Use your BlackBerry Smartphone to control your BlackBerry PlayBook!
One of the slightly complicated to grasp at first but awesome features about the BlackBerry PlayBook has always been BlackBerry Bridge. If you own both a BlackBerry PlayBook and a BlackBerry Smartphone, you can pair them together to do more. RIM likes to think of this as the 1 + 1 = 3 type of experience. Prior to the rollout of native email, calendar and contacts on the PlayBook, BlackBerry Bridge allowed you to access this content directly from your phone as well as use BBM and even browse the web without tethering. With BlackBerry Remote functionality on BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, RIM is further expanding BlackBerry Bridge's functionality.
There are some REALLY awesome features here that are both geektastic and pretty compelling for the average consumer too. One of these cool features is the new Open On PlayBook feature. If somebody emails you a link or document to your BlackBerry Smartphone, you can hit the menu key on that link/file and choose to open it on your BlackBerry PlayBook (an easy way to take advantage of that bigger screen). Check it out in the video above. The implementation is pretty slick.
Even more fun is the new Remote Control functionality that can be accessed via the BlackBerry Bridge app on your BlackBerry Smartphone. Once opened, you can literally use your BlackBerry Smartphone to control your BlackBerry PlayBook. That's right - you can hook your PlayBook up to your TV, sit back on the couch and then use your phone as a remote to fully control the experience. You can cursor around and even "swipe" on your phone with the virtual bezels that show up on the phone's display. Switching over to presenter mode on your phone, you could even use your phone as clicker for a a Powerpoint presentation being delivered from the PlayBook.
And perhaps my favorite feature here is the ability to USE THE KEYBOARD ON YOUR BLACKBERRY SMARTPHONE to type on your BlackBerry PlayBook. This was a feature I was hoping would come to the BlackBerry PlayBook since day 1, and with PlayBook OS 2 it's here. I can't wait to use my Bold 9900's keyboard to type on my PlayBook. And in this case your BlackBerry phone shortcuts and saved autotexts will all come through on the PlayBook as well.
Definitely check out the video above to get a great look at Remote Control functionality on the BlackBerry PlayBook!
