Leaked RIM Roadmap Mentioning BlackBerry OS 7

Scanning from left to right on this leaked roadmap, things may seem a bit… unexciting, at first. The Flickr product is reaching the end of its life? Meh. TicketMaster 2.0? Mega meh.

But then you get down to the end of the right side, and it’s just chillin’ there all by its lonesome: “BB 7 SN Core Integration (OS 7.0)”

So, what the heck is that? To be honest, your guess is as good as ours. It’s obviously something to do with BlackBerry OS 7.0 (given that it, you know, says “OS 7.0″) — but to assume that this would be the actual launch of OS 7.0, as some sites are running with, seems a bit.. daft. That talk of “Core Integration” is just vague enough to leave us hanging — is it an internal target window where all devices being worked on internally should be running 7.0? Might this be when they begin sending out minor patches to prep devices for the migration to 7.0? It is, unfortunately, a bit of a mystery.

Hell, pretty much all of OS 7.0 is a bit of a mystery at this point. Outside of the fact that RIM was (at least up until recently) considering it a “stepping stone” to QNX (the platform that runs on the BlackBerry Playbook) rather than a complete jump, there’s really not much known.

RIM's chief marketing officer resigning

We won't read too much into this, but it comes at an interesting time -- with only a month left before RIM is expected to debut the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, the company's chief marketing officer has resigned. TheWall Street Journal reports that RIM CMO Keith Pardy (formerly with Nokia) will leave due to "personal reasons" after a six-month transition period is up. The publication's anonymous sources add that Pardy actually made the decision a month ago, and that the move "reflects larger turmoil" within RIM -- as opposed to any sort of knee-jerk reaction over the iPad 2 launch, we suppose. To be frank, we're a little worried about the fate of the PlayBook if it's indeed close to launch -- when we tried a prototype at the Game Developer's Conference this past week in San Francisco, the hardware was still pretty solid, but the software was a bit sparse, and what was there felt like it needed more than a few coats of polish.

Hot : BlackBerry PlayBook app may hint 17 hours of battery

A PlayBook Battery Assistant app found for the BlackBerry PlayBook ahead of its launch has hinted that it will have very long battery life. Comparing the battery life at 50 percent and at 20 percent, BerryReview heard the tablet would get roughly 17 hours of battery life in web browsing and a still healthy eight hours for video playback. Full 3D gaming could still last for six hours.

The numbers are likely to vary somewhat depending on the usage and may not necessarily reflect the final numbers. RIM may have supported the claims itself since it has loaded the PlayBook with an unusually high-capacity battery and has estimated that it could match or beat the iPad despite the smaller size.

RIM still hasn't committed to a ship date for the PlayBook six months after its debut and is rumored to be rushing an April launch that would need a patch even as it arrives in stores, although this hasn't been corroborated by other sources. Battery life may have been one of the points needing improvement and is one of the frequent optimization tweaks necessary in the late stages of a product launch.

ShoppingKoo Interview: Ryan Bidan, BlackBerry PlayBook senior product manager

RIM held a little PlayBook party here in New York yesterday, giving us a chance to hang out with Ryan Bidan, the company's senior product manager for the seven-inch tablet. In addition to chatting with us about battery life, connectivity, and pricing, Ryan clarified the PlayBook's app development model -- although devs can choose to work with native code, Java, Adobe Air, and HTML5 / WebWorks, the idea is for the ultimate user experience to be seamless, and RIM is considering offering standard UI widgets for each environment. We also had to ask about those swirling rumors of Android support, and while we commend Ryan for his practiced non-answer, we can't help but feel we detected a hint of a smile on his face. Or was that just another tray of snacks going past? Check the video and decide for yourself.

PlayBook Android app supporting mentioned during demo at MWC, old BlackBerrys show up in ShopSavvy's BlaAndroid logs

As far-fetched as it may seem, rumors that RIM is working on some sort of Android app support for its QNX-based PlayBook tablet have persisted in various forms for months now -- and they've turned up once again in a video posted by development community MobileMonday's Rio chapter taken at MWCearlier this month, where a RIM rep seemingly says "we will also support Android apps" after talking about Java-based offerings. Of course, this could've been staged by some rabble rousers or a rep could've simply been echoing back the rumors he's seen on the interwebs -- but regardless, it adds fuel to the fire. Follow the break to see the video of that.

