BlackBerry and PlayBook tablet maker Research in Motion has updated its mobile and tablet operating systems, with the highlight a native email client for the PlayBook.
PlayBook users previously had to link their tablets to a BlackBerry smartphone in order to use email.
The update – due for rollout in February – was unveiled at CES, with the company promising a “unified inbox” it claimed would help users manage work, private and social media messages from the client.
Native messaging was a missing link when the PlayBook came out, possibly one reason behind a string of price cuts, but the company has included a solid set of tools at the second attempt.
PlayBook 2.0 includes email multitasking for tabbed email so users can “reference one email while they compose another”, while messages can be composed and edited using rich text features not usually associated with mobile devices.
The company also revealed an update to the BlackBerry operating system – version 7.1 – which the company said brought improvements to the BBM messaging service, and the ability to turn handsets into a Wi-Fi hotspot to share data with up to five other devices.
BlackBerry OS 7.1 is expected to appear in the coming weeks.
This article originally appeared at pcpro.co.uk
