PlayBook tablet to get BlackBerry 10 OS

Despite continued poor sales, Research in Motion (RIM) isn’t ready to give up on the BlackBerry PlayBook yet. TechRadar reports that the 7-inch tablet will be upgraded to RIM’s long-awaited BlackBerry 10 OS when it is finally released later this year. Assuming there isn’t a big delay, it will be the second major update for the PlayBook in 2012.

“We’ve said publicly a number of times that our first BB10 handset will be available towards the end of 2012, and that’s still firmly the case,” said Rob Orr, RIM’s VP of product management. ”At some point after the launch we’ll bring BB10 to our PlayBooks, yes.”

In February, RIM released the PlayBook 2.0 software, which added native email, calendar, and contacts applications to the tablet as well as a slightly revamped interface. The company says that 50 percent of PlayBook owners updated to the new version on the first day of release and the rate of update since has been much higher than what it sees in the smartphone space.

Before it was delayed, BlackBerry 10 was going to release in early 2012. RIM is betting big on the new operating system, which will supposedly bring the BlackBerry platform up to speed with the rest of the smartphone industry, which is dominated by newer platforms like Android and iOS. The new OS is supposedly based on QNX, much like the current PlayBook software, but it’s interface and design is still mostly unknown.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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