RIM's PlayBook will ship without the core functions that make a BlackBerry a BlackBerry. Photo: Charlie Sorrel

Oh, RIM! What are you doing? According to a leaked internal document, the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will ship without native support for e-mail, contacts or messaging. To use any of these services, you’ll have to either hook up a BlackBerry handset, or access them through the web browser.

The document, a seven-page FAQ for the upcoming tablet, lays out the details. To use these core BlackBerry services you need to use “BlackBerry Bridge”, which displays the BlackBerry’s apps on the PlayBook’s screen. Here’s the full text from the relevant section:

Q: Will apps such as e-mail, contacts, calendar etc. be available natively on BlackBerry PlayBook?

The BlackBerry PlayBook can be used in conjunction with a BlackBerry smartphone or it can be used on its own (i.e. standalone).

The BlackBerry Bridge feature creates a secure Bluetooth link between a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and BlackBerry smartphone allowing BlackBerry smartphone users to view and interact with the email, BBM and PIM apps on their BlackBerry smartphone using the larger BlackBerry PlayBook screen.

In addition, users can access their e-mail via the BlackBerry PlayBook’s web browser without any need for a BlackBerry smartphone.

In a future software update for the BlackBerry PlayBook, we will also provide native e-mail, calendar, and contact apps for those customers who prefer to have these apps directly on the tablet.

[Emphasis added]

Some might argue that this doesn’t matter, as a “future software update” will bring native apps. But what this document really says is, “We rushed it.” RIM is so desperate to get an iPad rival on the market that it is cutting corners. So many corners, in fact, that the PlayBook may just turn out to be shaped like a real Blackberry.

Let’s look at the evidence:

• The software development kit (SDK), which will allow developers to write native apps, isn’t yet finished.
• In order to bring what RIM’s CEO Jim Balsillie calls a “tonnage of apps” to the PlayBook at launch, RIM has added an emulator to run Android apps.
• The PlayBook will ship with Wi-Fi only, no 3G. To connect without Wi-Fi, you need to tether  a BlackBerry.
• RIM, whose business is built on messaging and communication apps, is shipping its tablet without messaging or communication apps.

Not enough? I got a chance to play — briefly — with the PlayBook at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, and found it to be clunky and rather laggy. I tried the e-reader software Kobo, which will come pre-installed on the device. Kobo on other platforms is fast, slick and a pleasure to use.

On the PlayBook it was rather janky, and certainly not smooth. This may be due to the software being in beta. (Or not — I didn’t ask that question. It is also not a criticism of Kobo, which usually makes great apps.)

You can almost smell the desperation that has crept into RIM ever since the iPhone arrived on the scene. RIM went from making the best messaging devices on the planet to making the worst wannabe iDevices around. It started with the awful “touch” screen Storm and continues with the PlayBook — all products rushed to market before they’re finished.

If RIM wants to avoid going the same way as Palm, then it should stop trying to chase Apple and start making some new devices of its own. And it should maybe try to finish them before showing them off to the world.

Leaked BlackBerry PlayBook FAQ (.pdf)

BlackBerry PlayBook FAQs [Scribd. Thanks, AngryMonkeyGeek]

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