Research In Motion on Wednesday confirmed that the PlayBook tablet will eventually receive an update to unify its operating system with next-generation BlackBerry smartphones.The PlayBook’s first major update was delayed by several months and the device still does not support BlackBerry Messenger, but RIM vice president of product management Rob Orr stated that the tablet will be upgraded from the PlayBook OS to BlackBerry 10 some time after the company launches its first BlackBerry 10 smartphone in the third or fourth quarter. “We’ve said publicly a number of times that our first BB10 handset will be available towards the end of 2012, and that’s still firmly the case,” Orr told TechRadar. “At some point after the launch we’ll bring BB10 to our PlayBooks, yes.” RIM took a $485 million charge related to the PlayBook in its fiscal third quarter, but it did manage to increase sales by slashing the price of the 7-inch slate. Now that all those tablets are in the hands of consumers, the hope is that RIM will manage to release a timely BlackBerry 10 update to ensure all the new features RIM is planning to introduce with BlackBerry 10 become available on tablets as quickly as possible.

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