BlackBerry PlayBook Native Email and PIM Running via BlackBerry OS Emulation?!! Makes hybrid QNX/BB OS plausible on new phones?

By Kevin Michaluk on 9 May 2011 06:18 pm

Thought Piece: Connecting the dots after BlackBerry World 2011...

[ youtube video link for mobile viewing ]

With BlackBerry World 2011 now behind us, it's time to reflect upon all the news and things we saw. One of demos that really blew me away was of native email and PIM running on a BlackBerry PlayBook. Yes, we knew RIM said it was coming, but I was SHOCKED to actually see it in action. At first I honestly thought RIM was faking it. For the life of me I couldn't believe that RIM had already finished re-writing the email and PIM apps for QNX so they run natively on the PlayBook. Remember, these aren't just any old apps. These apps have to talk directly to RIM's Network Operation Center which means they have to be ROCK SOLID, just like native email and PIM on BlackBerry Smartphones today. We're talking secure and battle tested. These aren't just apps for RIM to quickly pump out and push live. Their reputation in business and enterprise rests on them.

Watching the video above I couldn't help but think how similar the native email and PIM experience on the BlackBerry PlayBook looked to that on a BlackBerry Smartphone. Then I had an ephinany. It looks like the same experience BECAUSE IT IS THE SAME EXPERIENCE. Instead of re-writing native email and PIM for the BlackBerry PlayBook, RIM is going to run the traditional BlackBerry OS on top of QNX via an emulator to power the native email and PIM experience. To the user the actual email and PIM apps will look good and feel 100% native and the performance should be totally fine as we see in the video, but in reality it'll actually be the traditional BlackBerry OS running behind the scenes to deliver this experience (as pointed out in the comments, jump to 1m11s in the video to see the BB6 styled radio off indicator in the app). You won't see the BBOS, but it'll be there. At least for now.

During live demo, native email, calendar and contact apps loaded within the same BlackBerry Player window

Remember, along with the announcement of the Android App Player, RIM also announced a BlackBerry Java player that would support running BlackBerry Smartphone apps on the PlayBook. When I left BlackBerry World last week I was wondering why RIM didn't show this off, but it turns out they did without us realizing it. The Android App Player works by actually having a full version of the Android OS running on the PlayBook, and that's the same case here now on the BlackBerry side of things. So with the BlackBerry OS running on the PlayBook, RIM can not only support BlackBerry Java apps if they want to, but they can run the native apps from the BBOS on the PlayBook as we're seeing in this video.

RIM has a lot of employees, so I guarantee there is a team of them working on re-writing everything for QNX natively so that one day in the not so distance future the BlackBerry OS as we know it is completely phased out. But in the meantime this ability for the QNX OS to run the BlackBerry OS in an emulated environment is brilliant. Per above, it allows RIM to push out native email and PIM onto the BlackBerry PlayBook fairly quickly. BUT where this gets REALLY interesting is on BlackBerry Smartphones. I'm assuming that running the BlackBerry OS emulation would also give the RIM the ability to tap into the radio stack of the BlackBerry OS if they wanted to you know, put the QNX OS onto a Smartphone that was already running the BlackBerry OS on 3G.

Why is that significant? Well let's think about it. We know RIM and RIM's CEO's have talked about QNX-based superphones and that QNX is a dual core play for RIM. However, we've ALSO heard for a while now about a HYBRID OS being in the works that brings the best of the traditional BlackBerry OS together with QNX (we previously called it BlackBerry 7 until BlackBerry 6.1 got rebranded to BlackBerry 7). So what would a QNX/BBOS Hybrid OS look like and how would it work together? I think you're sort of looking at it. QNX is the base OS, providing the homescreen and app experience and app development platform, while the BlackBerry OS runs in emulation mode - providing the radio connection to the carriers and delivering the native email and PIM experience. It's the best of both worlds until RIM has a chance to natively write everything for QNX.

