daniel bigham.ca

Baby Names Website
July 25, 2011

I created a little web page for my Baby Names mobile app now that it is available on three different app stores. I also created a Facebook page so that I could have a Like button:

http://www.danielbigham.ca/babynames/

Fun stuff. I should write a blog post about my recent mobile app thoughts and experiences.

BlackBerry PlayBook ... The Rough Edges
May 12, 2011

Now that I've had a couple of weeks to use the PlayBook, here are the rough edges that I've come up against. (Some perhaps are software/hardware issues with my phone)

The most challenging issue has been the Bridge functionality. To kick things off, one day, I was no longer able to initiate a Bridge link between my phone and PlayBook. I tried again and again, no luck. Then I tried deleting the Bridge link and recreating it, and go all sorts of weird behavior. When I'd go to create a new link, the communication between the phone and tablet wasn't quite working. Sometimes it would start to work and then fail. After lots of bizarre behavior, I restarted the phone and it started working again. Since this time, it has not been rare that, again, Bridge stops working and I have to restart my phone. Maybe this is related to faulty phone software or hardware, though. (BlackBerry Bold from 2009)

Internet tethering will drop off and disconnect while I'm in the middle of using it, and then like Bridge, will refuse to reconnect at times until I reboot the phone.

This isn't a PlayBook issue, but I've found that sometimes when I reboot my phone, it goes from having almost 100% battery to having < 1/5 battery. What on earth? So you go from tethering on a fully charged phone, to tethering disconnecting and refusing to connect, forcing you to reboot the phone, resulting in an almost-dead phone. Ugh :(

To make Bridge and internet tethering pleasant to use, I need to keep Bluetooth enabled on my phone. (It's no fun to have to fish your phone out of your pocket and fumble around turning on Bluetooth every time you simply want to check your email on your tablet) But it seems like keeping Bluetooth on drains your phone battery much faster, so you're smart to keep Bluetooth off. We have a conflict of interests here, and it's not a particularly happy situation either way you play it.

Bridge functionality works decently, but my one complaint is that applications start slower than they should. It's excessive to have to wait 5ish seconds just to peek at your email.

So while I'm not bothered by the Bridge concept like other tech reviewers were, the realities of it right now with my particular phone are pretty rough around the edges. We shall see whether this improves at all, and whether native email clients resolve the need for Bridge.

BlackBerry PlayBook Review
April 30, 2011

Early this week I checked my email and, at long last, got my shipping notification for the free PlayBook offer. The next day at 1 PM there was a knock on the door and a friendly FedEx man handed me the box. To say I was excited would be an understatement.

Summary

The PlayBook is a delightful device -- the screen is very crisp and bright, the UI is polished both in terms of appearance and function, and the web browsing experience is great. The 7" size works very well, which was my biggest apprehension, and doesn't much deter from the web browsing experience VS a 10" tablet. Webmail works well too, meaning that not having a built in email client is a minor issue. Flash video works as advertised, bringing an end to the annoyance of "you can't watch this" as had on the iPad. And tethering to my smartphone works great, allowing me to browse the web while riding in the car, etc... very cool. Capturing HD video and immediately playing it back on the PlayBook screen is a compelling experience, and being able to "drag and drop" files onto and off of the device over wifi is a thrilling experience. (Even when it's in sleep mode!) I have yet to get a micro HDMI cable, but am eagerly awaiting being able to play back content on our HDTV.

The PlayBook isn't perfect of course -- there isn't a Netflix app yet, the kobo app has some rough edges, my BabyNames app seems to expose a scrolling bug, etc. But these are all very minor things which cannot overshadow what is a wonderful tablet, one which I seem to be more drawn to than my iPad.

