I have to be completely honest about this – the Blackberry Playbook may still be my favorite tablet. While the lack of apps and features at initial release killed it before it even got its start, the UI that RIM has put together on a tablet makes more sense than most. So when the 2.0 update for the device went live today, I actually got a little giddy.

If you are not familiar, the 2.0 update for the Playbook introduces native email, Twitter and Facebook integration, new home screen UI, a new keyboard, enhanced browser and more. Most importantly though, it allows users to run Android apps that have been ported over to Blackberry’s App World. So yeah, this tablet essentially just turned into an Android tablet, but with a better UI (in my opinion anyway).

I’m downloading 2.0 now and will hopefully have some hands-on time with it this afternoon. At $199 for the 16GB version, this may finally be worth your money if Android developers care to take the time to bring their work over.

Calling all Android developers. RIM is on the hunt for developers to bring their Android apps over to the BlackBerry App World. In doing so, developers who qualify will be given a free BlackBerry PlayBook. Neat, right? RIM in all of their wisdom, has made it incredibly easy for devs to simply port their Android apps over with just a few clicks of the mouse.

The PlayBook may not be the greatest tablet on the market, but free is free. If you happen to develop, then go get your free PlayBook! You can find all the necessary tools right here at RIM’s site.

Via: Android and Me

This may sound odd, but as someone who has grown to love the Blackberry Playbook, I can’t help but get excited at the video we have for you below. A German Blackberry-specific site posted up a brief walk-through of the Playbook’s new BBX 2.0 OS that happens to have Android apps up and fully working. During their hands-on time, you get see how seamlessly these apps that have been ported over, work. The Kindle, WordPress, TweetCaster and IMDB apps all fire up without much hesitation. The future of this tablet could be bright after all.  

When we hear there is another OS device coming out and that said device will run Android apps we all have reason for excitement. That was the case for the BlackBerry PlayBook – when word first came out that the PlayBook would be able to run some Android features, people were definitely curious about it.

But sometimes there isn’t a happy ending and RIM engineers have come out and stated which Android features you won’t be seeing on the PlayBook.

Android’s famed battery-sucking Live Wallpaper, SIP and SIP VoIP, anything built using the Native Development Kit, apps containing only App Widgets, and apps containing more than one activity tied to the Launcher.

In addition, any packages which rely on Google Maps, in-app billing services, Android’s text-to-speech engine, or the cloud-to-device messaging system will all be rendered unusable under the company’s runtime system.

Well that hurts. So basically the main features that make Android, “Android” won’t be making its way to the PlayBook. Existing owners for the PlayBook can’t be happy about this, but then again, I don’t think anyone necessarily bought the PlayBook with the intent of using a bunch of Android features on it. I could be wrong though.

New word of lacking Android integration enough to make you forget completely about the PlayBook?

Via: The Next Web

If anyone just so happens to own RIM‘s answer to the tablet craze entitled the PlayBook, you’ll be happy to know that thanks to a small leak, owners can now sideload and enjoy the Android App Player (BETA). We knew during its release that there would be Android compatibility at some point, we just didn’t think it would be this soon.  As far as we know, RIM can’t even get a native email client on the device?  The best thing about it so far though, is the inability to control it. Swipe gestures are your only way of working it at the moment which is neat, but limited.

If we have any BlackBerry PlayBook owners here (hopefully you use it for work, and not pleasure), then feel free to give this a try and let us know what’s going on. It’s good to see Android starting to creep into the world of the competition finally. For download, click the via link.

Via: N4BB, BGR

Just in case any Android enthusiasts were still interested in purchasing a BlackBerry PlayBook.

Silly MacMall, the BlackBerry Playbook doesn’t run Honeycomb.  Although, I wouldn’t put it past one of our developer friends to make that happen at some point in the near future.

Cheers Robert!