You know where I really start to get excited and get my hopes up? While RIM's CEO has said QNX is a dual core play, I actually believe that this QNX/BBOS hybrid could run just fine on a device like the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930. Just watch the video for the Snapdragon processor in the new Bold. It's a SOLID processor and the device has solid hardware specs all around. Maybe they upped the built-in storage memory to 8GB so that for the day when the hybrid QNX/BBOS arrives to the new Bold you can then install apps onto that storage space (with BlackBerry 7 apps are still getting installed into flash memory, of which there is only 768MB on the new Bold - an app like Need for Speed on the PlayBook is over 350MB so would never work, but with a QNX/BBOS hybrid OS using non-flash memory for running apps it could sit and run from that 8GB of storage space). With RIM's next wave of high-end hardware coming late summer/early fall, including the new Bold, new Torch, new Touch (monaco/monza) and basically running on identical hardware platforms (just the form factors change - excluding Curve which is on the older Marvell hardware), it would make sense that RIM has this new generation hardware platform prepped for the hybrid OS. This would greatly extend the product life cycle of these devices as well as their value proposition to consumers as RIM works towards the followup generation of hardware we see later 2012 where we're rocking dual-core full QNX BlackBerry superphones.

I know I know... it seems a bit crazy. And of course I could be wrong here as this is my take on connecting the dots vs. RIM official word. But it all makes so much sense, no? Be sure to sound off in the comments with your thoughts on this. On crack? Or crack'd the story?

Topics: Kevin's So Insane He Just Might Be Right Ideas Email QNX BlackBerry Playbook News & Rumors Editorial

Kevin Michaluk 3672 (articles) 3016 (forum posts)

63 comments

estarno May 9, 2011 at 6:20 pm

Pffffft! That sounds like such typical RIM- always taking the easy way out. They really can't do anything by themselves! I hate to sound like an Apple fanboy but you don't see Apple and other compaies emulating software on their devices. Especially important functionalities like the email client!

Man, that's lame. Who the hell emulates things like this? geeez

Kevin Michaluk May 9, 2011 at 6:23 pm

Nah man, I don't think it's the easy way out. It's the SMART WAY IN is what it is. Read the whole post.. not sure you did. There's a lot of GOOD in this.

Agreed it has to go fully native on QNX at somepoint, but I'd rather have trusted BlackBerry email/PIM in the nearer term than something half baked (which is why RIM left it off to begin with and has bridge as a stop gap secure solution).

The BlackBerry Tablet OS platform is young.. going this way gets you the best of BlackBerry on the Best of QNX. Plus I'm sure performance will be really solid... QNX runs this stuff fast on top.

feldmen01 May 9, 2011 at 6:31 pm

I would love to see the logistics of this emulation running on their smartphones. I fear that they should have included more memory in the PlayBook as now they are going to have to deal with an android emulation and a BBOS emulation. That doesn't leave much left for native functionality.

Kevin Michaluk May 9, 2011 at 6:34 pm

And don't forget Adobe Air is running too :)

QNX seems pretty adept at memory allocation and management, so I think more than any other OS it'll squeeze every byte out of the gig of ram so the user experience will be solid throughout... but yeah.. more memory always better.

feldmen01 May 9, 2011 at 6:36 pm

Maybe in the 10 incher :)

The_Engine May 9, 2011 at 7:36 pm

What she said...

CranBerry413 May 9, 2011 at 6:33 pm

Kevin, this is actually a HUGE find. The capability to have small OS Environment in a larger Environment is Amazing. That could be the edge that RIM would have over other Platforms...essentially allowing them to RUN those Platforms.

This is the type of thing that should be reported by all these blogs. Simply put, this is innovation that can really push the boundaries of the Smartphone arena.

Though, give RIM credit, this isn't the first time they've made done something along these lines, I swear at 1 point that RIM said they were able to play iTunes files. So this is something RIM has seriously put them in Play.

