Although Research in Motion has admitted it won’t be releasing any revolutionary BlackBerry smartphones until much later in the year, it doesn’t stop BB fanatics hunting high and low for snippets and clues about any new phones and pieces of software in development.
One thing BlackBerry fans have to look forward to this year is the introduction of BlackBerry 10 – a brand new and completely refreshed operating system for a new breed of BlackBerry smartphones and tablets. It’s based on QNX software, a company which RIM bought out not so long ago, and promises to bring the BlackBerry brand bang up to date and in-line with the likes of iPhone and Android.
BlackBerry news site Crackberry has gotten its hands on some screenshots and pictures of a phone running BlackBerry 10 software, giving us an idea of how some features will change. Check out the gallery below for all images. We can see a revamped home screen which lays out app icons (which look much bigger and better) in a grid format akin to iOS. At the bottom of the home screen are three touch boxes for phone calls, universal search and the camera app – from what we’re seeing already it looks as though RIM is finally getting it right and making a nice, simple and good-looking user interface.
BlackBerry 10 also appears to feature support for multimedia widgets, as one image shows a screen with four tiles. From what we can tell, the tiles appear to be ‘live’, so much like Windows Phone, they will constantly update. For instance one tile shows album art and track information for what you’re listening to on your BlackBerry, one offers live weather updates based on your location, and one updates to show how many minutes you have left and even the duration of your last call.
One of the things that BlackBerry does best is communication and interaction – the devices are famed for their excellent email functionality, plus instant messaging on the BlackBerry Messenger platform. BlackBerry 10 will feature a ‘Universal Inbox’ which pulls in everything; Email, SMS, MMS, Facebook, BBM, Twitter and more. Although we only have a basic screen grab of this feature, it’s already looking promising.
At long last, video calling looks set to be a possibility with BlackBerry devices. A screen shot of the contacts application clearly shows the option to Video Chat, and the overall contact layout looks excellent with a large photo displayed above the calling options.
BlackBerry 10 is looking promising – albeit with some design aspects and areas looking suspiciously borrowed from other mobile operating systems – but we’ll just have to wait a little longer to get our hands on it.
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Source: Crackberry