RIM struggling to fix PlayBook tablet battery issues, analyst says

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 85
    No. no. He meant that the Playbook is simply far ahead in the future. So wee need another 6 months to catch it.
  • Reply 62 of 85
    tnsftnsf Posts: 203member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    So you believe that iOS devices don't multitask? Sad. The only thing iOS does is place restrictions on the number of user apps running at any one time. This may be required at this point in the state of the art in micro electronics but is a "feature" that will need to go away even on iOS.



    Playbook's "true" multitasking allows apps to run at full speed in the background, which is neither necessary nor useful. iOS limits the functions that apps can perform in the background as a compromise between the need to multitask and the need to conserve battery life and CPU capacity for foreground apps. This is what I was referring to. And I put "true" in quotes because its RIM's term that I think is kind of silly.
  • Reply 63 of 85
    tnsftnsf Posts: 203member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    I disagree with you because it is QNX themselves that is doing the implementation, not some 3rd party QNX consultant.



    Yes its QNX, but under the influence of their new RIM leaders. Thats where I think implementation decisions could go either way.



    Quote:

    Plenty of handheld QNX devices out there --- from the ones I linked previously like the compaq ipaq to full-sized rugged tablets used on the factory floors. Compaq have been gone for like a decade. This rugged tablet article is 7 years old.



    http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_slates_taxonomy.html



    Hell, if you go to the QNX website, they are hiring people to embed QNX for handheld point and shoot cameras.



    http://www.qnx.com/company/careers/opportunities/



    Just because most people never heard of QNX being embedded inside these things, doesn't mean that they aren't.



    However, none of those are examples of what the Playbook is trying to be: a high-powered, high-performance consumer device that is sleek, sexy and offers long battery life in a compact form factor. Its this combination that hasn't been done by QNX before and perhaps offers additional challenges.
  • Reply 64 of 85
    Face it, RIM bought the wrong company. It's more than apparent they probably actually should have bought Palm, and re-used the webOS as Blackberry 7. But HP got Palm, so RIM picked up the next embedded OS that went on the market.



    Huge mistake. Adobe Air is not the kind of environment you want to have to turn to for a mobile device. If that's where you've wound up: you screwed up way back at the beginning.
  • Reply 65 of 85
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jensonb View Post


    Face it, RIM bought the wrong company. It's more than apparent they probably actually should have bought Palm, and re-used the webOS as Blackberry 7. But HP got Palm, so RIM picked up the next embedded OS that went on the market.



    Huge mistake. Adobe Air is not the kind of environment you want to have to turn to for a mobile device. If that's where you've wound up: you screwed up way back at the beginning.



    You might as well said that Palm bought the wrong company (Be Inc engineers) years ago --- because that went nowhere. Palm should have bought QNX years ago.
  • Reply 66 of 85
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TNSF View Post


    Playbook's "true" multitasking allows apps to run at full speed in the background, which is neither necessary nor useful. iOS limits the functions that apps can perform in the background as a compromise between the need to multitask and the need to conserve battery life and CPU capacity for foreground apps. This is what I was referring to. And I put "true" in quotes because its RIM's term that I think is kind of silly.



    Not the OS' fault if apps don't behave well in the background. Go to the RIM documentations, they tell you the exact same thing as Apple --- when your app goes to the background, save your state so that resources are not wasted.



    Even in the Playbook demo videos, a couple of them talked about the possibility of RIM putting a user preference option on their video player --- allowing the end-user to choose whether to pause the video in the background, reduce the framerate of the video in the background or play the video at full framerate in the background.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TNSF View Post


    Yes its QNX, but under the influence of their new RIM leaders. Thats where I think implementation decisions could go either way.



    However, none of those are examples of what the Playbook is trying to be: a high-powered, high-performance consumer device that is sleek, sexy and offers long battery life in a compact form factor. Its this combination that hasn't been done by QNX before and perhaps offers additional challenges.



    How would you know it's not already been done by QNX? For business reasons, companies don't usually advertise what their RTOS is running inside. I am just showing you stuff we know of and a $200-300 Logitech universal remote is pretty highend. QNX's previous owner is Harman Kardon and they used to sell QNX-based off-market handheld navigation devices under the Harman/Becker brand.