But it gets weirder. ShopSavvy -- which makes versions of its app for iOS and Android -- has started turning up a couple of older BlackBerry devices in its Android build's usage statistics on Flurry: the Curve 8300 and 8520, to be specific, along with an 8600 model that doesn't exist (at least, not yet). The 8300, in particular, is pretty ancient at this point and we're having a hard time wrapping our brain around RIM's game plan in porting Dalvik (or a Dalvik-like) VM and associated libraries over to it; if anything, Flurry could be confused. Then again, a next-generation full-touch BlackBerry that just happens to run a full suite of Android apps in a sandbox could be a pretty compelling product, indeed.

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in] 

BlackBerry PlayBook Price, Release Date Revealed

Do not tell major electronics retailers any important secrets.

Less than a week after Best Buy jumped the gun announcing the release date of the Motorola Xoom, Office Depot has let the price of the BlackBerry PlayBook slip.

BlackBerry's offering to the upcoming tablet onslaught will retail for $499.99, which barely keeps RIM CEO Jim Balsillie's promise that the PlayBook would cost under $500. The leaked Office Depot price sheet specifies that this price will be for the 16 GB PlayBook. This puts the PlayBook at exactly the same price point as Apple’s iPad with the same amount of storage.
RIM is also offering 32GB and 64GB PlayBooks, and if its price structure continues to mirror Apple’s, the versions with more memory could be expected to cost $600 and $700, respectively.

Office Depot’s leak also included a rough release date for the PlayBook, somewhere around the very end of March or very beginning of April. This will give the tablet a head start on HP’s recently announced TouchPad.

The PlayBook is being marketed as an enterprise-friendly device, offering pairings with BlackBerry smartphones, corporate data access, and increased security over what the iPad offers. But RIM is also attempting to draw in consumers, with features like a 3 MP front-facing camera and 5 MP rear-facing camera (both HD), a 1GHz dual-core processer, and a 7-inch LCD screen with 1024 x 600 resolution.

Check back to TabletPCReview for updates on the PlayBook as they become available.

RIM now Developing Software to Run Android Apps on PlayBook

BlackBerry PlayBook users are going to get the best of both worlds when the tablet from Research In Motion Ltd. is released: a BlackBerry OS with the ability to run Android applications.

Though there was previous speculation about the ability to run Android applications on the PlayBook, it had been nothing more than an unconfirmed rumor until now. Three anonymous insiders have maintained that RIM is, in fact, working on software that would give PlayBook users access to the more than 130,000 apps for Google's OS.

When the rumors first leaked, the explanation of the compatibility was that the new, QNX-based BlackBerry OS would possibly feature software called Dalvik, a Java-based virtual machine that was developed by Google for Android. But two inside sources have now claimed that RIM has decided not to go with Dalvik due to an ongoing patent dispute between Google and Oracle Corp., leading RIM to develop its own software to allow for Android app compatibility, due out by the second half of this year.

An enterprise-friendly tablet, we got our hands on the BlackBerry PlayBook at CES this year and were pleasantly surprised at how powerful and responsive it was. Sporting a 1 GHz TI OMAP processor and a 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen, the PlayBook demonstrated its power by running two HD movies simultaneously while allowing us to seamlessly swipe between them.

The PlayBook will also allow for one-to-one syncing with BlackBerrys, becoming an extension of the device and providing access to email, calendar, contacts, and more via Bluetooth over BlackBerry Bridge. When the two devices are not connected via Bluetooth, however, the PlayBook is just a Wi-Fi-only tablet with access to the web, but not the BlackBerry data.

Though pricing and release date details haven't been made official, Office Depotrecently posted a listing for the PlayBook, priced at $499.99, along with an approximate release date of late March or early April.