RIM has been making headlines this week, and not always favorable ones, but here's a spot of good news -- AT&T has finally approved and unblocked the BlackBerry Bridge app, which should allow owners of RIM's 7-inch BlackBerry Playbook tablet to sync data with their phones. You should be able to find it at BlackBerry App World now, where it's a free download. (Search for "BlackBerry Bridge" there if it doesn't immediately show up.) Checking your email via BlackBerry won't cost you anything extra, by the way, but you will need an AT&T tethering plan to browse the web on your slate using your phone's cellular radio -- a bitter pill to swallow, especially for customers using grandfathered unlimited data plans that will undoubtedly be forfeit in exchange for the tablet browsing mode.

Given that Bridge is currently the only approved way to get email, contacts, calendars and messaging on the slate, we're not sure why AT&T took two and a half months to evaluate the app -- other carriers reportedly approved Bridge on day one, and it's been unofficially available for AT&T since April. We're glad it's here now, though.

Source: Inside Blackberry, via All Things D