Hopefully you BlackBerry PlayBook owners heeded my advice from yesterday and got your device charged up and ready to be updated, because the PlayBook OS 2.1 update is officially rolling out today. RIM announced the news on its Inside BlackBerry blog, confirming that the update will begin rolling out today to Wi-Fi-only versions of the PlayBook, while the 4G LTE-enabled models are expected to receive it within the next month.
The OS 2.1 update contains several improvements, including the ability to view and compose text messages on the PlayBook using BlackBerry Bridge with a BlackBerry smartphone and support for portait orientation in the email, calendar and contacts apps. Also included is better Android app support, which brings things like the ability to run apps in separate windows, camera support and in-app payments.
If you own a BlackBerry PlayBook and want to get in on all of that newness, you can manually check for the update on your device by going into the Software Updates section of the device's settings and hitting Check for Updates. The update sounds like a pretty beefy one, and although I doubt that PlayBook owners really need much pushing to install the update, new features like portait orientation support in the email and calendar apps as well as improved Android app support make the PlayBook OS 2.1 update sound pretty worthwhile. PlayBook owners, be sure to give us a shout in the comments below once you get the OS 2.1 update installed!
