RIM has said an OS update for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet won’t arrive until next year.
PlayBook OS 2.0 was announced last week, but RIM didn’t actually announce a release date. RIM has now said it has decided to “wait” to roll out the update until February.
“As much as we’d love to have it in your hands today, we’ve made the difficult decision to wait to launch BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 until we are confident we have fully met the expectations of our developers, enterprise customers and end-users,” said senior vice president David J. Smith in a post on the BlackBerry blog.
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Not only is the OS delayed, but the next version now won’t support RIM’s popular BlackBerry Messenger service.
“We are committed to developing a seamless BBM solution that fully delivers on the powerful, push-based messaging capabilities recognised today by BlackBerry users around the world and we’re still working on it,” Smith said, adding those with a BlackBerry smartphone will still be able to use the “Bridge” system to access the system on their tablets.
The OS update will add integrated email and contacts, improve how BlackBerry smartphones work with the tablet, and include a new video store.
RIM said it was “addressing many barriers to tablet adoption” in the enterprise, “including device manageability and enterprise application deployment”.
RIM has handed developers the beta for the new OS to let them start building apps, and a closed beta will soon start for its Early Adopter Program.
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