Hasta La Gadget!

With the NFL season just a few days away, players and coaches have been busy lifting weights, doing interviews and counting their money. Sometimes, they even get the chance to study their playbooks — or, in the case of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, their iPads. This year, the franchise has distributed a fresh batch of iPad 2‘s to all of its 90 players, as part of a new initiative from coach Raheem Morris. With the tablets, the Bucs can spend their free time reviewing their downloaded plays, while analyzing video footage from practices, games and opposing teams. In related tech news, the Detroit Lions just discovered fire.

Tampa Bay Buccanneers to use iPads as playbooks, not PlayBooks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  St. Petersburg Times  | Email this | Comments

Hang tight just a second — let me preface all of this with a quick reminder that I’m speaking on a personal level, and I’m absolutely certain that slates have a place in this world somewhere. We could go back and forth for hours with use-case scenarios (and the same could be done with cars, time machines or your luxury good of choice), but this isn’t about proving that a tablet can do one or two things; it’s about the limitations and awkwardness of using one that no one seems to talk about.

After years of watching the masses fawn over the iPad (and every other PC maker scramble to come out with something that serves a similar purpose), I still can’t ever imagine myself investing in one, let alone actually using one in place of a smartphone or laptop. I’ve met quite a few folks in my line of work that all ask me the same thing: “Should I buy an iPad?” It’s worth noting that no one actually asks if “they should buy a tablet,” but that’s speaking more about Apple’s absurdly enviable mind (and in turn, market) share than anything else. My response is always the same: “If you can’t think of a reason you’d need it, you don’t need it.”

Tablets, for whatever reason, seem to defy logic when it comes to purchase rationalization in the consumer electronics realm. I’ve yet to meet a bloke who purchased an ultraportable without knowing full-well that they would take advantage of enhanced battery life and a highly mobile chassis. Everyone I’ve know that invested in a high-end gaming rig knew why they were shelling out on that $500 GPU (read: frames-per-second). And all of my movie cuttin’ pals knew precisely why they just had to have a Thunderbolt RAID setup. But tablets? People are just buying these things in a fit of hysteria — does anyone actually know why this “third device” is such a necessity? Let’s dive a little deeper, shall we?

Continue reading Editorial: tablets aren’t the ‘third device’ I’d hoped for… from a productivity standpoint, anyway

Editorial: tablets aren’t the ‘third device’ I’d hoped for… from a productivity standpoint, anyway originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Aug 2011 12:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

The BlackBerry PlayBook is currently only available as a Wi-Fi device.

Updated 5:17 P.M. PST with comment from RIM

RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet just can’t catch a break.

Sprint announced Friday that it will not be selling a 4G version of the PlayBook on its Wi-Max network.

“We apologize for any inconvenience but the BlackBerry 4G PlayBook Tablet that was announced in January for summer availability will no longer be coming to the Sprint network,” a Sprint representative told Wired.com in a statement. “This was a mutual decision between Sprint and RIM.”

The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

AT&T and Verizon do not currently support the PlayBook on their networks. AT&T announced it would support the PlayBook’s “bridge” application, which is necessary for users to access e-mail and calendar functions, in July.

Without carrier support, RIM can only sell a Wi-Fi version of its product. It must be paired with a Blackberry phone in order to access a carrier’s 3G network. When the product was announced, future 3G and 4G models were promised.

RIM is coloring the announcement somewhat differently.

“RIM has decided to prioritize and focus its 4G development resources on LTE,” a RIM spokeswoman told Wired.com in a statement.

Sprint’s 4G network is based on Wi-Max technology, a competitor of AT&T’s and Verizon’s LTE-based networks.

Reception of the BlackBerry PlayBook has been less than enthusiastic generally. The tablet has struggled with displaying Flash, which delayed the device’s initial launch a month. RIM initially said it planned to release the PlayBook on the three largest U.S. carriers (Verizon, AT&T and Sprint). In May, Wired.com reported that Sprint was delayingthe BlackBerry PlayBook release.

Apple’s highly successful iPad is supported by both AT&T and Verizon, and reported sales of approximately 9.3 million units in the first quarter of 2011. The Wi-Fi-only PlayBook shipped 500,000 units over that same time period, and the Motorola Xoom saw only 440,000 tablets ship.

Mike Isaac contributed to this report.

Nope. There’s no mention of a Nexus Prime in this glimpse of VZW future, but don’t let that stop you from drooling over the purported goods. The leaked shot over on IGN lays out a back-to-school road filled with Android phones a plenty, and one lone RIM entry. September 8th is gearing up to be a busy Thursday for Big Red, with launches slated for the Droid Bionic, Motorola Xoom 4G, BlackBerry Curve 9370 (the LTE cousin of ‘Apollo’?) and Samsung Stratosphere — the operator’s rumored Galaxy S II variant. The end of the month gets a 2.3 combo of Gingerbread phones as the Samsung Illusion (codenamed Viper), and HTC Bliss touch down on the 29th. Refreshes for a couple of the carrier’s early LTE phones debut in October, when the Thunderbolt gets pushed aside by the virile HTC Vigor and LG gets a redo with the Revolution 2. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab P8 (most likely the Galaxy Tab 8.9) gets an unconfirmed November mention, while BlackBerry’s PlayBook languishes in a release date grey zone. Ready for that end-of-year upgrade? From the looks of things, there’ll be no dearth of options.

Verizon Wireless year-end roadmap leaks, Android and LTE spotted on the horizon? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink BGR  |  IGN  | Email this | Comments

RIM previously announced that its PlayBook tablet would be able to run Android apps by the summer, but we’ve just heard something to the contrary. A reliable source told us that this highly anticipated feature of the BlackBerry slate now won’t arrive until “late fall.” With RIM struggling against ever-stronger competition, delays like this are bad news — the PlayBook needs this new lease of Android life as soon as possible.

BlackBerry PlayBook will run Android apps by ‘late fall,’ later than expected originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 08:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments