The Blackberry Playbook tablet is one of the most discussed models here at AllTouchTablet, but unfortunately we all know sales were disappointing, mainly because RIM failed to deliver in time the native apps for Email, Calendar, Contacts and Blackberry Messenger, the services company’s smartphones are famous for.

    Things got even worse when RIM announced it won’t be able to offer the software update 2.0, the one with the aforementioned apps, before February 2012. Fortunately it seems that the deadline will be met, as RIM just demoed during Blackberry Innovation Forum the Email, Calendar and Contacts apps, which looked almost finished and worked flawlessly during the demo.

    What first hand participants at the conference had to say about the Email client is that it looks very much like a highly optimized smartphone app that knows how to take advantage of the extended screen area. There’s nothing special about the Calendar app, except the fact dates with more than usual events are displayed with larger fonts so that you can see at a glance if there are busy days coming or if you can relax and save your breath for later.

    As expected, the Contacts app is powered by Gist, a well known Blackberry service. In this case the bigger screen comes useful as more details about a contact are displayed without having to scroll the screen. RIM also demoed shortly the keyboad accessory which seems to be one of the best additions to the Blackberry Playbook tablet. Hope all of these are released soon, and the recent price reduction to $200 for the base 16 GB model will steer consumers and developers towards this tablet (I’d hate to see mine going to waste).

    Here’s a screenshot (low quality) from this event:

    Email and Calendar apps for BB Playbook

    Email and Calendar apps for BB Playbook

    If you want to see all more photos with the interface of the three apps follow this link.