Did I Say RIM Was Removing PlayBook Sideloading? I’m Sorry, I Meant Improving.

Looks like Research In Motion is having second thoughts about dropping app sideloading as a feature of the BlackBerry PlayBook. Either that, or it’s just bemoaning its decision to announce the move in an offhanded/ham-handed way over Twitter.

In a post to the BlackBerry Developer Blog this morning, RIM VP of Developer Relations Alec Saunders denied that the company is dropping sideloading from the PlayBook, though that is exactly what he said just a few days ago. According to Saunders, there is a more “nuanced” interpretation of the statement he made on Twitter.

What Saunders really meant when he said “we’re removing sideloading for consumers” is this: “We’re not getting rid of sideloading on the BlackBerry PlayBook OS or in BlackBerry 10.”

In other words, “removing” was simply a euphemism for “not removing” that went right over all our heads.

Clever!

So now Saunders is setting the record straight. In short, RIM will retain sideloading as a developer feature, and will add some antipiracy measures to it that will prevent its abuse by consumers.

“Sideloading on our platform is changing in nature,” Saunders wrote. “Sideloading is a developer feature. It exists so that developers can load their apps onto their own devices to test. It’s there so developers can send a beta release to their testing community for review. It is definitely not there for some people to side load a pirated app. … Starting with our next release of the BlackBerry PlayBook OS, we’re introducing a feature that will encrypt apps so they can only be run by the user who purchased the app.”