    I am not really arguing about your comments. I am arguing about Shaw Wu's comments --- which he got stuck with the original press release when RIM bought QNX and all he thought was cars, cars and cars --- which is totally wrong. Since the dawn of time, handheld devices have struggled with battery life --- and QNX has been in these markets for decades.
  • Reply 67 of 85
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    You might as well said that Palm bought the wrong company (Be Inc engineers) years ago --- because that went nowhere. Palm should have bought QNX years ago.



    samab, I think it's great the way you can reason without the constraints of logic.
  • Reply 68 of 85
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    samab, I think it's great the way you can reason without the constraints of logic.



    There are plenty of logic behind it. A decade ago, people had been comparing BeOS vs. QNX. Palm bought BeOS that runs on x86 vs. QNX was already running on ARM processors at that time.
  • Reply 69 of 85
    alfiejralfiejr Posts: 1,524member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jca666us View Post


    Rim can prove him wrong by releasing the playbook q1 2011 - if it's delayed, we know why..



    RIM will have to say something about its plans at CES. then we'll know ....
  • Reply 70 of 85
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Alfiejr View Post


    RIM will have to say something about its plans at CES. then we'll know ....



    Even if it's delayed --- it's delayed for a million other reasons (like how the Playbook was never shown in portrait mode). Shaw Wu got stuck with the original RIM press release in April and all he thought of QNX was cars, cars and cars.
  • Reply 71 of 85
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    nothing indicates that Playbook is the big mess that the Android tablets are. I just see this slagging of Playbook for being a little late as jumping the gun.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jca666us View Post


    Of course I have a basis for my opinion. I know full well what an embedded OS is capable of, however an embedded OS isn't a magic bullet.



    No it isn't but you seem to dismiss the broad background that QNX has.

    Quote:

    RIM has their teams rushing to get the praybook out - in their mad rush to complete everything, they're missing things. Obviously just because an OS can multitask, doesn't mean it should allow unlimited apps to be fired off and drain the battery in record time.



    You are making an assumption that that is the issue. It might be or it might be that Flash sucks on this platform too! Or it could be any number of other things.

    Quote:



    Battery life is of utmost importance - the fact the iPad can run from 10 - 12 hours doing solid tasks - with excellent standby time - is the killer feature.



    Absolutely!

    Quote:

    RIM is stupid:



    - They're talking dual core processors, yet they're only taking advantage of one processor.



    Why is getting your product to market stupid. No one complains about how far Safari trails the WebKit releases that come every night. So why call RIM stupid when Apple is not fully accelerating Safari.

    Quote:

    - They've added in a host of hardware and software features without taking into consideration power consumption issues, such as



    * 1 gig of ram

    * hdmi and USB

    * adobe air



    What will you say when iPad 2 comes out with 1 gig of RAM? Frankly I don't understand HDMI either so that we agree on. USB on the other hand is needed on the iPad too. Given a reasonable set of installed drivers USB would enable some very interesting apps for the iPad.



    As to AIR well it is a problem but on the other hand it allows them to get to market quickly.

    Quote:



    - Adobe Air is the development tool of choice!?! They've proven Jobs point.



    I'm giving RIM a hard time because they were stupid to pre announce it by several months, and make all of these stupid proclamations. Now they have egg on their face.



    Well Apple has the competition in the crosshairs so they need to say something. No one said boo when Apple dismissed flash based MP3 players even though they where working on one. Some times you have to feed the world a bunch of BS while you catch up.

    Quote:



    This needs at least another year of development - in order to refine it and make it a worthy iPad competitor.



    I don't disagree with that. It needs a native SDK fast and I don't mean an SDK based on JAVA. On the other hand they simply can't afford to stay out of the market for a year, it would be deadly to do so. The reality is they need to deliver something that is at least better than the Android based tablets that are coming.



    On a side note iPad was in development for many years, literally. How many set backs do you think they had in that development process? Or look at the long drawn out process to get Copy & Paste to iOS. I just think people need to give RIM the same amount of slack that was given to Apple. Mainly because I believe the market needs a strong competitor and I've yet to see anything that is as promising as the Playbook.



    Will RIM screw up Playbook? That is very possible but in the end we need them trying their best.
  • Reply 72 of 85
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jca666us View Post


    Lol - blame the users for running too many apps!



