BlackBerry 10, the newest member in BlackBerry family was introduced in May. The phone undoubtedly is the show pony whose success will determine the destiny of Research in Motion. However the company didn’t give the viewers a chance to have a look at the software back in May which is why nobody really knows much about the BlackBerry 10.
The only three features that the company is confident about and has made public include its camera, keyboard and app switching. For the rest of its features, RIM has chosen to keep the tech world in dark and therefore, one cannot really form a complete picture of the BlackBerry 10’s overall user experience.
The key feature that has always distinguished BlackBerry from its competitors is its QWERTY keyboard which the company has now chosen to replace with a complete touch experience in its newest OS. How touchscreen will rank against the successful QWERTY keypad is uncertain. As far as the layout is concerned, it is simple with the letters and alphabets being widely spaced. This makes the touch experience good because it makes place for even the heaviest and biggest of fingers. Apart from this, the keypad is also intuitive in its function. It predicts words according to the alphabets that you type and if given time to learn, it will present to you predictions while keeping in mind the context. Minimizing the keypad is also instantaneous as all you have to do is swipe up from the lower left hand corner.
On the left of the main homescreen lies the app grid, which consists of a list of applications which have been downloaded on to the device. If you launch any of these apps, it’ll automatically pin to the main homescreen and show a 4 x 4 layout along with other presently running apps.
BlackBerry 10 has been designed while keeping in mind multitaskers which form nearly 50 per cent of the BlackBerry user base. The main highlight of the software is its feature that lets you multitask swiftly. This feature of app switching is incredible and so is backtracking through workflow. The entire UI has been designed in order to make sure that the user gets an uninterrupted experience and therefore you won’t need to abandon existing applications to view incoming notifications. Instead you can have a sneak peek at the incoming mails, messages or notifications.
Whether BlackBerry10 on board will sink or sail is still undetermined as one cannot really say much without the complete end on user experience. Whatsoever may be the result; this is BlackBerry’s last chance to rise up again.
