Got myself a Playbook today and have been looking around the App store but why are the apps in there so bad?

there are no main apps like tunein radio or other twitter apps like Tweetcaster or anything.

so are any of the apps that work with blackberry mobiles coming to the playbook?

1. You can't be looking very hard as there are apps for those on there, I use a version of Tweetdeck and the Android version of Twitter, although I actually prefer the Playbook app called Blaq for Twitter. I use Nobex Radio which is the same sort of thing as Tunein

2. Sideload apps you want, just Google for something like android apps for Playbook, they have a.bar extension and there are plenty of sites that have them and instructions as to sideloading which is a doddle to do.

Take a look at Osmand which is a nice off line navigation app, you can also sideload Google Maps.

I've listed out below what I've installed or sideloaded on my Playbook

Navigator
Phone tester
Flipclockglow
Magellan Compass
Compass Pro
GPS test
Osmand
Astro Panel
BBC news
Journey Pro
London tube
Nobex Radio
Photo Editor
Photo Studio
Police Scanner
NASA TV
Tablet TV free
Huffington Post
Touch up lite
What's up
Amazon Kindle
Office Suite Pro
Advanced Compass
Dropbox
Skyfire
Twitter
Ghost Commander
Corkboard
Pickshop lite
Tweetdeck
Playbook chess
Evernote
LED Scroller
Blaq (Twitter)

You should find you've got a few apps pre installed like docs to go, adobe reader, iplayer etc.

All the above covers what I need, some of them are paid apps off the App Store but typically they only cost 1 or 2 pounds so not exactly the end of the world

I have put tunein and Tweetcaster in the Search bar in App store but they dont come up at all.

I have downloaded some Apps but for some reason they are not showing on my playbook but when i go into My world they are there as downloaded.

Any ideas on why?

On the bottom part of the screen where your apps are have you scrolled up and down? When I first got my Blackberry I didn’t realise the screen scrolled so did not see what I have downloaded! LOL

I think that the lack of big name apps is what will put a lot of people off the Playbook – I know you can sideload Android apps and personally it does not bother me and am happy to do it. But most people don’t want the hassle of having to do that and I think RIM really need to get companies developing playbook versions of the apps.

you realise that its pretty much a dead platform and no is developing for it including RIM who have been promising a O/S update for ages, which BTW will disable side loading android apps, and still have not released it. Maybe its good thing if the O/S update will disable side loading.

Why would it be a good thing to disable side loading?

As I see it a lot of people would never have bought the PlayBook had side loading not been available due to the lack of a lot of the popular apps and games.

If anything I think if they stop side loading from working without increasing the number of apps they would probably kill future sales dead.

I said the O/S being delayed being a good thing if it kills side loading.


I don't think a lot of buyers even realise that side loading is available. They look at the price and think wow a 10" branded tablet for silly money. And for a majority of buyers it fits their requirement, it does the basics like browsing, watching video, reading books and e-mail. They don't realise the potential of android and thousands of uses they are missing out on.

As for future sales, I don't see it being around much longer, it should be around until xmas at least, after that I would not count on it being around much longer.

Sorry – I mis-read what you said – I understand now.

To be honest mine does what I need of it and with side loading I’m not missing anything that Android can offer…I swapped out a cheap Android Tablet for a Playbook and couldn’t be happier with it – and with it being an expensive tablet that has been reduced in price a lot the build quality and screen clarity are fantastic.

Exactly what I said, you want to do basic things and the playbook can do those. its just a shame that you are not interested in the amazing range of things that you could do if it was android compatible.

Such as?

I don't know where you get that from. Who told you the playbook was a dead platform?? You do know it will be getting OS10 sometime early next year which will bring many refinements, new features and big name apps. RIM have an incentive for developers to develop for their devices. Read up on the 10k incentive for developers and you'll understand.

I would say stick with the playbook. It's different to other devices. It's more like a fine wine or cheese, it will get better with age and has improved leaps and bounds since it's launch. By next year it will start to look like an absolute bargain as there are good things on the way.

Not sure I am as positive about what will happen in the future as you – RIM do seem to be stumbling along at the moment and it’s hard to know what may happen between now and it’s expected release which I know has been delayed already. Also I am under the impression that the OS10 is for the phones and the PlayBook version would be a separate release.

