Screenshots: BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0
The new-look App World drops the carousel in favour of a set of tiles rather reminiscent of Microsoft's Metro.
Screenshots: Simon Bisson/ZDNet UK
PlayBook OS 2.0 finally adds a native Messaging app — mixing email and social messaging tools in once place.
Messages lets you work with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as several email accounts.
To set up email, just fill in an email address and a password, and let PlayBook OS do the rest.
If you need to set up mail manually, you can choose between Exchange, common webmail services, plus IMAP and POP.
Once connected, you can choose what to synchronise. Here we're connecting to an Exchange email server, for messages, contacts and calendar.
Messages brings email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn into one single, unified mailbox, with support for rich HTML mail.
PlayBook OS 2.0's message editor supports rich formatting, as well as setting urgent flags.
You can drill into individual accounts, as well as showing a unified mailbox.
As well as sending email, you can use Messages for social messaging — like sending Twitter DMs.
The PlayBook OS 2.0 Calendar uses typography to show how busy a day is: the larger the number, the more appointments you have.
Click into an appointment to see who you are meeting, and to get more information about your contacts.
Press and hold items on the PlayBook front screen to delete unwanted apps, or to move them into folders or the task launcher.
The task launcher is always visible when you're switching between apps, ready to launch favourites like the browser, or Messages.
Create a folder by dragging one app on top of another, then give your new folder a name. Additional apps can be dropped into the folder.
Documents To Go includes a tool for editing and creating Word documents, with drop-down formatting tools in the toolbar.
Similarly there's an Excel editor, with support for cell formatting and for functions.
New messages are shown by an icon in the top left of the main screen. Just click to open Messages.
The browser's reading view gives you an uncluttered look at a web page you've already loaded. Just rotate to portrait to get the best possible reading experience.