Today, RIM announced that they have acquired The Astonishing Tribe. While the majority of Android users may not be familiar with The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), we’re pretty sure that most of you reading this know at least some of their work. Within the mobile community, TAT is most well known for being at the forefront of handset UI innovation, with their UI elements on more than a half billion handsets. But for most of you here, The Astonishing Tribe’s most well know work is probably the UI elements of the original Android 1.0 build.

With their new acquisition, RIM plans on using the TAT team in further development of RIM’s PlayBook tablet. Though TAT is now under RIM’s umbrella, we hope that there’s still a chance they continue with their independent work by bringing new innovation to the Android and other platforms in the future.