Back in 2011, BlackBerry played its hand in the tablet market by releasing the PlayBook. Even with the tablet’s 2.0 update, there were problems here and there that made it hard to recommend, one of which being a lack of apps. Even so, in an interview with Pocket-lint, BlackBerry Vice President of Global Product Management, Francois Mahieu, admitted that a follow-up to the PlayBook could happen.
Unfortunately, Mahieu placed an almost-immeasurable amount of emphasis on “could.”
“When we launched PlayBook, beyond the fact that everybody knows that PlayBook was no huge success, everybody loved it,” Mahieu said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a meeting one day and I show you a tablet. We have equity in that space, but we’re not ready. We need more time.”
While BlackBerry would consider returning to the tablet market, do not expect a tablet from the struggling company anytime soon. In almost every way, we are not surprised, given the company’s woes. Even so, there were aspects of the PlayBook, such as the gesture-controlled operating system and browser, that we really liked. If only all of its apps were fully baked and there were more to speak of, the PlayBook might have been looked at under a different light.
