Personal computing discussed

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notfred
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Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 8:33 am

Updated mine this morning before heading in to work, haven't had a chance to play with it yet.
 
Dposcorp
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:40 am

Can I check my email now? :)
 
derFunkenstein
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:52 am

according to Ars' little writeup, yes, you can check your email. :p
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
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ChronoReverse
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:55 pm

Could you try out some Android apps too when you get a chance? They're supposed to be supported now right?

I'm curious as to how performance and usability is like. It would also be nice to know how well games work but that's far less important.
 
Philldoe
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:34 pm

Yes, android apps work fine. I side-loaded Pandora and the Dolphin browser. Multi tasking works inside the player window, native apps multi task in the normal UI. If you have a BB the new bridge app allows you to use the phone as a mouse and keyboard for the Playbook, android tablets, PS3 and even your PC.
Fastfreak39: I feel like they should change the phrase "jumping on the band wagon" to "sailing on the pirate ship"
 
ChronoReverse
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:17 pm

So you can just sideload any APK directly? You don't have to do anything unusual other than that?
 
Philldoe
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 3:23 pm

Nope, has to be re-packaged as a .bar file, but it's super easy to do. There is also a list of zip files you can DL and change to .bar for sideloading.

http://www.playbookbars.com/
Fastfreak39: I feel like they should change the phrase "jumping on the band wagon" to "sailing on the pirate ship"
 
ChronoReverse
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:11 pm

What I meant is can you do all that yourself? Not all Android apps will work of course but can I just do the repackaging using a local tool?
 
codedivine
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:17 pm

Browser seems to be improved quite a bit.
1. Performance is much better both subjectively and objectively. I got a sunspider 0.9.1 score of about 2150 which is quite competitive.
2. A "reading mode" has been added for long articles that allows you to read the article in portrait mode without the website stylesheets etc applied. Good for reading, say, reviews from TR or realworldtech articles :D
3. WebGL is now supported in the browser. Performance is quite decent.

Emails work fine, I have been running Gmail on it and have been getting email pushed within a minute or so.

OTOH, still no Kindle or Skype etc.
 
codedivine
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:19 pm

ChronoReverse wrote:
What I meant is can you do all that yourself? Not all Android apps will work of course but can I just do the repackaging using a local tool?


I have not tried it myself, but a tool called DDPB supposedly does exactly that: Local packaging of apk into bar.
 
notfred
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:43 pm

I like the email notifications, but I can see that chewing in to the battery life pretty quickly.
 
Philldoe
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Tue Feb 21, 2012 10:55 pm

ChronoReverse wrote:
What I meant is can you do all that yourself? Not all Android apps will work of course but can I just do the repackaging using a local tool?


Yes you can do it yourself. Tutorials are on the crackberry forums.
Fastfreak39: I feel like they should change the phrase "jumping on the band wagon" to "sailing on the pirate ship"
 
Philldoe
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Wed Feb 22, 2012 3:19 am

If any of you guys need an app converted just let me know. I have the tools and keys to do it. Just don't ask for paid apps that you don't own.
Fastfreak39: I feel like they should change the phrase "jumping on the band wagon" to "sailing on the pirate ship"
 
codedivine
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Re: Playbook OS2.0 out

Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:16 am

For those wanting to sideload Android APKs repackaged as BAR files, now there is a tutorial from Crackberry.
http://crackberry.com/how-get-kindle-go ... -blackberr

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