PlayBook and Meetup Search so far

I have 1 review from my Meetup Search application for the PlayBook and it points out that Canadian zip codes don’t work 🙁 , so I need to get the search features updated.  I have made some updates, but haven’t uploaded the changes yet, since I wanted to test the changes directly on the PlayBook, which I received last Thursday.  Hopefully I’ll get the search updates soon and improve my ratings on the App World.

I spent the weekend traveling and the PlayBook came in handy while waiting in airports and flying in the plane.  I was able to connect to wi-fi locations at Raleigh-Durham (RDU) and Atlanta without any issues.  At RDU, I used my AT&T DSL wireless account to connect for free, which was very nice.  Most of the time I had an available power outlet, so I didn’t see how far the battery lasted. I tried BlackBerry Bridge using my sister’s BlackBerry Flip to connect to.  Connection was simple, but due to cell coverage, using the browser was not very good.  I tried using Bridge on my wife’s BlackBerry when I got home and the browsing experience was much better, which leaves me to believe it was the network out in Kansas.  Also, I didn’t realize that Bridge does not connect the internet for the applications ; something that should be done using tethering.  However, according to the article, that might change in the future.

I discovered that GMail voice mail will just download the recording to my music list instead of playing the message from the inbox.  I guess that’s helpful if I wanted to store the message and play it back.

After loading music on the PlayBook, I tried to find radio apps, but didn’t find anything that I wanted to use.  I tried the Slacker Radio application, but apparently there is still something wrong with the app or my setup ( cause it costs $3/month ).  I found a couple of streaming servers that I might try to create a PlayBook app for, they are Audio Galaxy and Subsonic. Both take your music files and stream them on the internet, but one does it via a system service and the other as an application.  The APIs for both look fairly straight forward, so if I come up with a good interface, then it might be possible to use it for both options.  So many ideas, so little time to do stuff.

I tried some podcast downloads on the PlayBook to see what that is all about.  I guess it would be good if you don’t have wi-fi and wanted to listen to something besides the music playlist.   I added BlackBerry Today and downloaded their latest episode.  Heard on BlackBerry Today podcast :   There were 3,000 PlayBooks applications available and 40 – 50,000 PlayBooks (corrected on 5/18 podcast) sold on launch day, which was the most for any tablet launch.   The 6,000 participants at BlackBerry World conference all got a free PlayBook.

Here is the download chart for the month of April for Meetup Search.   Not tremendous, but not too bad.  I think improving the UI and adding search options will help with the downloads.  Also, I need to make the description a little prettier.  I think the form allows for HTML, since I’ve seen others use bullet lists.