PlayBook OS 2.0

Here are my first impressions of the new OS 2.0 that RIM released yesterday:

Bad
The soft Power Off in the apps section still doesn't work. Tapping "Stand By" "Turn Off" or "Lock" will all just restart the PlayBook. That's really unforgivable. It's been a problem for months now. At the very least, they should've gotten rid of the icon.

There's still no way to rename or reorganize bookmarks in the web browser. I can't possibly be the only one who cares about that, and it's not exactly a difficult thing to fix.

The video player will no longer play certain videos. I'm not sure why, but I'm getting a Media Error and a message that says "Please close some applications to free up resources, then try again." even without any applications open. It may have to do with the file size.

Good
The browser itself seems to be a little faster and more responsive, which is good.

There's a built-in file manager, which is really useful, and the spreadsheet and document apps have been combined under Docs to Go. Slideshow to Go seems to be gone entirely, but I never used it, so I don't know how much of a loss that is. There's also Print to Go which allows you to transfer files wirelessly to a computer.

While the app listing used to have pages for "All" "Games" "Media" and "Favorites" now it just has pages. That's probably a better way to go about it. Favourites can now be added to a bar that appears above the regular app listing, so your favourite apps will always be up at the top.

The calendar and email apps seem to work well. I'm not a power user, so I don't know how much use I'll get out of them, but it's nice to know that they're finally there.

App World has also been updated. It's a little slow as of this writing, but that may be because it's seeing a lot of use. The new design splits off apps and games into separate categories, giving a little extra space for new and top releases.

The YouTube app got an upgrade, and now the search function seems to work a bit better. Also it has the option to adjust the resolution at which you view the video, which is good for people with limited bandwidth.

When you minimize(not really minimize but shrink, I guess) an app the title bar with the little, tiny x, has been replaced with a big grey bar with a big, fat x. Aesthetically, it's not as pleasing, but it makes it a lot easier to close apps, so I call it a plus.

There's a PressReader app, which I suppose is for reading newspapers and magazines and so forth, and a straight up news app, that just delivers you interesting news stories. The defaults for the news app seem to be focused on US news, but you can switch up the feeds you get. The options screen is just an acknowledgment screen for the app's author, which is a little strange.

Overall, I'd say it's a decent improvement over the original OS, but some simple features are still missing. If you need some kind of numerical rating, then I give it *** 1/2 out of *****