BlackBerry 10 OS has already encountered some serious hurdles, like having to give up the name BBX following a trademark dispute in Canada. The forthcoming OS update has been talked about as being a make-or-break release when it arrives later this year on RIM’s first QNX-powered BlackBerrysmartphone. Curious as to whether or not RIM has what it takes to right the ship with OS 10? Take a look at these new leaked images and see what you think.
It’s clear from these images that BlackBerry 10 is moving further away from RIM’s previous phone operating systems and heading down the path established by the PlayBook. The result so far also takes cues from Android and iOS with an app tray and a greatly simplified status bar along the top of the screen. One thing we can’t see here is how the new OS will handle notifications — hopefully they’ll implement a system that’s much
more elegant than the cluttered mess that ate up half the screen on older BlackBerry OSes.
more elegant than the cluttered mess that ate up half the screen on older BlackBerry OSes.
Also coming in BlackBerry OS 10 is Android-style widget support. In the image above, you can see a quartet of examples: music, weather, maps, and a slick phone usage widget that tracks your voice minute usage. RIM has also put some polish on the unified inbox, which displays incoming email, SMS, MMS, and BBM messages in one spot.
An additional shot of the updated contacts app reveals that BlackBerry 10 OS will feature integrated video calling between BlackBerry users a la Facetime on iOS. Video calling is already built into PlayBook OS, so it’s not really a surprise to see that RIM has enabled it on next-gen BlackBerry handsets, too.
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