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It has been reported by The Washington Post that the first BlackBerry 10 device will not feature the company’s trademark QWERTY keyboard, but instead will be completely touch based.
Don’t panic though, it would seem that this is not a permanent choice by RIM, as it’s reported that full QWERTY keyboard hardware will still feature on future models.
It’s thought that RIM will start selling BlackBerry 10 devices later on this year, however a spokesperson has refused to narrow down an actual date as to when.
The fact that RIM has decided to have a go at developing another touch based device is not really that surprising – after all, the company’s biggest competitors are arguably Apple and Google, and both their touch-based operating systems are doing well to say the least.
OK, so it didn’t go too well for RIM last time they released a solely touch-based device, but it’s very important that they have another go, and more importantly get it completely right the second time round. This may partly be the reason that BlackBerry 10 has been delayed by about a year now.
RIM is very much hoping that BlackBerry 10 will be exactly what users have been waiting for, an OS which offers multimedia capabilities, Internet browsing and most importantly, the app experience that is very much in demand.
But at the same time, there are still a lot of corporate customers that have stuck with BlackBerry purely because of its physical keyboard, simply because a lot of users are of the impression that it’s harder to type emails on a touch screen device.
Therefore, some will say that it seems to be quite a gamble for RIM to release the brand new BlackBerry 10 OS on a touch-only device. Now while the company is not really in a position where it can afford to lose such as gamble, if it pays off, we might start to see RIM regaining some of the market share it once had.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.
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