    When your Mac slows down because you are doing to many things at once do you blame Apple? Mac OS/X? Honestly this is a worthless point of view as it sets up a double standard for desktop computers and tablets.

    Quote:

    Of course Flash can be a huge power draw - maybe Those co-ceo's should have done some research nstead of patting each other on the back.



    It is also the quickest way for them to get a product to market. I don't think anybody thinks Flash is perfect here but frankly it is no different than Apple telling developers to make web apps when iPhone first came out. It gets product to market while the SDK is being built.
  • Reply 73 of 85
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    So you believe that iOS devices don't multitask? Sad. The only thing iOS does is place restrictions on the number of user apps running at any one time. This may be required at this point in the state of the art in micro electronics but is a "feature" that will need to go away even on iOS.



    I agree with this -- needed now, but will need to go away in the future.



    Based on the nature of how iDevices are used, I would like a way to:



    -- allow a few designated apps to suspend and be resumed by push notification.



    -- a "Settings" limit on the number of stopped apps (not the above) that can exist - eliminate a long, multipage task drawer - I would like to have, say, 5-10 stopped apps + 2-3 suspend apps
  • Reply 74 of 85
    tnsftnsf Posts: 203member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    When your Mac slows down because you are doing to many things at once do you blame Apple? Mac OS/X? Honestly this is a worthless point of view as it sets up a double standard for desktop computers and tablets.



    Desktop computing and mobile computing are two different things. There are and should be different standards and expectations.
  • Reply 75 of 85
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    It is also the quickest way for them to get a product to market. I don't think anybody thinks Flash is perfect here but frankly it is no different than Apple telling developers to make web apps when iPhone first came out. It gets product to market while the SDK is being built.



    Ah...except that Apple had cocoa to build on for a native UI SDK.



    Blackberry has not a whole lot to use on top of QNX other than Air which it doesn't even own. If Nokia didn't own Trolltech/Qt that would have been a good candidate to purchase.



    Or Palm as someone else mentioned and gotten both parts already integrated.



    This is a lot different than Apple telling folks to use web apps. BB seems rather screwed if they're dependent on Adobe. You can argue that MS is doing something similar basing their UI on Silverlight but they own Silverlight.
  • Reply 76 of 85
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    nothing indicates that Playbook is the big mess that the Android tablets are. I just see this slagging of Playbook for being a little late as jumping the gun.



    Who said that Android tablets are a mess?



    Quote:

    What will you say when iPad 2 comes out with 1 gig of RAM?



    2" more battery?



    Quote:

    As to AIR well it is a problem but on the other hand it allows them to get to market quickly.



    Getting to market quickly means not shipping a year after the competition. It doesn't do your reputation much good to ship a non-competitive product a year late. The Storm sure didn't help them out much.



    Put it this way, if they really thought that QNX/Flash was a winner, they'd go all in with a Tegra 2 based BB Torch instead of a Foleo like Playbook companion device.



    So really, it's a rather conservative play that uses Playbook early adopters as guinea pigs to see if the concept is workable for their real product at lower risk.



    They really screwed the pooch when they blew the Palm deal.



    Quote:

    I don't disagree with that. It needs a native SDK fast and I don't mean an SDK based on JAVA. On the other hand they simply can't afford to stay out of the market for a year, it would be deadly to do so. The reality is they need to deliver something that is at least better than the Android based tablets that are coming.



    They already stayed out of the market for a year and there is no way the Playbook will be better than Android based tablets. Android has a year's worth of tablet lessons learned and refinement.



    In a lot of ways BB would be better off to look at shipping an expensive app on iOS, Android and WP7. Otherwise I see Good eventually getting to the point where BB's key advantages are completely lost. They've been fighting for a decade now and given how weak RIM is and the clamor for secure Android and iOS enterprise services there are a lot of IT departments that are trialing Good again.
  • Reply 77 of 85
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    nothing indicates that Playbook is the big mess that the Android tablets are. I just see this slagging of Playbook for being a little late as jumping the gun.



    No it isn't but you seem to dismiss the broad background that QNX has.



    You are making an assumption that that is the issue. It might be or it might be that Flash sucks on this platform too! Or it could be any number of other things.



    Absolutely!



    Why is getting your product to market stupid. No one complains about how far Safari trails the WebKit releases that come every night. So why call RIM stupid when Apple is not fully accelerating Safari.