G.4 May 9, 2011 at 9:34 pm

+1!!!
I think this is absolutely brilliant. (Terrible comments from that first poster, by the way...) My MacBook Pro can run Windows7 and OSX at the same time, the Playbook is essentially doing the same thing, minus bootcamp. I love it!!! Nice work, RIM

Joe257 May 9, 2011 at 10:15 pm

The speed of the QNX OS and the dual-core platform makes virtualization easy on the PlayBook. RIM had great potential with their new platform. I really don't know why folks are shorting the stock. Even Microsoft sees huge potential in RIM or they wouldn't want to buddy up with them.

But we will always have these naysayers...

sunjammer May 9, 2011 at 9:22 pm

Are you being sarcastic? Apple would never do this? This is EXACTLY what Apple did when they transitioned from 68K MacOS to PowerPC MacOS to Intel OSX. They had MacOS running on PowerPC, emulating 68K MacOS. Then they had OSX running on Intel CPU, emulating 68K and PowerPC MacOS. They had no native Intel apps for a while, so they had the entire 68K and PPC Apple software library (including their OWN software) through emulation. After many years, Apple gradually dropped the 68K emulator. Only this year with OSX 10.7 is Apple dropping the PowerPC emulator.

And very likely RIM will do the same thing to make a seamless transition from BBOS to QNX, to give developers time to port over their software.

dkingsf May 10, 2011 at 11:54 am

Agreed. There's native email apps waiting to be approved but RIM is delaying them so they can implement this??

MisterMe11 May 15, 2011 at 1:03 pm

Apple ran an emulator when they switched to x86 from PowerPC! It makes perfect sense if the hardware performance is sufficient

crohns May 9, 2011 at 6:25 pm

In all honesty does it really matter? As long as they are producing better and faster smartphones. Who really cares that they are emulating software. Just get us better faster phones.

pfluger May 9, 2011 at 6:32 pm

Some evidence that Kevin might actually be right. Check the video at 1:11, the title bar for
'Appointment Details' shows a 'radio off' indicator which 1:1 resembles the one on OS 6.0

The whole screens actually looks like a stretched version of the OS 6.0 screen. Bridge uses a totally different screen for adding appointments.

Mattma43 May 9, 2011 at 6:41 pm

Good catch, at 1:16, you can see the indicator better.

0obaho0 May 9, 2011 at 6:33 pm

I like how you ended with "I know I know... it seems a bit crazy." Because that's exactly what I was thinking when I was reading it! I hope this is a step in the right direction. What's wrong with the Bridge apps? They serve basically the same purpose anyway, no?

Kevin Michaluk May 9, 2011 at 6:35 pm

Bridge requires owning a BlackBerry Smartphone. Going native means you get everything BlackBerry right on the PlayBook.

blackmoe May 9, 2011 at 7:47 pm

If you don't have a BB plan then you won't be using the RIM servers anyway so your comment is not applicable to what this app does.

biggulpseh May 9, 2011 at 6:36 pm

Kevin, I appreciate that you finally brought this to mainstream attention because I have been saying it for awhile now and everyone ignored me or said I was wrong. The problem is, having your email client run in an emulator is incredibly taxing for such a simple application. Not to mention performance within the application itself is affected (the lag in the PIM demo was very obvious). In addition, just like the demo, only one PIM app could be run at once, and it would appear within the "blackberry player" instead of as a stand-alone app. I love my blackberry, but frankly this is unacceptable as a solution to native PIM apps.

Kevin Michaluk May 9, 2011 at 6:43 pm

I **believe** RIM is making pretty good progress with the App Players on the device.

