BlackBerry PlayBook Has a PIN Number… and a VendorID?

PlayBook PIN API

I was digging through the API documentation for the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe Air and ran across something interesting. I was wondering if RIM would issue every BlackBerry PlayBook a PIN number and VendorID like they do with current BlackBerry smartphones. Turns out the API references exactly that. I was curious because PIN messaging has become a staple on BlackBerry smartphones through BBM and having a PIN number would lead you to believe that BBM might come natively to the PlayBook.

We already know that the PlayBook will be able to do BBM over the "Bridge” connection to a BlackBerry smartphone but by having its own PIN maybe future PlayBooks will have their own BBM. It also makes me wonder if RIM will continue having developers license their apps through PIN numbers.

The other annoyance is that RIM seems to also be including VendorID’s on the PlayBook. That might make some sense for the 4G and 3G PlayBooks scheduled to come out but it could be annoying. RIM has had a tendency to use these VendorID’s to limit applications like App World to certain countries.

On the other hand the PlayBook seems to have a few other ID’s I have not seen available through the API on BlackBerrys before. They will have a BSN (Board Serial Number), Hardware ID (My guess is the model of PlayBook), OS (Maybe we will have multiple OS versions?), and even an SCMBundle (???) accessible through the API.

Should be interesting to see how PIN numbers on the BlackBerry PlayBook play out…

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