BB10 features promise a fresh start for BlackBerry
After a quiet 2012, BlackBerry are ripening up for a flourish of 2013 smartphones running the future operating system; BlackBerry OS 10. Announced to app developers at the BlackBerry Jam event, are BB10’s new features sweet enough to attract new fans to the range? Here’s the latest news on BlackBerry OS 10 features.
BlackBerry Hub
At the forefront of BB 10’s features is the BlackBerry Hub. This becomes the one stop destination to view the latest emails, BBM’s, Facebook and Twitter updates. Replacing the traditional inbox seen on previous BlackBerry devices, the Hub BB10 feature handles notifications within the app, letting you Facebook share or Tweet without loading the necessary application.
BlackBerry Peek
Designed as an innovation of touch, Peek aims to be effortless and natural. Vice President of User Interface, Don Lindsay describes Peek to be as natural as glancing at your watch, to give you the information you need. In fact, to short cut this often used function, BB Peek lets you swipe from the bottom of the screen, to see the time and then down swipe to lock up instantly. When you receive a message whilst using an app, the latest BB10 feature lets you split the screen with a swipe to see if the message is important. It’s one of the great BB10 features that lets you prioritise on what to do next, without leaving your current application.
Improved Keyboard
Designed to improve the BlackBerry Flow, the BB10 keyboard features make life even easier. You can quick swipe the keyboard to load up the character and symbols menu. For those short on time, the keyboard predicts a few variations of your next word and positions these above the first letter. You can even swipe the keypad to make entire words disappear.
We believe the BB10 keyboard features will be fully realised if integrated with the popular BlackBerry Messenger.
BlackBerry Balance
BlackBerry smartphones may be good for business, but wouldn’t it be nice to separate work from pleasure? The BlackBerry Balance feature on BB10, sets up two profiles on your BB device. The work account can be monitored and administrated by your IT department but the personal profile gives you the freedom of your own smartphone experience. Should the phone get stolen this BB10 feature even lets your IT team erase confidential information remotely from the work profile.
BlackBerry App World evolves
The future of downloading apps from BlackBerry is also set to change. Moving forward with BB10, the BlackBerry App World will also provide the user with an array of music, films and TV show titles to download. It’s a step in the right direction that helped Google Play advance from the Android Market into a multimedia haven of exciting content. Currently BlackBerry App World has just over 100,000 active applications. Research in Motion have stated they will start accepting submissions for BB10 apps on October 10th. Hopefully with time this should give us a guide to how app developers are grasping the new BlackBerry Flow concepts into their own software.
BlackBerry OS 10 smartphones
With only the budget smartphone BlackBerry Curve 9320 released in the UK during 2012, it’s been a quiet year for BlackBerry. As advanced BB10 features are set to launch early 2013, there are great smartphones rumoured to make an appearance around this date.
The most premium handset codenamed the BlackBerry Laguna holds a 4.2 inch HD display and the latest 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor from Qualcomm. This is the same chip as the latest Windows Phone 8 handsets and will really help to enhance the BlackBerry Flow within the user interface. The BB Laguna will also boast an impressive 8 megapixel camera and 4G connectivity for ultrafast internet. With 5 other RIM handsets due for release in 2013, next year looks to be a fresh start for the Canadian brand.
BlackBerry OS 10 verdict
Overall, the new features for BlackBerry OS 10 focus heavily on getting things done. If BB10 features are backed up with an appealing selection of smartphone releases and an improved App World experience, BlackBerry can kiss goodbye to the dark days of 2011-12. Here’s to the sweet success of the future!