Put it this way, when I first saw the Android Player it actually loaded up the Android OS as an app (full out Android 2.3.. whole OS), and then once open as an app, you could open up an Android App and it would load as a new app (but only as long as Android OS was open in another app). Then last week we saw how the Android OS wasn't visible at all anymore, and just the app loaded with in the player. I'm sure this is phase one implentation.. next thing to figure out will be running multiple apps. And I'm thinking that's the same thing here. As of last week it may have been only one native app open, but by the time they roll this out this summer it should be much more native feeling. I hope anyways.

tony123ny May 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm

feldmen01 May 9, 2011 at 6:42 pm

SteelHelmet May 9, 2011 at 6:42 pm

Grrrr! I was gonna wait for the superphones, but you've just might have convinced me of replacing my 9700 for a 9900.

I'm happy, but at this point I think my wallet hates you, Kevin. Now I want a new phone!

Kevin Michaluk May 9, 2011 at 6:45 pm

Well, don't hate me yet. I could be wrong. But it just makes so much sense. And the way all the hardware for the Torch, Monaco/Monza and new Bolds is really the same device.. it's like they're setting up for that hybrid. RIM has lots of employees.. i'm sure there's a team on BB7, a team working on a hybrid, and a team working on full out qnx. Wait and see. But definitely makes the 9900 even more appealing if true.

SteelHelmet May 9, 2011 at 6:55 pm

That team, the full QNX OS for superphones team, and what the TAT guys are gonna make to RIM phones is what should keep BB owners traveling on this bus. Have you seen TAT's videos on YouTube???

I'm pretty sure in 2012 or 2013 I'll still being a proud BB phone owner. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Kev. We all hope they come true!

mortys11 May 9, 2011 at 9:17 pm

Where is the new phone that everyone will lust over?

The 9900 is not that phone! Same old Os and lipstick on the old 9000 .

Why don't they start from zero and design a killer phone that every executive, teenager, soccer mom, tech geek will lust over. the 9700 series case design is dead and the new 9900 already looks dated because it's just a thinner 9000. when the iPhone came out they should have started developing a real iPhone killer not the storm.

They need to switch gears faster and stop serving up second rate hardware and hope it sticks to the wall because they use to do email the best and had their customers hooked....those days are over. Other phones do email just as good and the enterprise game Is shifting now too, so they can't sit back anymore.

feldmen01 May 10, 2011 at 11:20 am

I would really like to know what your spec sheet for the "ultimate Blackberry" would be.

If the 9900 isn't up to your standards then I have no idea what would be, but I have a sneaky suspicion if you were in charge of RIM product design, you would bankrupt the company.

You're like Homer Simpson when he created the "Ultimate Car" that bankrupt his brother, you think you know what people want but you're probably wrong.

samab May 9, 2011 at 6:46 pm

Watch the keynote demo and when he switch from email app to calender app (and then to contact app) --- the minimized window's title is "blackberry player". Like the "android player", when you launch a new app --- you stay inside the same "player".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIqaXgsI--U

We already know that the "android player" is just a dalvik vm. So it looks like the "blackberry player" is a java vm.

Of course, you don't need java to get email. But there may be 2 reasons why RIM is doing "native" email via java. The first reason may be security via sandboxing it into a java vm. The second reason may be time constraint --- the java code is already certified by the government.

There have been internal discussions about bringing Java SE to the playbook --- but nobody knows the exact outcome of these discussions (at around 13:00)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8ptHOu_s-A

What RIM did with the Android Player --- is that RIM went to Google's website, downloaded the source code for Dalvik vm, port it to QNX and then keep the source code changes private. It is perfectly legal because Dalvik vm is released under Apache 2.0 license. This is the main reason why Google hasn't released Honeycomb source code yet. Google's only tool to prevent such fragmentation problem is their restrictive license on stuff like gmail and google maps --- which RIM doesn't put into the Playbook.

alantan May 9, 2011 at 7:33 pm

Good catch samad on the "blackberry player" from the keynote demo. From the demo it is obvious that currently it can only run a single PIM app at one time from the Blackberry player.

