Poynt for BlackBerry PlayBook

I recently traveled to New York City on business, and I can’t tell you how useful this app was to help me get a handle on my surroundings. Poynt™ for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet brings the same functionality as the Poynt smartphone app to the BlackBerry® Tablet OS, and helps you find information on businesses, people, movies, restaurants, or events close to your location. The app is even designed to allow you to send information to your smartphone once you’ve decided where you’d like to go. The feature list of this app is long, and includes reviews, bookings, call pushing to your smartphone, and more.

Adobe® Connect™

This Adobe® Connect™ app is designed to bring collaboration via the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to a whole new level, allowing you to host or join meetings. Beyond the included video and audio chat, public and private text chatting can also be enabled, along with polling questions and intuitive pinch-to-zoom interaction with the shared content.

GeeReader

Everyone needs a good RSS reader to stay on top of recent news that is nicely consolidated into a single app, and this one is mine. GeeReader pulls in a Google Reader account and maintains any folder structure you may have set up. Once you open an item for viewing, you can easily side scroll to the next item within the same feed, or expand to full screen. Lastly, you can mark posts as favorite, share posts, and toggle read/unread settings.

ScratchPad

Sometimes you just need to scribble down a diagram while you’re on a call or while you’re planning your next genius idea.The ScratchPad app by Painting With Numbers Limited is designed to find the perfect balance of simplicity and functionality, providing you with a free-form area to draw on using your fingers. The simple controls take up little space and allow you to change brush size and color, as well as undo/redo, clear, and export. The export functionality is particularly useful, and saves a screenshot to your pictures folder with one touch.

Box for BlackBerry PlayBook

Accessing my files from anywhere, on any device is a must for both my work and personal life. I was particularly impressed by Box for PlayBook’s slick interface and ease-of-use. Did I mention that you’ll receive 50 GB of free file storage and sharing if you download the app and register for an account before December 31, 2011?

Bonus: Documents To Go

This one comes free and preloaded on your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Documents To Go® Premium is designed to provide a foundation for business functionality by allowing you to view, create, and edit documents on your tablet. Supported formats include Microsoft® Excel®, Microsoft® Word, and Microsoft® PowerPoint®. Additionally, Documents To Go Premium allows you to open Adobe® PDF files on the go. If there’s one app that I use every day, it’s this one.

What are your favorite apps? Tell me what I missed in the comments!

So far I’ve covered setting up my mobile office and how I use the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet for presentations, but another powerful use case of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is to support collaboration.

The first in my arsenal of collaboration tools is Adobe® Connect. Simply attending a hosted Adobe Connect meeting isn’t the only thing you can do; it also allows for a variety of other features. If allowed by the host, you can turn on video and audio and utilize the camera to attend the meeting via video and audio. I’m also able to chat with anyone that is in attendance. You can send a message to the host, presenters or attendees, and if you touch and hold on an attendee’s name, you can start a private chat.

Wait, did the host just ask a polling question? No problem – the polling feature works from your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and even displays the results. I’m also able to utilize pinch to zoom on the slides if I want to focus in on some text or a picture. As you can see above, it is nicely set up into quadrants with the ability to bring each function to the full screen.

Another essential application in collaboration is Video Chat. With my team spread out over most of the United States and Canada, I’ve started to utilize Video Chat for my team’s 1×1 meetings. Being remote doesn’t always offer the good face to face time that is sometimes needed, so I find that Video Chat helps to close that distance.

Video Chat on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is very easy to set up so that you can connect with your fellow coworkers who are BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users. Besides the standard features, I can switch which camera is being used by tapping on the screen and selecting the camera icon in the lower left corner (1). You can also change the position of your video box by touching the box and swiping it to the desired corner (2).

However, there are times when you need a little “me” time, and because you don’t need the Video Chat application running to receive a call, you can hit the “Do not disturb” button at the top of the screen.

Talking about ideas and projects is only one part of collaboration – sometimes you need the ability to work on something of a more visual nature. When it comes to that type of sharing, I turn to Shared Board, which provides a shared white board for collaboration. Essentially a shared white board, it allows me to open a group room so anyone who is invited to that group can contribute their suggestions visually on the white board screen. Each user who attends the group has the ability to mark up the screen as well as send chat messages. With a swipe down motion on the screen, you are able to select your marker color, sponge (erase) and add text. Like SketchBook, you can add an image or take a photo and use it as the background image on the screen. Once you are finished, everyone can save the board as an image on their BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

So, how are you collaborating with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet? I’m very interested to hear what you use today, or if you would like to comment on a “wish list” item!

Check out Paul’s previous posts in this challenge:

• Paul’s Challenge: No Laptops Allowed! – BlackBerry PlayBook Edition
• Paul’s Challenge, BlackBerry PlayBook Edition: Setting Up the Mobile Office
• Paul’s Challenge, BlackBerry PlayBook Edition – Presenting with the Mobile Office