BlackBerry 10 (video included) (1)

RIM released its next-generation operating system BlackBerry 10 at the BlackBerry World Conference last night. Given RIM's difficult situation in recent years, BlackBerry 10 is probably the last chance for this veteran full-keyboard mobile phone manufacturer.

During the speech, the new CEO Thorsten Heins put his mouth on "upgrading to a new stage", but the tone of the press conference was defense rather than attack. At the meeting, RIM executives repeatedly listed numbers to emphasize "Blackberry users are more commonly used than other smartphone users in social networks" and "Blackberry users download more applications than other smartphone users ", and pull Cisco, Salesforce.com, Citrix, occiper (RedLaser) and other large and small software companies to endorse in order to retain increasingly scarce BlackBerry developers.

Developers value the future. Only new systems can prove that the BlackBerry platform has a future and is worth investing. So although the BlackBerry 10 product will be available later this year, RIM will release the BlackBerry 10 developer Testing Machine "Dev Alpha" in advance. And the threshold is very low. Every BlackBerry Jam participant can receive one.

BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha development machine, picture from T3

Different from the prototype, the details of Dev Alpha are not necessarily related to the final product. However, the 4.2 inch display on the development machine indicates that BlackBerry 10 will be optimized for full touch screen devices, and the preferred resolution will be 1280x768. the aspect ratio is located between iOS and mainstream Android devices.

Software is the focus of Dev Alpha, but what you can see is limited. Specifically, the New York Times, Cnet, and mobile reporters found that the built-in Dev Alpha system was the revised PlayBook OS 2.0. However, RIM staff assured mongomobile that the kernel of BlackBerry 10 is the same as that of PlayBook OS 2.0 and will not affect development. Dev Alpha hides most interfaces, including the Application List. Currently, only the "flow" interface and virtual keyboard are supported.

BlackBerry-like virtual keyboard

The keyboard feel is the main reason why many users prefer blackberry. With a glance at the Twitter comments related to BlackBerry 10, you may find many people complain that BlackBerry without a full keyboard has no value. This is also the resistance of Blackberry's full touch screen design. The Blackberry 9500 tried to make up for the touch screen feel defect with a down-screen design, but the market feedback was terrible.

The Optimization of the BlackBerry 10 virtual keyboard is concentrated on the software layer. When you input text, the system will give a completion prompt based on your learning habits. Unlike Windows Phone, BlackBerry 10 does not display candidate words above the keyboard area, but directly displays text on the first letter.

Lenovo input comparison, BlackBerry 10 VS Sense 4 default keyboard

For example, after Black is completed, the word Blackwater appears on the top of the W key. Press W and slide up to enter "Blackwater ". This design is innovative and logical, because when Blackwater is input, the finger will subconsciously move to the top of the w key after leaving k, which is more convenient than the Candidate Entry.

More sliding gestures are also incorporated into the BlackBerry 10 keyboard. On the keyboard, long-distance sliding to the left directly deletes the words you just entered; sliding from the bottom up to the keyboard is switching between letters and numbers.

TechCrunch was lucky to have tried it ten minutes before the BlackBerry conference. The author spoke highly of the input experience:

"Even now (Alpha version), everything is very comfortable and smooth, and the addition of a few sliding gestures is definitely a plus ."

"It sounds like a small improvement, but it may have a huge impact on users-they don't care about the reason, they only care about the actual typing experience ."

Levin Michaluk of CrackBerry claims to be the world's top BlackBerry fan. his comment on the virtual keyboard is:

"Sliding by side is very good. I really believe this will become an addictive keyboard experience ."

The Cnet author was shocked after entering a few words:

"It's a magical experience, just like this phone is capable of reading your mind ."

"Flow" Interface

The main interface of BlackBerry 10 is four Windows Phone-like panes. The information in the pane is automatically updated. The entire UI of the system is very similar to the PlayBook tablet, but now more gestures are added. For example, slide a little from the right of the screen to reveal the notification bar; thoroughly slide from the right to the left of the screen to pull integrated text messages, emails, BBM and a variety of IM communication applications (Messaging ); sliding from left to right will also pull out the multi-task interface (which is similar to PlayBook and WebOS ).