RIM Acquires TAT, Promises Better UI on BlackBerry Phone, PlayBook Tablet

Research in Motion’s mobile computing devices, including the company’s BlackBerry smartphones and its upcoming PlayBook tablet, will soon be getting a user interface facelift thanks to a recent acquisition of TAT, known as The Astonishing Tribe. TAT has shown off clever user interfaces and was instrumental in creating the UI design for the first iteration of Google’s Android OS. Combining RIM’s ease of use on the BlackBerry platform and TAT’s UI design should give the platform a more modern look. Whether TAT was involved in any of the PlayBook’s user interface designs from the start thus far is unclear, and if they weren’t it’s also unclear if TAT’s design talents can be put to use at this stage into the PlayBook’s UI, which is slated to launch in 2011.