Kudos to the BB Playbook OS 2.0 Dev Team (Excellent Release!!)
I want to give my personal thanks as a loyal blackberry customer to the Developer/ Coding Team over at RIM. I am thoroughly impressed with the update. I absolutely love the reader feature. The new home screen and folders is implemented wonderfully. Also, it appears battery life has been improved (No easy task). Great job.
There are a few little bugs to be fixed for the next maintanence update.
1. Flash is not polished, it's only partially working.
The daily show (with John Stewart) (www.thedailyshow.com)(full episodes link), and several other flash video webistes have trouble with the controls (play, pause). The controls either don't show, or don't function, or neither, or function sporadically. Also, possibly an app could be created so that a flash video stream would open in a separate window allowing the controls to function correctly if there is some reason it is difficult in the web browswer. I can get the daily show playing but, pausing it, or fastforwarding, now that's a challenge. Make the buttons larger maybe (I don't know if that's possible, not familiar with flash.)
2. Media Player: The media player has some bug in the code that is causing it to become choppy when scrolling through the list of songs. I have some album art, and maybe that has something to do with it. But I didn't notice it before the update.
Also, it may be a neat idea to add some different color backgrounds to the music player skin(Hot pink, or something) to take care of the lady geeks, women buy stuff too, think all girl dorm room full of playbooks. Also, it is kind of a less than sexy music player skin (Unlike the new home screen wow, very polished.) Also, because all my music doesn't have album art, it makes the music player look strange. Some of the icons have only 3 of 4 pictures filled in Looks weird.
Also, when fast forwarding with the slider bar clicking with my finger causes a slight pop in the earphones (It needs to mute, then fastforward, then unmute, then play.) Imagine a playbook hooked up at a wedding to a 5000 dollar soundsystem, pop, then bye bye speakers.
3. Book Reader Power Mode - I was using "Book Reader" app from the app store and I noticed something that could be fixed. The truth is that when people read ebooks, the power managment settings should be a little different. I suggest adding a 3rd power managment mode that the ebook reader apps can access. That way, every time I open an ebook it sets the screen to stop going dim every 30 seconds like I would use for messages and general use throughout the day. It should stay the same in this mode rather plugged in or not. The screen brightness should not be affected by the power plug either. "Nothing like waking the wife up with the flashlight tablet because it was going dead and you decided to plug it in while reading your technical manual at 2am."
4. Silent on schedule (Totally Silent, VIP Vibrate, VIP ring) (A feature that I wished both my bold 9700, and playbook had was a feature I'll call silent on schedule. The idea is simple, for the most part people know what time they need their phone to shut up and be quiet. Why can't RIM integrate silent mode with our calenders. A simple checkbox in the calender options and your phone (and playbook) will automatically stay silent, except for VIPs. It goes without saying that your ringer should go to normal at the end of the meeting, or court appearance (lots of lawyers use blackberry), lot's of students would appreciate this too. It would save us from having to constantly be changing our ringing mode all day. If I were RIM I would patent that one. (If you do, and want to send me a new touch screen phone as a thanks that's cool with me, but not required, just free thoughts for you to use however you want.)
5. Strange WiFi (The playbook has a strange issue where sometimes the wifi displays near zero. I don't know if this is software or hardware. My MBP and Bold 9700 have no such issue. It's a cisco/linksys router with dual g/n.
6. Before I forget, the web browswer is now awesome. Load times are acceptable. I would like to add though that of all the web browswer's the style, and color of this one is not what I would call "in fashion."
7. Idea: create an over the air sync system for the blackberry bridge. It should always keep the contacts, calender and maybe photos updated. Since, someone surely has a patent on this one, let me suggest a workaround called 1 at a time. Do an initial sync via usb to both devices on the desktop manager. Then only one device has to ever be connected to sync to laptop, as the other one syncs over bluetooth one item (contact, calender entry, photo at a time.)
8. Not always on bluetooth. Something tells me that it is not the most secure thing to leave the bluetooth constantly running and connected giving those keys over the air. Maybe it could connect at intervals (or upon status change (message, new contact, calender entry)). This might also save battery too. Just a thought.
I know how easy it is to forget about style, when mechanics are tinkiering around with the insides, but make the fastest car ugly, and no one will buy it. Also, Bill Gates was asked while in the presence of Steve Jobs what was the one thing Steve had he wished he had... Bill Gates said roughly "I wish I had Steve's eye for Style."
The truth is as technology advances, it will fade to the background. Fashion will be where people meed the device. People love a good running car, but gorgeous get's em into the showroom.
Oh yea, like the new keyboard a lot.
Great job on os 2.0