    What will you say when iPad 2 comes out with 1 gig of RAM? Frankly I don't understand HDMI either so that we agree on. USB on the other hand is needed on the iPad too. Given a reasonable set of installed drivers USB would enable some very interesting apps for the iPad.



    As to AIR well it is a problem but on the other hand it allows them to get to market quickly.



    Well Apple has the competition in the crosshairs so they need to say something. No one said boo when Apple dismissed flash based MP3 players even though they where working on one. Some times you have to feed the world a bunch of BS while you catch up.





    I don't disagree with that. It needs a native SDK fast and I don't mean an SDK based on JAVA. On the other hand they simply can't afford to stay out of the market for a year, it would be deadly to do so. The reality is they need to deliver something that is at least better than the Android based tablets that are coming.



    On a side note iPad was in development for many years, literally. How many set backs do you think they had in that development process? Or look at the long drawn out process to get Copy & Paste to iOS. I just think people need to give RIM the same amount of slack that was given to Apple. Mainly because I believe the market needs a strong competitor and I've yet to see anything that is as promising as the Playbook.



    Will RIM screw up Playbook? That is very possible but in the end we need them trying their best.



    I dismiss qnx's broad background because it's negated by the ball and chain known of as adobe flash.



    Rim made a huge mistake relying on 3rd party software - adobe air - for their tablets API as it leaves them beholden to adobe for updates.



    True there is "time to market" but RIM should have learned from apple not to rely on a third party software stack.



    Apple had everyone write web apps initially, but updates to webkit were under apples control.



    If apple had everyone use flash and we had iPhones with 2 hrs. Of battery life, no one would have bought one.



    Getting a usable product to market isn't stuoid - a praybook with a few hrs of battery life isn't a usable product.



    If an iPad 2 comes with a gig of ram and USB and get less battery life, I'd bitch about that too.



    I'd rather see an iPad 2 with a SD slot - USB isn't necessary.
  • Reply 78 of 85
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nht View Post


    Ah...except that Apple had cocoa to build on for a native UI SDK.



    Blackberry has not a whole lot to use on top of QNX other than Air which it doesn't even own. If Nokia didn't own Trolltech/Qt that would have been a good candidate to purchase.



    Or Palm as someone else mentioned and gotten both parts already integrated.



    This is a lot different than Apple telling folks to use web apps. BB seems rather screwed if they're dependent on Adobe. You can argue that MS is doing something similar basing their UI on Silverlight but they own Silverlight.



    That's why RIM bought TAT.
  • Reply 79 of 85
    samabsamab Posts: 1,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jca666us View Post


    I dismiss qnx's broad background because it's negated by the ball and chain known of as adobe flash.



    Rim made a huge mistake relying on 3rd party software - adobe air - for their tablets API as it leaves them beholden to adobe for updates.



    True there is "time to market" but RIM should have learned from apple not to rely on a third party software stack.



    Apple had everyone write web apps initially, but updates to webkit were under apples control.



    If apple had everyone use flash and we had iPhones with 2 hrs. Of battery life, no one would have bought one.



    Getting a usable product to market isn't stuoid - a praybook with a few hrs of battery life isn't a usable product.



    If an iPad 2 comes with a gig of ram and USB and get less battery life, I'd bitch about that too.



    I'd rather see an iPad 2 with a SD slot - USB isn't necessary.



    So far, we have ONE wall street analyst --- who totally misunderstood the whole QNX being required a car battery --- saying that battery life is a problem AND will require major rewriting of the OS. Just because QNX likes to point out that the biggest router in the world uses QNX and that over 200 cars have QNX on their telematics systems --- doesn't mean that QNX isn't in the small battery embedded devices.



    So far, Wall Street analysts have been shown to be clueless on the QNX purchase. First they bought that this was about integrating Blackberries with auto dashboards. Then they thought that this was going to take years because the Playbook wasn't demo'ed initially.



    The problem may not be much of a problem and it may be eliminated by just having a final build of the browser with both cores turn on. RIM bought the Torch browser team and they are not part of the QNX people --- that's why the browser never was dual-core from the start.
  • Reply 80 of 85
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samab View Post


    ...doesn't mean that QNX isn't in the small battery embedded devices.



    I?ll bite. What are these handheld devices that are using QNX so we can make a comparison?
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