Hopefully they are using all the time from now until summer to make it available to run multiple PIM apps.

tumer May 9, 2011 at 7:01 pm

That's true all those devices we've bEen hearing about all pretty much have the same guts I thing your on to somthing kevin

BBprodigy May 9, 2011 at 7:20 pm

yeah kinda makes sense. but I just think that by time Sprint finally launches their 4G Playbook later this year, its really going to be the "proper" Playbook that should have been released earlier this year, software-wise. Its gonna have all the features and apps its supposed to have like native BBM, native E-mail and PIM, video chat, e-book reader, video player (VLC preferably), top-notch games (Angry Birds is on the way) and all that other good stuff. I'll definitely be getting a Playbook later this year, and I dont have a Blackberry now but instead of getting a device that will soon be outdated I'm holding out for either the Bold Touch or the Torch 2. Good times ahead for RIM and Blackberry indeed.

the brother May 9, 2011 at 7:23 pm

to this I would say, "yes" and "yes please" and "certainly soon, i hope"

JustinGTP May 9, 2011 at 7:27 pm

To be honest, the scrolling in the calendar does NOT look that smooth.

altrax May 9, 2011 at 7:58 pm

If they are emulating the entire BBOS for these "native" apps what does that mean for sms/mms?

mahen915 May 9, 2011 at 8:00 pm

Does this mean my e-mail will STILL be truncated?! >:(

bmservice May 9, 2011 at 8:11 pm

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BBOttawa May 9, 2011 at 8:24 pm

Good catch Kevin, just listening to the video he says: "we've taken the entire rich blackberry email and pim experience and we're going to bring that to Playbook... 'the full suite'."

Note he says we're going to bring it to Playbook, not we are coding native apps to Playbook. There's no way they could code and certify the entire PIM and email suite with all the million little functional things built up over time as you say, it's definitely running in a VM.

Sounds good to me, even though I have a BB phone so don't need it. Speed in email and calendar is not a huge thing anyway.

themenacexd May 9, 2011 at 8:43 pm

Maybe it's just me but I feel like this website is turning into crackplaybook.com instead of crackberry.com like seriously, can we get back to some smartphone news?

biggulpseh May 10, 2011 at 12:23 am

...what smartphone news?

gregorylkelly May 10, 2011 at 7:46 am

QNX is coming to BlackBerry smartphones in the future which means that this is smartphone news. We are using and testing the future OS of BlackBerry smartphones!

blackletter May 9, 2011 at 8:59 pm

Okay, so with the introduction of the BlackBerry email and PIM on my PlayBook this summer, does that mean that my BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook can be used interchangeably in connection with email, tasks, memos, BBM, and calendar functionality? So the PlayBook will receive the full library of apps native to the BlackBerry smartphone? (e.g. email, calendar, tasks, memo pad, files etc.)

Therefore, my BIS email would be pushed simulataneously to both my BlackBerry smartphone and my PlayBook?

Also, whatever data entries and changes I make on one device would simultaneously be reflected on the other device? (e.g. I open the task app on my BlackBerry smartphone and make changes, and these changes are then immediately reflected on the task app on my PlayBook?) So will BlackBerry Bridge not be necessary anymore?

Sorry for my confusion, I'm just not as tech savvy as many on this board.

mortys11 May 9, 2011 at 9:01 pm

I don't see them closing the gap any time soon on the tablet side or the phone side.

You can't release 3 new phones that are basically the same 3 phones from 2 years ago.

There is a long road of pain ahead before a chance of their situation getting better and the investors and analysts will not be kind to RIM.

They will lose many customers on the way down also....like my math teacher use to tell me

"you can't fill a tea cup with a fire hose"

gregorylkelly May 10, 2011 at 7:49 am

But, you also "can't put out a fire with a tea kettle"....

br14 May 9, 2011 at 11:23 pm

Did RIM confirm this to you? Because they don't look like the BlackBerry apps to me. And isn't it more likely the device Andrew is using is a wireless device - hence the radio icon?

Just a guess but given the history of BlackBerry I'd say the native PIM apps on BB are probably written in C and it wouldn't be difficult at all to port them to Playbook once QNX had the base email APIs transferred.

