More RIM Woes: PlayBook OS 2.0 Delayed Until February

Oh RIM, you just can’t catch a break, can you? Just a month after teasing the next PlayBook OS’ October debut (and demoing it at DevCon), the company is backtracking on that timeline.

CNET reports that RIM’s senior vice president for the BlackBerry PlayBook, David Smith, announced in a blog post that the company is pushing back the release to February. In his post, Smith explained that the company “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.”

The PlayBook OS 2.0 is the key ingredient in RIM’s effort to revive its tablet’s appeal. Currently, the PlayBook requires users to connect a BlackBerry smartphone to access many essential features, such as e-mail and messaging. The PlayBook OS 2.0 will bring native calendar, e-mail, and contact apps to the tablet, though it still won’t bring BlackBerry Messenger on board.

While the next version of the OS could do a lot to quell users’ complaints about the tablet, it has to make it to market before the PlayBook is swallowed up by a new wave of iPad competitors. In the interim, it comes down to how many BB loyalists will  hold out for the promised update. (And with iOS 5 making the iPad 2 all the more appealing, we don’t imagine there will be many.)

via CNET

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