BlackBerry DevCon 2011 Keynote Live Webcast and Blog!

I watched the live stream today. What I observed was a very "cold" crowd. But I could not determine if the crowd was "cold" due to any disappointment in what they heard or if they were still processing the information. True developers and business managers are very logical and cerebral people, they are not emotional fanatics. Thus they will not visually or vocally respond with strong emotions. Rather they show their feelings by continuing to use or create for those things that work for them. In the end all non-living things can be classified as either tools or toys, very few things are both.

My question is how does this crowd respond. If they perceive the information they received today as useful or something they can profit from, they will use it. If not then this group will walkaway and never come back.

It would be very interesting for the CrackBerry team to post reaction interview videos. To see what these people think.

RIM, its only "leapfrogging" if you come out with the technology/apps/software BEFORE the competition catchs up. When you display something, then sit on it for 1+ years before releasing it to developers/end clients, you really kill your leapfrogging effect all together.

Well I'm like a huge Blackberry guy, got my whole family to buy blackberries and even some firends and colleagues. What did this "Keynote" do for me.... Well I'm going to get the Amazon Fire

I just can't justify delaying my wants to suit RIM's schedule any longer.

Huge disappointment, and showing off all the stuff on the OS7 phones was like adding salt to the wounds. Does anyone seriously think they'll get a QNX phone out in 2012? Dream on.

Well, I'm pissed. Not because they didn't announce OS2.0

BB Playbook the first "Professional" tablet just became a gaming platform. The only thing that was business related that I saw was Citrix Reciever and I call bullshit on how smooth it runs in their demo compared to how it runs in real world.

Frankly, I'm surprised that BlackBerry -- knowing the content of these presentations -- decided to live stream the video of the event. Too much anticipation building for a "wow" factor that never happened.

On my way to work, I had time to rethink the first two keynote addresses. And while I agree that this is a developer conference and not a conference for consumer, I was left with the following opinion: "here it is again with RIM promising much and delivering later." In fact, this conference is almost identical to previous ones whereby we are shown items that look good - none of which have materialized.

Case in point, Unity shows us their engine and another new game. A year ago, they did the same thing - nothing has come of it.

TAT shows us a brilliant way of doing communication and viewing photos. A year ago, they showed us an alternative media player, 3d capabilities, and other apps which, save for 1, have materialized.

Adobe speaks about Flash and Air and conveniently does not mention their Adobe Reader. Whats this matter to developers? Well, if you want to include an application that will rely on pdf to which consumers would enter data through forms, you are unable to do so. Nor can consumers use the current pdf reader to search documents, go to specific text or pages. Again, something that would be key for developers who have apps tied into the viewing of large pdf files, i.e., medical apps is a prime example of this.

And therein lies the problem, the Playbook has so much potential; the hardware is phenomenal; and the OS is robust and powerful. And yet nothing of this power is in the hands of developers and, by extension, the average consumer.

Why is it that Unity still has not brought their work out? Why is that TAT's apps, which were praised all over the world's tech. blogs, have failed to see the light of day. Why is that when it comes to the Playbook, we only keep seeing glimpses of what it COULD do.

Developers and consumers are tired of waiting for the much promised power of the Playbook to be made available. Don't you think it's time that this occurred?

Are any of these developers from the US? Seems like everyone has an accent. :-)

If nothing gets shown by the end of the day i.e OS2 release window, hardware I think I'm finally going to leapfrog to the iphone. Been BB faithful for 7 years now. FML.

If they think that demoed football game is "platform level" graphics, they obviously haven't played Madden on a platform gaming system in the last 5 to 7 years.

So, when do we leapfrog?

RIM is not in a situation and economical position, that they can take a lot of time before showing to the world new things. They have to do it NOW and with a big BANG. Watching the con, it looks more like a funeral.

CRACKBERRY get a grip. The whining is embarrasing.

So was this the best thing they have to show? Is OS 2 stuff and new phone even gonna show up at some point during DevCon, or was that it?

They are getting behind the developers and getting rid of the walls. I think that is awesome. The tools are terrific! As it's a dev conference, its about the tools available, not a forum really to push new devices but the push the platform itself. They made it clear that an application built today will run on devices today and in the future. A huge plus for developers.

More vaporware with no delivery windows (at least they learned they can't hit one). They couldn't at least hold up a phone and say it was running BBX? Blackberry TV? Hopefully they show more in the second session. I still haven't seen this Leapfrogging yet either.