Given that RIM is releasing the BlackBerry Java player **after** Android, I'd suggest the player its far from complete since its a lower priority. Clearly joining the app wars is far more important to RIM than demonstrating any concern for its existing developer community.

There's no doubt in my mind that had RIM felt an email client was required they would have released one with the device. The company isn't short of email software development expertise after all. So clearly they had reasons for not adding email.

@blackletter - Assuming you had a wireless Playbook, all mail received would be sync'd to both your Playbook and your BlackBerry. Whether thats also true for sent email is another question.

Personally I doubt tasks etc will be sync'd with a device unless you use BB Bridge. That is after all what Bridge is for. In all likelihood Bridge will always be available - even if the device has a native email client.

@mortys11 - Don't make judgements based on analysts and reviewers. They're almost always following the market rather than leading. Analysts will be kind when RIM improves it's margins. They spend more than the competition to deliver similar devices.

Not sure how you can call the latest Bold Touch the same phone from 2 years ago. It may look familiar but thats where the similarities end.

RIM's sales are still climbing so I doubt they're dead yet. And when the wireless Playbook is released, there'll be no gap - except that the competition will have fallen behind.

gord888 May 9, 2011 at 11:47 pm

It's not THAT crazy. In fact, it makes quite a bit of sense. But that's the mind game that the IT world plays. Lots of times you don't see where a company is headed, and it often seems like they are always going in the wrong direction, until you start to "connect the dots" and it all starts to come together.

I certainly hope RIM is thinking ahead with all of this... if you're right Kev, then all the naysayers will be eating their words over the next few months.

fnguyen May 10, 2011 at 1:16 am

If the PB is able to emulate the full android OS, does it mean future phone will be sort of dual boot war machines??? (As is the pb now)

fnguyen May 10, 2011 at 1:16 am

If the PB is able to emulate the full android OS, does it mean future phone will be sort of dual os war machines??? (As is the pb now, and sort of like dual boot pc's'

aj_007 May 10, 2011 at 4:44 am

I know this question/comment does not quite tally with the on-going discussion... But what better place to ask?
When would the pb be released in other parts of the world (where, I might add, bb phone sales are actually doing better than they are in North America)?

belfastdispatcher May 10, 2011 at 5:41 am

It makes perfect sense, why mess with something proven? I'm starting to think of QNX not as a new OS but a new powerful machine that would run anything you want on it. It's powerful enough to run whatever, probably could run windows 7 if they wanted.

kbr16 May 10, 2011 at 5:56 am

Reply
That would be totally cool for a BB phone.... to run native QNX and any other phone operating system..... Droid and Apple..... You will be assimilated, resistance is futile! LOL

No BB Drone May 10, 2011 at 8:01 am

Wow what a far far strech "Kevin".
Why dont you connect this dot for me...........
Before BB world it was announced that this so called new great phone : BB 9900 will not support qnx since it doesnt have dua lcore. Why is this censored on CB? Why no news about this? No only thing we get is Zomgg loo kat how awesom!!!11 this "new " phone is . Or omgg gchekz outz mah plaiybookz!!!!1111einz einz lololololol it might actually run a e-mail client not native but fro mbb os!!!! zomg!1!!1!1! teh playboekz pwnz the ipad 2 , imma flip it off with the big fingerzzz!!

Get a grip , Rim is phailing hard , and you drones will only notice when it's to late. And you all be like : wtf happend ? Never knew ri mwas gonna be the next palm/nokia................

belfastdispatcher May 10, 2011 at 8:33 am

Wow, what the hell did you type that rant on? Lol

TheAmazingHarold May 10, 2011 at 9:54 am

Lrn2English retard.

feldmen01 May 10, 2011 at 11:29 am

cute

I know what else it "phailing hard": You in English class. Have fun repeating the 8th grade over, and over, and over, and over...

