Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe…

I don’t have an iPad, I don’t particularly like them. I won one earlier in the year, a nice 64GB iPad2, but gave it away to a family member.

Had I not given it away, then I would certainly be installing Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe app. It’s a companion to his amazing BBC TV show, Wonders of the Universe. 

Currently it is only available for iPad 2 and all new all singing and dancing iPad (3rd Generation) at a special promotional launch price of £4.99, but according to a tweet from the good Doctor, an Android version will be available in the next 2 months or so.

Check out the YouTube Clip below.

Wonders Of The Universe iPad App Demo.

No sex please, we’re Blackberry.

As some of you will know, I own a Blackberry Playbook Tablet. It’s an excellent tablet, feels great in the hand, nice screen and great price. There are a few apps missing that would make it great. Skype would be one, some form of SMB Browser would be another and finally Zinio, the digital magazine app.

Well today, Zinio finally arrived. I eagerly installed it, logged in and was instantly disappointed. I have a few subscriptions on my account, 2 of which are Maxim and Playboy. I’m a guy, I like look at ladies, reading about gadgets, sports and music and Maxim covers those bases. Playboy? Well it was banned for so long here in Ireland that it would be sinful not to buy it now that it is freely available, plus the articles are fantastic :).

For some reason, RIM (along with Apple and Google on their platforms), have decided that I, an adult well over the age of 18, should not be allowed view these publications that I purchased, on the tablet that I purchased. How do I know it’s RIM that are doing this? Well Zinio helpfully posted this on their website in the last few hours “Please note that due to RIM restrictions, content that is PG-13 and up (such as Maxim) will not be viewable on the Playbook.” Zinio also saw fit to reply to my tweet and posted this “This is RIM's decision, unfortunately. We would love to offer all our content on the platform.”

I understand that the Blackberry Playbook runs RIMs OS, so they are lord and master of their domain, but surely there has to be a workaround to this stupid decision. Otherwise it’s bye bye Zinio, Maxim and Playboy….

*****Update*****

Thankfully, after a concerted effort by Blackberry Playbook users, RIM and Zinio have finally sorted this issue out. Whilst the likes of Playboy will not be available through the Playbook App, Maxim and other magazines rated similarly, will now be available. If only other companies listened too and acted on customer complaints this quickly.

The Future of TV???

Obviously this could never ever happen…. could it??

Android Apps on the Blackberry Playbook…

So, like many others, you bought a Blackberry Playbook when RIM reduced the price substantially. I think you’ll agree that hardware wise, it’s a fantastic piece of kit. The OS has also just been updated to OS 2.0, adding some new functionality to the Playbook. One thing that hasn’t really changed is the lack of apps in the BlackBerry App World. Don’t get me wrong, there are some very good apps available for the Playbook, but when compared to iOS and Android, the Playbook lags behind.

RIM in their wisdom (others see it otherwise), decided to build in Android compatibility to OS 2.0. What does this mean? Well it means that Playbook users have access to a whole world of other apps. Android developers can easily convert their apps to run on the Playbook and these apps can then be submitted to the App World.

If your favourite Android developer hasn’t got around to converting their apps to work on the playbook, why not do it yourself? If you can find the original Android APK file, you can convert the apps to BAR files yourself if you follow this guide. Once you have converted the APK file, you can then side load the file on to your Playbook. If you are confused as to what side loading is, check out this post that details how you can side load the Amazon Kindle app on to your Playbook. It gives step by step guides for both Windows and Mac.

If you can’t find the original APK file for your favourite Android app, check out Playbook Bars as someone may have already converted it and uploaded the BAR file for you to download.

Oh, if you are still running on OS 1.X and would like to upgrade to the latest version of the OS, go to Settings, then to Software Updates and click on Check for Updates and follow the onscreen hints.

Enjoy!