Top 11 PlayBook Apps

Gadget Mobile Technology: Top 11 PlayBook Apps - The standard gripe with Research in Motion’s (RIM) new PlayBook tablet is, Show us the apps! Review after review pilloried RIM for shipping a tablet before it had more than a handful of apps and there is truth in that complaint.

- Pickings are slim.

But poke around and in fact there are plenty of tools (some cool, some useful) that turn the PlayBook into a must-tote accessory but useful work can also be done on a PlayBook if you ensure that you have the right apps.

Here are  10 PlayBook Apps:

1. Tungle - Particular abuse was heaped on RIM for shipping PlayBook without a native calendar app (only those with Bridge connecting to a paired BlackBerry had easy access to a calendar), but RIM now has shut those mouths with Tungle, a company bought by RIM just a couple weeks ago.

This is a stand-alone calendar/scheduling app and it synced in seconds with my Google calendar account. What’s in Google now is on Tungle on my PlayBook. Better still, a user can grant access to his/her Tungle calendar to co-workers so that they can hunt online and propose meeting times for available time slots. This is very good, free software that should be downloaded to every PlayBook.

2. Word To Go . This is the full version of the word processing software from Data Viz (many of the assets of which were purchased by RIM in September 2010) and it is a standout tool that opens Microsoft Office documents, nothing extra needed. It’s a powerful Word stand-in for real document creation. The plus: it ships free with PlayBook.

When it initially shipped it did not have spell check ability, but that appears to have been rectified. You really could write Moby Dick using this app, it is very powerful.

3. SlideShow To Go - Another Data Viz asset, this free app handles PowerPoint. You can show shows, edit, and create slides. It comes standard on PlayBook and it is also a slick, quality app.

A PlayBook plus is that the device comes with an HDMI port so video can be projected to a big screen. Think about how cool that is: you pull the PlayBook out of your pocket and, literally, within a minute you can be projecting a show to an auditorium.

4. Video Chat - Here is the negative: right now this app only lets you call other PlayBook users running Video Chat. The rest is all positive. The PlayBook screen is dazzling. Camera quality is good. Sound is fine. This app may become a true killer app in some organizations because it genuinely empowers conversations. It’s another free app from RIM and comes bundled in OS version 1.0.3 so it's yours for the taking (or leaving).

5. TripExpenseBuddy - A personal favorite use of a tablet is compiling expense reports on flights home. This free app serves nicely. It is barebones, utilitarian but it gets the job done and that means this is a chore you don’t have to do when you are at your desk in the morning and everybody wants something from you.

6. iSpeech - So you never did complete the Babbel.com foreign language course and now you are at a hotel desk in Paris trying to figure out if breakfast is included in the room rate. Don’t despair. Speak into the free iSpeech app and it both translates your question into written French and it speaks it aloud. Pretty much instantly. Eighteen languages -- Finnish to Chinese -- are on my PlayBook.

7. Adobe Connect - Another free video conferencing app (and it is very good), that builds in a range of useful meetings tools that let a user drill into activities that interest you, right now. Want to see that slideshow? A few clicks and you can. View Adobe Connect as bringing 21st Century meetings technologies to the PlayBook. (Note: meetings of course have to be hosted via Adobe Connect software, with fees involved.)

8. Whaxi - An app that uses the location-awareness of the PlayBook, Whaxi lets you summon a cab with a push of a button. If taxi companies in your area do not participate in Whaxi, you’ll get the phone number of a taxi to call. Still an app in its development phase what is cool about Whaxi is that it is a clear pointer to where we are heading with tablets.

9. BlueBox - A free app that provides easy access to a DropBox cloud-based storage account. (Note: there are paid apps that do likewise but BlueBox worked fine for me.) This in effect adds another 2 GB of storage to the PlayBook.

10. FileBrowser ($.99) - File architecture on tablets usually is opaque -- it can be really hard to find a download, for instance. FileBrowser is a paid app that provides a clear view of where everything is. Files can be opened within FileBrowser. They also can be deleted. This is an essential app for any nerd.

11. aVNC (.99). Lets the PlayBook access a computer that also is running aVNC software, for quick file retrieval. Connections are secure and password protected. Note: this kind of app is one of the most popular on iPad. It’s safe to expect many more, similar apps showing up for PlayBook soon.

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10 Reasons Why BlackBerry PlayBook is a Winner

Gadget Mobile Technology: 10 Reasons Why BlackBerry PlayBook is a Winner - The reviews of the new BlackBerry PlayBook are in and they are terrible. David Pogue in the New York Times dismissed it with, “It must be skating season in hell.” In the Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg was a tiny bit more charitable but he, too, ultimately shrugged it off as a non-event. Laptop Magazine just sneered at it: “Somewhere along the way, BlackBerry lost its cool.”

Here are 10 reasons to put PlayBook on the review list:

1. “PlayBook is targeted at mobile professionals,” said John Jackson, an analyst with CCS Insight. And that is key. It is not designed as a consumer product like iPad is. RIM instead created its tablet to serve the business user.

2. PlayBook, with a 7” screen, is ultra-portable and it's also zippy with a 1GHz dual core processor and 1GB of RAM. For employees who have been demanding a tablet because it is the latest new thing, PlayBook should scratch that itch.

3. You probably already support PlayBook because it piggybacks on BlackBerry’s enterprise products. CIO’s “already have the infrastructure to handle the devices. Most of our enterprise customers have had RIM devices and Blackberry Enterprise Server for a long time. There is a lot of work that goes into getting the same level of command and control for other platforms,” said Charles Edge, director of Technology at IT consulting firm 318. Getting PlayBook up and running in many enterprises will not be much more complicated than charging the battery.

4. Secure email and calendar -- as delivered via PlayBook -- are big enterprise advantages. Right now, accessing native email and calendar on PlayBook involves “bridging” it to a BlackBerry; essentially putting the mobile device’s mail and calendar on the PlayBook via BlueTooth. That has prompted some reviewers to pan the tablet as a glorified BlackBerry accessory. The upside? Those tools on the mobile phone are secure and so they will be on PlayBook.

5. PlayBook already runs Flash. This means that whole segment of the Web that is unavailable to iPad users is easily accessed by PlayBook. Overall the PlayBook Web browsing experience is hands down faster and better than going online with pokey Safari on an iPad.

6. The PlayBook touch screen provides the best multi-tasking tools of any tablet. iPad still struggles with multi-tasking, but PlayBook, using RIM’s proprietary QNX operating system, offers easy multi-tasking -- just what mobile professionals need.

7. Secure access to Android apps. RIM stared the comparative lack of BlackBerry apps in the face (there are around 3000 compared to hundreds of thousands that run on iPad) and it’s come up with a clever solution. PlayBook will run at least some Android apps (there are over 100,00) but to get on PlayBook they have to be downloaded via the BlackBerry App World, where they have been vetted by RIM staff in a system closer to Apple’s Apps store than the wild west of the Android Marketplace.

8. Plug in an HDMI cable and the PlayBook can be used to deliver PowerPoint shows to a projector. iPad cannot do this.

9. No cellular connection, which, if you think about it, is a kind of plus because it produces cost savings. Right now, PlayBook is Wi-Fi only; no cellular carrier support except it has a built-in tethering tool that lets it power up using a BlackBerry phone’s 3G network for no added cost.

10. Cost: 9 buys the 16GB model. The 32GB model is 9. The 64 GB is 9. Those price points exactly match iPad 2’s.

A last reality: numbers matter. There’s no counting BlackBerry out, despite the faltering launch of PlayBook, because, at day’s end, it still has a huge installed base: BlackBerry remains the phone of choice in many enterprises.

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