Hasta La Gadget!

RIM’s adding yet more incentive for developers to give its PlayBook tablet a chance. The company’s just launched a beta of WebWorks SDK, a collection of tools that lets you package up your web applications, with access to the hardware capabilities, as apps compatible with both the PlayBook and BlackBerry 6 smartphone devices. RIM also released a handful of new SDKs and extended the free PlayBook offer to March 15th. If you’re the sort who dreams in binary, hit up the relevant links below.

RIM’s WebWorks SDK: make apps compatible with both PlayBook and BlackBerry 6 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve been keeping an ear to the techie ground, you’ll probably have heard some analyst chatter suggesting RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook may be delayed due to issues relating to its supposedly poor battery life. That scuttlebutt has now turned out to be mostly unfounded, with RIM clarifying the situation through a communiqué sent to Erictric:

“Any testing or observation of battery life to date by anyone outside of RIM would have been performed using pre-beta units that were built without power management implemented. RIM is on track with its schedule to optimize the BlackBerry PlayBook’s battery life and looks forward to providing customers with a professional grade tablet that offers superior performance with comparable battery life.”

To be sure, it’s not an outright denial that there may be PlayBooks floating about with disappointing battery performance, but the immaturity of the software on them is clearly such as to invalidate any conclusions drawn. Perhaps more important than the imprecise discussion of battery longevity (what does “comparable” even mean in this context?) is the note that the company is still on track to complete its software optimizations and deliver its first tablet on schedule. Guess we can all quit worrying now.

RIM: BlackBerry PlayBook battery life is still being optimized, won’t cause delays originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Dec 2010 04:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM dropped an intriguing hint about a likely release date for the BlackBerry PlayBook during its Q3 earnings call this week — namely, that the company expects the first revenue from the dual-core tablet to arrive in the first quarter of the company’s fiscal year. “There are no PlayBook revenues included in our Q4 guidance, and we expect the first revenue impact from PlayBook will be in RIM’s first quarter,” a RIM spokeswoman said, adding that the PlayBook is still slated to ship in the first quarter of the calendar year. If that still sounds like financial gibberish, let us clarify a tad — RIM’s first fiscal quarter doesn’t start till March, which happens to be when the first calendar quarter ends. Oh, RIM can certainly revise its guidance to shareholders and launch the BlackBerry PlayBook earlier or later if that’s what execs deem fit, but if both of RIM’s statements remain true, then March is when the PlayBook will ship. Isn’t logic wonderful?

BlackBerry PlayBook will ship in March, assuming inertial momentum originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading RIM announces PlayBook simulator and SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS

RIM announces PlayBook simulator and SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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