Guys this is a big event. They can't announce all the fun stuff at the beginning. They need to build up to it.....Remember Steve Jobs & his "one more thing" announcement at the end?

ALSO remember this is not BlackBerry World. This is DevCon. It's main purpose is app development, not announcing new phones......Though we all know that they will be showing a prototype to the Devs.

Gotta say, that was really disappointing. More than anything, I wanted to hear PB OS 2.0 was rolling out this week with native PIM and the android player. I figured even if they talked QNX/BBX phones, they wouldn't be coming out until next year. But OS 2 is already overdue. Wasn't it originally announced as coming in the summer? At least the native email/PIM support. We're well into autumn now and they don't even dangle a (new) date out there. They really didn't show much for the average user. And judging by the crowd reaction, nothing got the developers excited either. The presenters were basically boring or trying too hard to sound excited. I guess it's a bad sign when the best thing about DevCon is the music.

They mentioned something about leapfrogging the competition... I think they meant jumping the shark. (Sorry to be a downer, but I'm bummed.)

oh, and Mike L is the worst presenter ever. Keep him in the boardroom and bring out guys that can talk with enthusiasm and without a forced, "wow, that's amazing" at everything they're trying to highlight. He's so deadpan it's depressing.

Empty words, no news, no QNX phones, no OS 2.0 for Playbook...simply nothing. Disapointed.

no BBX 2.0 announcement, or QNX phones - just hints. disappointed. But it does sound like they're finally starting to really get behind the dev's - which is smart. Hopefully the love-in continues months from now.

The whole keynote, so far, seems much more dry, boring, and less enthusiastic. The audience appears harder to win over. The word excitment certainly does not seem to fit in with what, I would argue, most people were hoping to occur. Lord, even Mike seemed more boring then before - and thats saying something. And despite showing 2.0 on some of the Playbooks on stage, never once indicated that it was coming or highlighted what was new.

Even Alec Sunders, who is always exciting, had a difficult time getting any reaction from those in the theatre. He's reviewing the stats of how much money developers make compared to Apple and Android, which is really quite impresive, and there's dead silence.

Not sure if this is bad or good news - but the opening keynote addresses is very interesting. At least from the part of view that no one seems to applause at anything RIM has been saying or doing.

people at devcon have the option to pickup the PB with the beta OS or regular OS

The multitasking windows have also changed

I missed some of the beginning...did they announce any specifics on the new QNX/BBX phone? Are they going to?

Streaming of Devcon webcast is working now on PB :)

Of course you're right, I guess it's just sort of funny being that Apple just had their event announcing one of RIM's biggest competitions. At least they could have made an effort to conceal the laptop, instead of saying, "bring up the MAC again". I know it isn't a big deal, but there is a bit of irony you can't miss there.

Ok wait, they are using APPLE MAC's at a Blackberry event? LOL

Is Mike normally void of any personality? This is my first time watching any sort of BB presentations and it's kind of...well, boring, simple, unexciting.

Presenter: The sun will set again today..
Mike L : Wow that's amazing..wow that really is wow

streaming is working fine for me.

Will anyone write stuff for this? With such a small user base?

screen shows video store, my printouts :) No tabs, messages, contacts :)

Tomb raider game...really...???!! but where is it if porting experience has been so freaking easy?
Nice Robot game Unity...Where is Ninja vengence what you showed on Blackberry World is porting is so freakin easy?

RIM Keeping it real...by making us wait...oh wait finaaalllyyyyyyyyyyyyy

not even for your own event RIM you cant be on time lol gotta love it come on OS2.0

That has to be the icing on the cake. RIM must really have some morons working for them. There is no excuse for the stream not to work on the playbook.

The irony is killer, we're off to a good start

i hope you guys keep the commentary going for those of us using a Playbook who cant access the streaming video.

Well, off to a great start! True to form, RIM is even late for their own Keynote... fifteen minutes and counting.

*sigh*

Couldn't they have at least started on time?

Can't see the webcast on the playbook?!!??
Will we be to see the next devcon webcast once OS 2.0 is released

does the chat roll work on PB? It doesn't seem to refresh automatically either...

Yeah sadly the webcast doesn't work on Playbook..

Isn't it kinda lame, you can't even stream it on the PB?? Anyone get it working?

Can't watch the webcast on my Playbook... I guess it doesn't do the "whole web" lol...

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Is this the day we all realize the future is one.