NO_CARRIER May 11, 2011 at 1:14 pm

In the real 'world'. (note: 'world' is not just America, there are other countries out there.), the Blackberry is doing just fine. No it won't be able to compete with 'Android' which is an operating system, not a telephone since Android is deployed amongst many manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, HP, etc. and offers phones at a much cheaper price point, many times without a data plan. The iPhone is a consumer success and will always be popular, but it's not for everyone. Lack of a hard keyboard, form-factor, and required data-plan from carriers are major detractors for many consumers. There is room for more than one 'mobile giant'. Just like there's enough room for Honda, Toyota, BMW, etc. to all take a huge chunk of the passenger vehicle market. Unless Apple decides to make physical keyboards, secure connectivity, and can convince carriers to sell phones with data plans--they will never take the majority of the market share. They will continue to be in Android's shadow as they currently are. RIM will be next to Android as well for the forseeable future. But with 60 million handsets in operation, and RIM's sell phone sales continuing to expand exponentially (though overall market share reducing), they are FAR FAR from Palm.

Also do your research, in the cell phone market (not just smart phones) Nokia leaves RIM, Apple, and all Android devices far in its shadow. Nokia is by far the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world and #1 for anyone who wants a communication device on those $20 a month plans for unlimited talk & text around the globe. They are far from dead.

Unless you do your research, don't bother responding to me. Thanks.

pineypl May 10, 2011 at 8:06 am

But the real question is: "Is the native email on PB truncated like on the handhelds?" If so, it is a fail.

Jai Manny May 10, 2011 at 9:27 am

Seems like Android did this yesterday, RIM should have done this today, instead they are working on for tomorrow. Hurry up and get this done before MS take your market share as well.

allengeorge May 10, 2011 at 9:35 am

I don't care if the BBOS PIM apps are used, as long as there's a consistent look and feel across the PlayBook, and consistent UI-interaction metaphors across all apps. Right now this isn't the case. This makes for a very incoherent experience across apps.

Adding the BBOS PIM apps isn't going to help with this. First, the UI elements look different. Second, we're now throwing old-school side-loading text menus into the mix, as well as the long-hold context menus, the PlayBook swipe-down menus and the Android-style menus. This is simply bad UI design, and it's going to be very jarring for anyone who uses the PlayBook. RIM needs to put a UI team together, simplify their interaction styles, put together a UI guideline and ensure that all PlayBook apps follow it. At the very least, they should set an example with the PIM apps.

NO_CARRIER May 10, 2011 at 2:43 pm

Kevin, why do keep posting that QNX will run other OS's. In another post you said that Android apps will actually run inside the Android OS.

No, these are not operating systems. They're QNX servers running on top of the QNX kernel. There are server for Adobe AIR, Unity, Java, Android, etc.

The native language of BB OS is Java. This is just the Java e-mail app that has been modified to work with the Playbook. It's not "BB OS RUNNING ON QNX!"

ptpete May 10, 2011 at 3:55 pm

I've never used a Blackberry, why is it so important to have the Playbook exactly like on the Blackberry?

Isn't this an opportunity to bust out a bit?

Also who cares how it gets to the Playbook, just do it. Users don't want to know the details/mess behind why something works. That's why apple does so well.

Virualization has come a long way, but lets make it transparent to the user.

tourism93 May 10, 2011 at 11:50 pm

Can someone clarify, just trying to understand the connectivity on how native email will work on the playbook. Will native email work with just wifi or 3g or 4g data plan or both?

Appreciate any help...thx!

Gamesdmc3 May 12, 2011 at 5:14 pm

Nice!!!

crezo May 15, 2011 at 10:40 am

This is fantastic news! I've been following the playbook since it's first teasers and was shocked that there was no native email/cal/contact support... seemed like a really bad plan to try to get people to buy blackberry phones just to use what should be there in the tablet.

Glad to here it will finally be added, and this news has just convinced me 100% to pick up one of these tablets. Damn this site for making me want to spend my money ;)

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