RIM’s RSS reader app for the BlackBerry PlayBook has had a tiny update to now let you haul in your news feeds from Google Reader. The update to BlackBerry News for the PlayBook will also let you manuall mark stories as read or unread, delete stories, as well as drill down into detailed information about individual feeds.
BlackBerry News is an app borne out of RIM’s acquisition of Viigo, who did a lot of interesting stuff with RSS feeds a few years ago, most of which have disappeared since joining BlackBerry. Google Reader importing was one of those features, but as other apps like BerryReader surfaced and offered full two-way sync with read/unread status and adding stars, Viigo lost its appeal.
RIM has mentioned that they’ll be preloading an app called PressReader in the next PlayBook update, and I’m curious to see if it’s folded into BlackBerry News. That’s probably more wishful thinking than anything, since PressReader lets you buy digital editions of print newspapers, while BlackBerry News is simply just an RSS reader. Still, it would be nice to have individual feeds listed alongside purchased newspaper issues, don’t you think?
Go ahead and download the latest version of BlackBerry News for the PlayBook here. There’s also a smartphone counterpart available here.