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The first BlackBerry smartphone to be running Research in Motion’s new operating system BB10 is expected to go on sale in October, a new report claims.
The embattled Canadian company is expected to make the big announcement and unveil sometime in August, with the handset following a couple of months later, according to news site N4BB.
Earlier this year, new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins confirmed that the new OS and device would be ready for the “later half of 2012” but was unable to give a firm date.
BB10 is seen as a last chance to turn the fortunes of the company around as they’ve been losing customers in droves to both Apple and Android recently.
One of the reasons why Blackberry is spending so much time on its new OS is the software will the be the backbone for future growth could save the company from a being broken up and sold off.
Ex Co-CEO of RIM, Mike Lazaridis, said that the company had been spending a lot of time making sure their new OS was the most HTML5 compatible software in the world. So we can expect a brilliant browser with full HTML5 support on board.
Rumours are also suggesting that RIM might look to license its new OS to other handset manufacturers, after RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said the company had to broaden its partnerships with other manufacturers.
Not a lot is known about the eagerly-awaited software at present, but its is thought that BB10 will combine the best aspects of the existing BlackBerry 7 and the QNX OS which appeared on the BlackBerry PlayBook.
That first device is widely believed to be the BlackBerry London, which will reportedly boast a new form-factor, ditching the QWERTY keyboard, and will sport a metallic case and a full touchscreen.
The new OS hasn’t been seen in the wild just yet, but it’s expected to use a tiled UI similar to Window Phone where tiles of information, whether it email or tweets, will be shown in real-time on the homescreen.
The first handset to feature a QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen using a slider design is expected to come sometime in early 2013 and is likely to be a new version of the Torch or Bold, according to N4BB.
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