Web Browser

The web browsing experience on the PlayBook is great. The 7" screen is large enough to display web pages well (remember the days when we wished all computers were 1024 pixels wide but most were 800?), the browser renders pages properly, and the UI of the browser is effective. My one UI wish was that there would be a way to open a link in a background tab in the same way you can on desktop browsers, but my wish didn't come true. Just like the iPad, if you open a link in a new tab, it takes you to that tab. (other people could probably care less about this) As for the speed of the browser, I'll call it "good", but let's not kid ourselves, it can't match the speed of a desktop browser. And I'm a nit picker, so one curious thing that I noticed is that the little animation that plays while a flash video loads isn't anti-aliased. Odd.

Browsing over 3G while tethered to a phone is surprisingly fast, but that's probably because my previous 3G experience is on a BlackBerry Bold phone and I think we all know how slow previous generations of BlackBerry phones are in the web browsing department.

Accessing Gmail via the browser works well. It turns out not to be the full desktop Gmail site, but the mobilized site gets the job done well.

Typing

Typing on the device is notably better than on an iPad. I end up typing in URLs in landscape mode, and my hands are just big enough to allow my thumbs to reach all of the keys, but if I need to type any more than that, I use portrait mode, which offers a very good typing experience. I consider this to be a significant usability advantage over the iPad, and is a feature that makes web browsing more pleasant.

Nifty Features

The PlayBook has some tricks up its sleeve, and that adds some wow factor for the tech savvy folks. For example, it shows up as a computer on the local area network, even while in sleep mode, allowing files to be dragged and dropped to it in Windows Explorer. You can take a picture or video, press F5 on your computer, and bam, there it is. Very slick. Having an HDMI cable is another one of those sweet features, but as mentioned I have yet to play with that.

App Selection

There are lots of apps to peruse, and there are a decent number of big-name apps, so that's great. As many others have noted, lots of big-name apps aren't available (yet) on the platform, so hopefully that will change over time. But when people say "no apps" that's pretty silly. I was very happy that the Globe and Mail app is there, which is one of the most-used apps on my iPad. The presence of a great weather app is very appreciated. There is a piano app which works decently, but I found that there is a slight crackle when each note is played, which needs to get fixed before I'd want to use it. The kobo book reading application is nice but has one major, inexplicable flaw: Often when you change pages, a spinning icon appears for a second before the next page is loaded. Why? I can't think of any reasonable explanation for this. Bizarre. Also, pages sometimes flicker when they load. Again, why? These two flaws are kind of silly if you ask me. C'mon kobo people. The iSpeech Translator app is very cool and actually seems to work decently. Kind of amazing. Poynt is impressive and very useful. Readers Digest looks nice and works well. The music app looks nice and works well enough. The Presidents Choice recipe app is simple but is beautiful, has tonnes of content, and kind of knocks my socks off. It even has nutritional info! (Thanks PC!) Hopefully Netflix will show up in the next few months.

BlackBerry Bridge

The integration with your BlackBerry phone works well. The email program is a bit on the bare-bones side of things, and there is a bit of lag while communication with your phone takes place, but overall this works well. Pretty cool.

Battery Life

I haven't done any quantitative tests, but my overall sense of battery life is that it's decent but not great. I'm pretty sure the iPad's battery life is a notch or two better. That said, the PlayBook's battery life is good enough that it doesn't adversely affect the day-to-day use of the device.

Need for Speed

Pretty good controls, and nice overall feel. I've heard other people praising the graphics of NFS, but I have to say, they don't impress me. Sure, it looks decent on a great high-DPI screen, but the actual 3D graphics are way beyond 2011 standards. That's not to say that it doesn't look good, but there isn't any "wow" factor for me. I'm sure the next version of the PlayBook will have a 3D processor more akin to the one that's in the iPad 2, and perhaps then it will be capable of pumping out some inspiring 3D visuals.

Conclusion

I think RIM did a superb job on the PlayBook, and I hope it sells well. And like many people, I'm looking forward to seeing it grow, and I'm curious to see what directions people will take it.

Wish List

Be able to open links in a background tab.

Wireless media playback onto HDTV.

Wireless media sync.

Netflix.

Video chat.

Email client.

More big-name apps.

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