Remember when Apple really needed people to develop apps for the iPad but no one wanted to do it so finally Apple had to give away free iPads to developers in order to get them to build on the platform? You don’t remember that? Oh, that’s right: IT NEVER HAPPENED.

But it’s happening with Research In Motion, makers of BlackBerry and the less-than-big-selling PlayBook tablet. But to get the free tablet, you don’t even have to invent a new app. If you’ve already built an app for Android, you just have to adapt it to the Android system running on the PlayBook. Of course, then you have a PlayBook sitting around the house that may or may not have many apps running on it depending on how many of your fellow developers have taken advantage of the same offer. IT’S LIKE A MIRROR FACING A MIRROR.