Shortly after BlackBerry Live I wrote a piece on the importance of BlackBerry 10 landing on the PlayBook. Aside from the fact that BB10 was introduced as a unified platform, all for one, one for all, this isn’t the case – yet. There are valid points as to why BlackBerry 10 makes sense on the PlayBook, be sure to check out my article here but – What if we never see a splitting image of BlackBerry 10 onto the PlayBook?
Leave your (diehard) fans out to dry BlackBerry? I say diehard because at the time this was a period of the tougher moments in its mobile transition. Most outside the userbase claimed BlackBerry to be a dying mobile handset following in the shadow of Nokia. I and others who spent time and money on the PlayBook were destined to see BlackBerry thrive once again in the mobile space. If BlackBerry were to neglect acting on the PlayBook, I believe it would sit quite unsavoring to some of its biggest fans.
After networking with PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 device users some issue arose as to why the BlackBerry 10 OS would not work on the PlayBook. From specs to design some interesting issues arose. Some stated that because the PlayBook only sports 1G of RAM that BB10 would run slow and sluggish. Others claimed BB10 was built for portrait mode and due to the tablet being 5×7, it would not work.
As with other issues let’s instead focus on execution here. Specs aside the PlayBook has great hardware which can handle more than it’s pushing. What if we forget about a splitting image of the mobile BlackBerry 10 OS on the tablet and enhance what the PlayBook OS is and evolve it.
BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 will upgrade to PlayBook OS 10. The UI will be modified to a ‘PB10’ look but will still present itself as a tablet. All this will be powered by – The BlackBerry 10 platform. Full native PIM will be available, each tablet will have its own dedicated BBM PIN and native BBM with channels, video chat and screen sharing will be the standard. I don’t mind 2 BBM icons, one as the dedicated icon and the other as a Bridge icon so that you can bridge your BlackBerry 10 handset to your tablet.
Options will be simplified, they’re already dumbed down from the legacy OS so that shouldn’t be a problem getting them alike. The browser will be overhauled; camera options such as HDR mode and Time Shift Mode will be offered giving you BlackBerry 10 at its finest.
If possible a unified hub as on the Z10 and Q 10 would be available although I wouldn’t be surprised if the PlayBook had no hub. This is probably where the operating system would differ on the Smartphone OS vs the PlayBook OS.. BlackBerry has a great team and combined with QNX, no doubt a hub is possible. It saves precious time especially due to unified integration with applications and I believe BlackBerry takes pride in it, why hold it back on the PlayBook?
Rumors are flying and speculations are spiraling as to the arrival of BlackBerry 10 for the PlayBook and right now, I find it hard to believe it’s coming soon with no official confirmation from BlackBerry.
Per the PlayBook, whether it’s delivered with a splitting image of the BlackBerry 10 OS or an overhauled and upgraded version of the PlayBook OS (10) rest assure, you will get the full BlackBerry 10 experience. #KeepMoving.