Playbook OS 2.0 Preview

Playbook OS 2.0 Preview

As we all know Playbook OS 2.0 is right around the corner and in fact may be arriving on our Playbooks tomorrow sometime. However, what I wanted to do was give you a preview of what to expect from your Playbook tomorrow so you can get even more excited about the update.

Now the first big thing that everyone is talking about is the unified messages application that is coming! Now when this was first announced, people were like “finally we have email on a Blackberry, big whoop”. Since then RIM have showed off some cool features within the messaging application such as the ability to bring in Facebook messages, Twitter Direct Messages and LinkedIn messages; obviously it receives email too. You can send messages from twitter too, however I am not too certain on whether you can send from Facebook, but it does seem likely. Another thing that RIM have accented about the new Messaging application is the ability to compose multiple emails by dragging down from the top bezel and creating multiple email tabs (almost identical to tabs in the browser.)  All-in-all I could see myself using the messaging application very much; however, I do wonder on whether you have to have the application open to receive push notifications… for me, this could be a deal breaker.

The next big application that RIM have shown demos of is the Contacts application. Once again when this was announced, everyone assumed it would be a simple contacts application and that this wasn’t big news. However, there are a few features in this application that we have seen that make it stand out from other contact applications on other tablets and phones. The first thing is that the contacts themselves are pulled in from your social networking sites which you set up in a new “Accounts” section of the settings draw. Now this is nothing new, this is something we have on all smartphones and tablets these days. However, what is slightly cleverer is that the Playbook will auto-recognise when the same person has two different accounts (say a Twitter & a LinkedIn account) and it connects that person together so you won’t have two of the same person for different social networking sites. Building on this the social integration digs further in that we believe the person’s Twitter timelines and Facebook updates are shown too (however this isn’t a certainty.) The contacts application ALSO synchronises with your calendar application to show whether you have meetings with a certain person and when these meetings are and such information. This application seems like Blackberry have taken the idea of Contacts and done everything they can to integrate your social life into each contact’s bio. Very nice, let’s hope it proves as nice when released!

The third and final application was originally previewed when Playbook OS 2.0 was first announced is the Calendar application which ONCE AGAIN everyone expected simple things from but ONCE AGAIN RIM delivered something more. The calendar obviously shows a month view on the left and then in the right hand column you can view agenda or week view. There is also an option to show the calendar in People View which allows you to see who you are meeting up with and so you can then click on them to get more details on them. I thought this was a neat feature as you may be meeting someone you hardly know, yet have them on LinkedIn and facebook and so you want to give them a quick background check. I like the call this the “Stalker View” but we’ll see how it pans out!

Next on the long list of additions to Playbook OS 2.0 is the addition of Android applications. Now originally these were going to be launched with a separate android player, however instead RIM decided to just build a piece of kit that allowed developers to transfer their applications from Android applications into working Playbook applications with a simple function. I think this is by far a better idea and means we will see thousands of new applications hitting the App World on the Playbook in the next couple of weeks. A couple things to note is that the Android applications may have their own kind of gestures to access menus and go back and such things but I also believe these may be similar to current Playbook applications or will be shown in some kind of tutorial I assume.

In terms of more general updates on the new OS, you have the new keyboard that is being installed that allows for predictive text, now as I understand it, this keyboard has be added into the application so the applications should all have been updated to accept this keyboard. But older applications may not have the predictive text. There is also clearly a new layout design of the Playbook that in my opinion doesn’t look as nice, but it may grow on me. Also you’ll have the ability to create and name folders for applications (limit of how many applications in each folder is unknown.)

Okay, one thing I want to mention before I leave is the potential of cascades applications; supposedly the three new main applications have been created using Cascades which is a new piece of developer software that allows for much richer applications. It allows for high rendered 3D animations and for the applications to launch and load quicker, also expect new beautiful animations.

So by the sound of it, there’s going to be PLENTY for us to play with when Playbook OS 2.0 launches and there is no doubt that I’ll be spending A LOT of time using it and working out all the new kinks and reviewing the hell out of it (as I do with everything.) I’m crossing my fingers for the release date of the OS update to be for tomorrow as I have a day off college tomorrow so I’d get to play with it all day. Anyway, thank you for reading and post any comments you’d like!