Saturday 9 February 2013

BlackBerry OS 10 Phones


February, 09,2013
Research In Motion (now Blackberry) has eventually come out with its long awaited BlackBerry OS 10(latest BlackBerry Operating System). This brought about a concurrent launch of new BlackBerry OS 10 Phones as revealed on the 30th of January, 2013 to be sold first in the UK. The OS took over a period of 15 months to develop and was postponed from the earlier expected date of launch which ought to have been the last quarter of 2012.

The first phones to carry the BB OS 10 are the BlackBerry Z10 and the BlackBerry Q10. The BlackBerry Z10 is a 4.2inch touch screen Smartphone while the Q10 is smaller with 3.1inch AMOLED touch screen and a physical keyboard.

The basic thing that differentiates a gadget in the like of Computers and Smartphones is the Operating System (OS). This serves as the platform on which every other software such as Applications runs and thereby displays the beauty and the distinctiveness of the gadget. Hence the much celebrated Apple iPhone , iPad series and the Android based gadgets came into prominence all because of their Operating systems.

In the light of the foregoing, the BlackBerry OS 10 Phones are expected to showcase the cutting edge Operating System, a killer Application capable of outperforming its competitors such as iOS and Android based phones.

The BlackBerry OS 10 Phones demonstrate a new approach or a departure from what BlackBerry Smartphone OS is known for and perhaps a slightly steep learning curve. However if you are used to Smartphone as a number of analysts have rightly pointed out, it is a matter of playing around with the phone Applications and in a couple of hours you get to know it all.

The Blackberry OS 10 Phones came with a new home screen interface. The BlackBerry Z10 4.2 inch locked screen with time, date, notifications, upcoming calendar events and a camera icon for a quick snap shot displayed on the background of a blue gradient interface. The only thing is nothing can be done on them until when the screen is unlocked. The icons are large enough and eye catchy. Eight applications can run same time while four of it can be optimised in small windows on the screen simultaneously.
This kind of advanced multi-tasking environment afford users the ease of switching from one Application already open to another without necessarily closing it if perhaps there is a need to come back to it. Worthy of note also on the screen interface is the easy of navigation from one application to the other without having to resort to the buttons.


According to Thorsten Heins the BlackBerry Chief Executive, the aim for the new BlackBerry 10 OS Hub is to create something different from rival phones. These enable users to “flow” through the Application using swipes and on the screen gestures than having to switch in and out of Applications.

The BlackBerry Hub brings together in one platform messages and notifications from different messaging centres such as email account, twitter, Facebook, Linkedln, SMS messages and BlackBerry Messenger in one inbox. With one click away you can access any of these notifications.

In BlackBerry OS 10 Phones two key terms are prominent when it comes to home screen navigation. These are “Flow” and “Peek”. Flow is a concept that depicts that one can navigate through to different Applications by gesture alone without hardware resorting hardware buttons. Why Peek depicts the gesture that reveals notifications in the form of SMS or other icons embedded in the Hub.

The BlackBerry Messenger receives an upgrade on the BlackBerry OS 10 platform. It is now possible to exchange video messages (video chatting) in addition to the upgrade that came with BlackBerry OS 7 which made audio messaging available.

Another striking improvement brought about by the BlackBerry OS 10 which has been one of the major shortcomings of the then RIM products is the Web Browser. The new Web Browser is very fast and matches head to head with its competitors.

It will be too early to conclude on the market reception of the BlackBerry OS 10 Phones as some reviewers are already sceptical of the in availability of killer features that can buy into the hearts of BB loyalists who were perhaps lost to its competitors.

It should be noted that that BlackBerry has not release any substantial products for the past fifteen months and with the different developments in the Smartphone market one cannot but buy into a system that provides a difference substantial enough to woe allegiance.

Since BlackBerry has made available similar features to those obtainable on iOS and Android based phones and still consistent with its own peculiarities, there is no doubt that the new BlackBerry 10 OS Phones will make an impression and eventually have a market success. For more BlackBerry OS 10 Specifications you can read BlackBerry 10 OS Phones