Comments on: RIM blocking sideloaded apps for PlayBook

By: John M

John M — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:04:00 +0000

It’s actually a pretty good piece of kit. The problem is that it was marketed really badly.

By: ImSmarterThanYou

ImSmarterThanYou — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:54:00 +0000

For business reasons? LOL, no smart business in their rightful mind would invest in this piece of junk unless it hits the bargain binds.

By: CyberGusa

CyberGusa — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:33:00 +0000

Then just don’t update to 2.1 and keep using 2.0, at least until someone updates the Dingleberry app.

Sold units should still be with the original OS as well until the new models come out later.

By: CyberGusa

CyberGusa — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:31:00 +0000

Yes, it is for security and despite everything the playbook is still mainly targeting business users and RIM’s traditional customer base. Along with preventing illegally installing apps you didn’t pay for as well, which in turn is help attract more developers who might otherwise be worried about their app being pirated.

Mind they’re only blocking side loading, which only means you have to go through their official app store to find apps and install them that way instead. The Android apps are just mixed in with the regular QNX apps.

The only problem is the limited number of officially approve and ported apps still leaves out many popular apps but remember RIM is already pushing heavily for developers to start porting them and that’s the reason they gave out free units to developers. It’ll just take a bit more time to see if this pans out or not for them.

However, there’s another reason to block side loading of apps and that’s system stability. Side loaded apps aren’t optimized for the Playbook and are hit or miss if they run at all. While apps not properly configured for the system can make the Playbook unstable.

RIM for example removed a popular cooking app because it rendered part of the system buggy/unstable and removed it from the app store until the developer can fix it.

By: The_Four_Freedoms

The_Four_Freedoms — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:38:00 +0000

Unless of course this enables a huge slew of android apps to be ported across almost instantly; especially if they have some analysis of what is already popular…

By: Jerry

Jerry — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:35:00 +0000

RIM killed me on this issue,Android sideload was an wonderful feauture and the biggest reason that a ton of playbooks were sold recently,I actually went out my way to recommend playbook for all my friends who were looking for a tablet because of the android sideload feature,Rim u aint gonna sell any playbooks anymore and only a few android apps are gonna move into the app world even without sideloading and u will not go anywhere with just 1.1 mil playbooks sold so please close shop or sell it to that rapper who shown interest in your company.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:06:00 +0000

This is probably to appeal to the people who are buying them for utmost security, but then again, those people were going to buy them anyway. The people who arewere on the fence between the Playbook or Android are now most likely going Android.

In short: stupid decision.

By: DisagreeWithMe

DisagreeWithMe — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:24:00 +0000

This is really going to anger the 5 people who bought one of these. You certainly aren’t making any friends when you decide to lock down devices.

By: Stoyan Dimitrov

Stoyan Dimitrov — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:01:00 +0000

One stupid decision after another! RIM, scrap your OS and adopt Android. You’ll loose app sells revenue but not go into bankrupcy. O wait! You can’t compete against Samsung, Asus, or HTC on hardware. Never mind, just declare bankrupcy now.

By: TrentBradley

TrentBradley — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:23:00 +0000

Way to make people hate you even more RIM! God are they just stupid or ignorant? They continually make bad decisions in spite of the fact that their company is failing. You’d think they’d want to attract customers. Blocking third party apps was a big mistake.