You can tell that Research in Motion rushed the BlackBerry PlayBook to market. They didn’t want to miss the wave, so they released a product that wasn’t quite finished yet. Despite being out for just three months, the PlayBook is set to receive its fourth official update. And this is a good one too.

The newest update from RIM offers several new functions and features. First, you can now do the pinch-to-zoom thing while watching videos. That’s not a huge deal, but I think it’s a nifty addition. You can also finally view your photos in portrait mode, save attachments to your SD card or your phone’s internal memory, and go international with support for 15 additional languages.

For the corporate and business crowd, it’s also great to see that you can finally extract those ZIP files that your colleagues have been sending you via e-mail. You will need to use Bridge and port from your BlackBerry smartphone, but at least you can see what Joe from accounting means when he refers to the 15 TPS reports he just sent you.

This is the V1.0.7 update, and unfortunately it’s been stalled. Blackberry yanked it down and posted an explanation on Twitter, “Some users were experiencing issues with Bridge & 1.0.7. We expect to release an update with a fix later this week.” Sounds like Blackberry rushed this update too.

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A recent software update to the Nexus One phone from Google will include “pinch-to-zoom” multi-touch capabilities, an attempt to improve 3G connectivity, and direct accessibility to Google Goggles, where searching the web is done with pictures, not words.

The new version of Google Maps will let users pinch-to-zoom on a map, it will also work the same in Google’s photo app Gallery. The word “multitouch” is apparently trademarked, so Google’s pinch-to-zoom name is what they have coined for it.

Google Maps 3.4 will include: Starred items synchronized with maps.google.com – access your favorite places from your phone or computer, search suggestions from your personal maps.google.com history – makes it easy to search for places you’ve searched for before, night mode in Google Maps Navigation – automatically changes your screen at night for easier viewing and driving.

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