You mean the O/S they are porting over from their phones ?

Do you really think that giving their products away and then paying people to develop for it is a sustainable business model ? remember that RIM has lost 75% of its value in the last 12 months.


fine wine or cheese, lol

Don't get me wrong, I haven't said its not a good bargain for people who are looking for basic tablet and there is a market for that but I don't think it will be on sale in 6 months time and I don't see RIM releasing a new tablet to replace it. There was supposed to be a 4G version announced for release in May, AFAIK that has yet to make the light of day.

It's avaialabe in their home market in Canada - would not expect that one to come out here until 4G is more widely available than it will be for a while

this is the problem, while they delay the launch Nexus 7 and Fire HD are both gaining traction for not much more money. I will discount the mini iPad for now as I don't expect it to come in under £200 which is a lot for a 7" device and not a direct competitor for playbook.

Not sure there would be much point is releasing it as the spec is pretty much the same – just a slightly faster processor to deal with the 4G side of things – apart from that the spec is the same and it’s not a selling point for the UK market.

so what next for playbook, if nexus 7 and fire gain traction ? That effectively leaves playbook fighting against the chinese clones and there is no money in that to support O/S and application development.

Problem for RIM is that they though the have/had a big brand name with Blackberry, they have not been able to leverage that for tablet sales. With the integration of the O/S between the phone and tablet, there is some hope as there should be better compatibility between phone and tablet (something that both Android and iOS can pretty seamlessly) meaning there is incentive for application developers to develop once for both markets. But as I said, it may be too little, too late. Phone sales are on the decline as well to put the nail in the coffin.

Agree – if they carry on as they have done then the slide will continue and it will die a death

In theory they could start trying to do something innovative in the PlayBook and phone side but RIM don’t seem have anything to give and with Microsoft about to push Windows 8 phones and tablets I won’t hold my breath.

The thing is the playbook is still a good specification tablet and for the price is a great device even compared to chinese clones. And ideal for somebody who is happy with built in functionality is a good first tablet.

Its main problem is that of support. If you have a problem with android then there are plenty of people who can help and you are pretty much guaranteed that new versions of apps like iplayer, youtube, skygo will continued to get made.

I can see your point but I don’ think that really gives much of a problem. Generally if you have a working app now it will still be working in a year or twos time – you don’t need to have the latest version of an app all of the time.

With the 3 you mentioned iPlayer and YouTube both work through the browser so you don’t even need an app for those.

AS others point out you need to scroll down AND sideways to check for apps

Tweetcaster is not available in the app store but I googled and found it converted to a '.bar file for sideloading (it appears to work fine according to the Crackberry type sites)

Tunein radio isn't available and the app won't work sideloaded, but I use Nobex radio which is in the app store and works just as well.

Sideloading is dead easy, you need one piece of software on your PC.

Here is a good guide, don't worry about the development mode screen thing, it's part of the software you load and rather like Android devices you simply need to enable development mode on the tablet.

http://crackberry.com/how-sideload-a...oid-app-player

Follow the guide and have fun, try sideloading apps that are already converted. Note there are websites that will try to convert an .APK file fro Android to a .BAR file, I find these sites hit and miss, not all Android apps will work if converted but many sites already have converted files that are known to work with V2 software on the PB

I worked out that i had to move the screen upwards to find the Apps that i had downloaded so found them in the end.

Alos i dont like the browser that comes with it so is there anyway that i can download Opera onto it?

one of the reason i dont like the browser that is on it now is that when i bookmark something i cant seem to edit when i name the site so like the sky news site its showing as breaking news 24 hours a day and i wanted to edit it to sky news!!!!! but i cant seem to do it.

There is no way to directly edit the book mark names as far as I'm aware.

I have Skyfire on my Playbook as it has a couple of features oddly missing from the built in browser (like a search in page function) and that allows you to edit your book marks when you save them.

Opera isn't available as an app and I haven't seen a sideloaded version (although there is a mini Opera version around I think)

Didn't realsise that about the renaming of the bookmarks...a bit of an oversight there!

How did you get Skyfire on your playbook?