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What’s new in BlackBerry 10? (video)

Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

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blackberry-10RIM BlackBerry just wrapped up its event revealing the final version of BlackBerry 10. After numerous delays, BlackBerry 10 is finally upon us, and it’s pretty awesome. The company is not only rethinking its phone offerings but has created a whole BlackBerry World ecosystem that it hopes to lure new users with. To see just how far BlackBerry has come, check out James’s post about the history of the BlackBerry OS.

BlackBerry 10 has been completely re-imagined and modernized. Here are the most significant features in BlackBerry 10.

  • Touch keyboard: BlackBerrys have always been known for their stellar physical keyboards and that’s why BlackBerry had to nail its touch keyboard. Predictions will populate as you type and it seems to work very well. Simply swipe up to choose that prediction. BlackBerry users who value the ability to quickly respond to email and texts will still be able to do so with this touch screen keyboard. Fans of gesture/swipe typing will have to look elsewhere. BlackBerry still offers phones with physical keyboards that run BlackBerry 10.

blackberry 10 keyboard

  • Flow UI: This is the most interesting and intuitive part of BlackBerry 10. The entire interface can be controlled by gestures. For example, if you want to multitask, simply swipe up from the bottom bezel to activate the multitasking pane. Notifications work similarly by swiping up from the middle of the bottom bezel. Users can swipe down and hold from the middle of the screen to activate the BlackBerry Balance feature (more on that later).
  • BlackBerry Remember: Have trouble remembering tasks? BlackBerry Remember is a powerful to-do and organization application. You can save bookmarks, create tasks, schedule reminders, and organize them into folders. It even syncs with Evernote.
  • Time shift camera: This feature will make sure you get just the right shot. the camera app will take a series of shots that you can scrub forward and backward to the time you like best. You can share your photos directly from the camera app as well.

BlackBerry Time Shift

  • BlackBerry Story Maker: This is a simple video editing application that will let you create videos with text, audio, and effects to show off your video.
  • BlackBerry Browser: BlackBerry boasts that it has created the quickest mobile browser. Regardless of this hyperbole, the new BlackBerry Browser is indeed very speedy. It fully supports HTML5, which means you can access tons of web apps built on that language. In our test, the BlackBerry browser was as fast as Safari on the iPhone and speedier than Chrome on our Android devices.

blackberry 10 browser

  • BlackBerry Hub: Those who receive a lot of notifications throughout the day may find it a bit annoying to bounce in and out of each app to deal with things as they happen. BlackBerry Hub offers a centralized place where every event on your phone will appear. This means that dealing with a bunch of different things is as efficient as possible. You can sort these notifications by type and they’re expandable by dragging down, sort of like how Android’s notifications work.

BlackBerry 10 hub

  • Active Frames: These are the active multitasking cards that you see when you activate the multitasking menu. Apps can either show a thumbnail of the application or more specific and detailed information. For example, it’s a bit pointless to show just a small thumbnail of the calendar app so the Active Frame will show your next few appointments instead.

blackberry_10_active_frames

  • BlackBerry Balance: This is a very interesting feature that BlackBerry can leverage for the corporate user. Many people have a work phone (usually a BlackBerry) and a personal phone. BlackBerry 10 wants you to consolidate those devices into one BlackBerry device. You can have tabs for personal and work so you don’t have to look at your work stuff if you just want to deal with some personal texts and emails.

BB10 Balance

  • BlackBerry World: BlackBerry finally catches up to the other smartphone operating systems by having apps that others platforms have been enjoying for years. There are over 70,000 apps and over “1,000 top applications” at launch. BlackBerry World also features movies, TV shows, music, and more.

blackberry world

BlackBerry 10 will be available mid-March for the US, February 5th for Canada, and tomorrow in the UK. This is by far the most ambitious update to the BlackBerry OS ever but can it stand up to Android, iOS, and Windows Phone even though it showed up so late to the game? Let us know in the comments.

Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

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