Quite a few of you asked us follow up questions on our interview and walkthrough of PlayBook OS 2.0 with Jeff Gadway from RIM. I reached out to RIM with a few of those questions and even with the crazy build up to the launch soon they managed to get us responses. Some of this is good news and bad but we will all know for certain when it finally launches!
Q: Will there be a different upgrade process for developers currently running the PlayBook OS 2.0 Developers Preview?
A: No (Straight to the point!)
Q: Will there be support for new languages and right to left input like Arabic & Hebrew or languages like Chinese?
A: These languages are not supported (damn!)
Q: Is there universal search or any form of search for email, contacts, calendar on the PlayBook?
A: Apps have in-app search capabilities. Message allows flexible search such as recipients, received, sent, unread, etc. Contacts for favorites, video chat contacts and search by name.
Q: Does the contacts, calendar, and email apps update even when the apps are not open?
A: Yes
Well that more or less sums up what we have learned since our walkthrough with Jeff Gadway. Let us know what you think of the questions and RIM’s responses. Sorry I did not get all your questions answered but Feb 21st is right around the corner… 
Cyril Not Registered
Posted: February 18, 2012 at 10:50 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9360 | OS 6.0+
With no Arabic support, Rim are loosing customers in the Middle East where they have a growing customer base.
Saif Not Registered
Posted: May 7, 2012 at 7:01 AM EST
I think it is the Arab people who should stop buying blackberry..because it doesn’t support their language.
I’m happy to help in starting camping to alter Arabic user about this problem to force RIM to recognise Arabic language and bring it to the Playbook
madness ( View Profile) Newcomer - Posts: 22
Posted: February 18, 2012 at 11:15 PM EST
What about browsing files on a LAN?
Pandy Not Registered
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 5:22 AM EST
Browsing files on a LAN is already supported. Not only that, but it’s wireless too!!! (Can also do wired if you don’t want wireless)
ofutur ( View Profile) Enthusiast - Posts: 553
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 6:11 AM EST
Browsing PlayBook files from your desktop is supported, not the reverse
Pandy Not Registered
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 2:59 PM EST
True….Though there’s Apps that let you do that.
lf Not Registered
Posted: February 20, 2012 at 3:25 PM EST
what apps let you do that? I’d like to plug an external harddrive to the playbook and then browse the files.
thanks,
Adham Not Registered
Posted: February 18, 2012 at 11:45 PM EST
WTF !! I can’t understand RIM !
lately they said that their costumer ar growing in the middle east and saudi Arabia for example are growing with 250% and now they are not supporting Arabic language !
Do they really want to lose more costumers
ofutur ( View Profile) Enthusiast - Posts: 553
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 6:12 AM EST
Agreed, although RTL is not easy to pull. It took them a year to add autotext, give them another 6 months.
Saif Not Registered
Posted: May 7, 2012 at 6:54 AM EST
I have blackberry playbook and i thought it supports Arabic language. but i was wrong.. the starnge thing is that my blackberry torch fully support arabic language… and the Blackberry staff keep promoting Blackberry Bridge to connect a playbook to another Blackberry phone. but this bridge is useless as i cant read Arabic messages in my play book.
Another thing is the Support from Blackberry…i spent hours trying to get a single phone number to contact RIM to ask when is the Arabic support is coming to playbook…but i had no luck finding a single phone number.
To sum up my experience with the playbook, i now why i should pay £499 for iPad. it is dam easy to switch language in the user interface.. all you need is a single tuoch.. and bang you are in business.
God bless Stive Job
Goodby black berry…I can see you going down with nokia
maxknux ( View Profile) Newcomer - Posts: 75
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 12:34 AM EST
yeah you would think they would support more languages but I think they will add them later. The worry is to get the OS out the door.
Z Not Registered
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 12:59 AM EST
If Arabic is not supported, I will ditch my both RIM devices (playbook & blackberry) and switch to something else, I hate to say iPad … but I have no choice ….. RIM you will disappoint a lot of customers ….
yalor Not Registered
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 6:37 PM EST
support is coming for it, I’m sure…just not in this update (they have more important things to worry about right now, like getting the native apps on it)
Pandy Not Registered
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 5:21 AM EST
@madness:
browsing files on a LAN is already supported. Not only that, but it’s wireless too!!! (Can also do wired if you don’t want wireless)
John Not Registered
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 8:23 AM EST
It sucks if PB2.0 does not support Chinese input, did u all remember images from a certain Blackberryman that show Chinese inout was there a long months ago?
Ronen Halevy ( View Profile) Senior admin - Posts: 5449
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 10:42 AM EST
Sorry guys I am doing my best to try to stress to them how important it is but I totally agree that it is key. I know they are trying to get the architecture for 2.0 out the door. They already sort of have support for other languages and RTL and I know it is on the roadmap. Just wasn’t sure if they manage to squeeze it into this release.
Sky ( View Profile) Newcomer - Posts: 35
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 11:31 AM EST
thank you Ronen for your hard work
Ronen Halevy ( View Profile) Senior admin - Posts: 5449
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 1:40 PM EST
Anytime!
mnhockeycoach99 Not Registered
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 11:22 PM EST
Ronen – any idea if PB OS 2.0 and BB handsets will have functionality that will allow users to sync calendar and contacts between devices? As an example, if I set up a calendar entry on my BB handset, will it sync to my PlayBook (same with contacts) and vice versa?
ofutur ( View Profile) Enthusiast - Posts: 553
Posted: February 20, 2012 at 5:04 AM EST
No, it won’t sync directly. Your data will be sent to your server and the other device will get the info from there.
mnhockeycoach99 Not Registered
Posted: February 20, 2012 at 8:38 AM EST
Thanks. I figured there wouldn’t be a direct sync…but I was hoping there would be some sort of synchronization so I wouldn’t have to add/delete calendar entries, contacts, and emails on both my BB handset and my PlayBook. Maintaining two is quite the pain.
Marc Paradise ( View Profile) Enthusiast - Posts: 499
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 2:51 PM EST
A: Apps have in-app search capabilities. Message allows flexible search such as recipients, received, sent, unread, etc. Contacts for favorites, video chat contacts and search by name.
Translation: no.
Why can’t they just come out and say it though?
The other thing I would like to get answers too is feature parity: when will the NDK, WebWorks, and AIR SDKs provide the ability to make integrated applications like we can under the Java OSes? With release around the corner (less than a year), we simply are not able to write the same kind of applications that we can currently write for the smartphones.
Ronen Halevy ( View Profile) Senior admin - Posts: 5449
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 7:44 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9900 | OS 6.0+
I asked about the feature parity and most importantly when developers would get access to the APIs and tools to deuper apps.
Z Not Registered
Posted: February 19, 2012 at 9:08 PM EST
Thanks Ronen … For all your help … I hope RIM listens to you
Joe257 ( View Profile) Enthusiast - Posts: 397
Posted: February 20, 2012 at 9:56 AM EST
Of course, RIM is still developing BB 10, which PlayBook 2.0 is based upon. Questions like Universal Search are important, and they will be answered by RIM, but I would have hoped that they would just say “it’s in development” rather than a bogus skirt-around-the-issue answer.
Universal Search is a must have for BB10, so responding that “Apps have in-app searches…” is just not answering the question.
The same applies to foreign languages like Arabic and Chinese. They’re coming. Wish RIM had just said it. Right now, some folks now think it’s never coming, even in BB10.
Ronen is a BB fan, so I’m sure he wasn’t threatening or demanding. Just say it like it is, RIM. We will understand
I must agree with Marc Paradise’s post.