerry to bust out a device that’s so potentially valuable to every man woman and child in the world that they have trouble producing them fast enough to keep up with demand? And perhaps most important of all – does BlackBerry have enough steam right this minute to keep itself alive long enough to create the BlackBerry Tablet?

BlackBerry 10 tablet: three insane steps for success is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Just incase you didn’t remember from the first time we spoke about the fact that BlackBerry 10 supports rather easily repackaged Android apps back in November of 2011, the point is being made abundantly clear here at the launch of the mobile OS. Here inside the launch week for BlackBerry 10 the 70,000 apps at launch have been called 40% Android in origin by none other than BlackBerry UX designer Don Lindsay as he spoke with PC Mag about the collection. The high conversion rate comes from none other than the basic BlackBerry Android toolset that’s ready to rock for Android developers across the nation right this minute.

You’re able to create BlackBerry 10 apps using your basic Android app APK with a set of simple tools right out of the box. The resulting app will not be considered for the many awesome promotions BlackBerry is hosting for “best of” and massive prizes galore, but the process is simple – plug it in, start it up, and map your buttons to the gestures BlackBerry 10 presents. The resulting BAR file will work on a BlackBerry 10 device easy as pie.

The resulting files will be odd at first, with some controls being difficult to get used to if you’ve been working with Android for the past several years or have never worked with the BlackBerry 10 user interface before at all. Gestures are the hero here, with swipes from the center of the bottom of the display up and right or up and left doing to forward and backward movements instead of your standard Android “back” button. Have a peek at our upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS review for additional insight on that bit of a process as well.

Meanwhile you can head to the tool page inside BlackBerry’s developer portal to get everything from a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha Simulator (soon to be replaced by a full-fledged BlackBerry 10 simulator with essentially the same details) to a set of command-line tools to make your process smooth as butter. You can work with the Online Packager or the BlackBerry Tablet simulator as well, with the Eclipse plug-in being the first and perhaps most important tool for you if that’s the place you’re used to creating your code – have at it!

BlackBerry 10′s app library tipped as 40% repackaged Android is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Do you think that the recently introduced BlackBerry 10 operating system is set to be a success? The quick answer from me would be yes, although the size of its success is surely far more difficult to predict. However, Windows Phone 8 might want to look over their shoulders, and it is encouraging to see and hear that developers too, want in on the BlackBerry 10 pie, and leading global publisher of games, Gameloft, has announced that they intend to bring over some of their most popular titles for the new BlackBerry 10 platform.

The list of titles that will be optimized include Shark Dash, N.O.V.A. 3: Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, Asphalt 7: Heat, and UNO, as Gameloft believes that these will benefit from the features which are found in the BlackBerry 10 operating system, where among them include multiplayer capabilities which will enable users to have a completely immersive gaming experience.

The games mentioned will be available somewhere right after BlackBerry App World is launched, while other titles such as Oregon Trail American Settler, Ice Age Village, Real Soccer 2013, The Amazing Spider-Man, Six Guns, Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour, The Dark Knight Rises and Let’s Golf! 3 will be thrown into the mix a few weeks after that.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Temple Run 2 Outpaces 50 Million Download Mark, Angry Birds Star Wars Available For Blackberry 10,

Yesterday was a big day for RIM, now officially called BlackBerry. In case you missed what happened, you can check out our wrap-up here. Now that BlackBerry has announced BB10 together with Z10 and Q10, what’s left to do is to launch its new desktop software called BlackBerry Link. BlackBerry Link is now live, and folks with a BlackBerry 10 device can download the software to sync, access, and organize content such as photos and music from your device and computer.

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By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Microsoft To Officially Launch Surface Pro Tablet On February 8th At Best Buy New York, Google Chrome Android Statue Spotted,

Welcome to Wednesday evening everyone. Today was RIM’s big day, as it rebranded itself as BlackBerry and launched the latest version of its mobile OS, BlackBerry 10. We were there at the launch event to take it all in and get some hands-on time with the new handsets the company has introduced, and you can catch all of the news from the show in our BlackBerry 10 event wrap-up. Be sure to read through the hands-on posts, because it seems that BlackBerry is doing some interesting things with its new phone.

Of course, there were plenty of other headlines to cover throughout the day, with Dropbox announcing a new feature called Documents Preview. Speaking of Dropbox, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer had some not-so-nice things to say about the service today. Zynga’s chief game designer has left the company after four years, while Twitter has improved photo and video viewing in its website interface. Nintendo slashed its Wii U sales predictions today, and the white Nexus 4 took some time to pose for the camera once again.

A trio of Galaxy Tab user agent profile worked their way into the spotlight today, and Toyota has recalled 1.1 million vehicles. Rovio was spotted teasing its new “Escape from Hoth” update to Angry Birds Star Wars, and Netflix is planning at least five new shows a year to compete with HBO. A giant asteroid will be zooming past the Earth on February 15, while Apple has secured a trademark for the layout and design of its stores.

Qualcomm shared quarterly earnings today, as did Facebook, Electronic Arts, and Lenovo. IBM’s Watson will soon be heading off to his first university, while a new trailer for INJUSTICE: Gods Among Us dropped today. Foursquare delivered a bunch of different Best of Foursquare lists today, while Ticketmaster has announced that it will be ditching CAPTCHA. Finally tonight, Cory Gunther spends some quality time with 2014 KIA Forte, Chris Burns delivers his review of the Acer Iconia W510, and Chris Davies asks if RIM even realizes what went wrong with its business. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the rest of your night folks!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: January 30, 2013 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.