Research In Motion (RIM) President & CEO – Thorsten Heins – launched the new QNX-based BlackBerry 10 operating system and unveils the full-touchscreen Z10 and physical keyboard-equipped Q10 smartphones.
RIM is also renaming itself as BlackBerry from today.
Shareholders’ response to the launch inside. All images in this article were screen-grabbed from webcast of the event.
The first manifestation of the new BlackBerry 10 – the full-touchscreen Z10 (left) and physical keyboard-equipped Q10 (right).
The basic premise of the new “BlackBerry experience” is about extending connectivity to everything around users – connecting the phone to the car, sound system, healthcare system etc.
Availability of Z10
- Jan 31: UK
- Feb 5: Canada (C$149)
- Feb 10: UAE
- Feb 21?: Singapore
- March: USA (pre-orders without pricing from today)
* Q10 may be 1 month behind.
Three overarching innovations to enable this are the BlackBerry Hub, Peek and Flow.
Hub is akin to the People Hub of Microsoft Windows Phone operating system and consolidates all people related and social network information and updates in one place.
Peek allows smooth multi-tasking without having to switch between apps – much like partially flipping the page of a book to peer at another book while keeping the current page in view.
BlackBerry Hub consolidates all notifications while Peek allows you to check quick updates in other apps without having to switch apps.
The driving principle is Flow – a smooth, fluid user experience when using a BlackBerry 10 device.
Two devices were unveiled: a 4.2-inch full-touchscreen Z10 and a physical keyboard-equipped Q10 smartphone that looks like the Bold.
The demos showed how these phones could be used largely with one hand – in fact, most manipulations could be accomplished with a single thumb.
The new BlackBerry 10 operating system is based on QNX. The decision to replace the previous operating system for the new platform was taken two years ago.
Starting from scratch, BlackBerry World already has some 70,000 apps, including the major popular apps that users need on their smartphones.
President & CEO of RIM (now BlackBerry) welcoming users back to the BlackBerry fold at the global launch of BlackBerry 10 in New York.
For its mainstay BlackBerry Messenger app, video has been added. There is now BBM Video Chat and BBM Screen Share.
Video comes to BlackBerry Messenger, in the form of Video Chat and Screen Share.
For those frustrated at having to carry two phones – one for work and another for personal use – BlackBerry Balance will allow corporate workers to use a BlackBerry 10 smartphone for both, with one-touch switching between spaces but with updates/notifications consolidated together.
New organic BlackBerry Apps
For the super-organised, the new BlackBerry Remember app does pretty much what Evernote does and integrates with the latter.
BlackBerry 10 apps on BlackBerry include:
WorldSkype, Amazon Kindle, Whatsapp, Angry Birds, SAP, Facebook, Twitter, news readers from the major news publishers.
A BlackBerry Timeshift feature takes multiple shots so that you can pick the best exposure.
Picture Editor allows photo retouching like the editor in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, while Story Maker combines video and photos into a movie, as per Apple’s iPhoto for iOS.
In an effort to rejuvenate its image, the company has created a new position of Global Creative Director and has appointed “prodigal-user” Alicia Keys to the job.
BlackBerry Remember to help you keep your life organised.
The R&B singer used to be BlackBerry fan – started using other makes – but is now back in the BlackBerry fold.
As for the PlayBook tablet, a BlackBerry 10 update is on the works but Heins mentioned that BlackBerry is rethinking its strategy before introducing any new models.
Below is a snapshot of the stock market response to the launch.
Update from Bloomberg (30 January, 2013):
BlackBerry’s market share had fallen to a quarter of what it was three years ago.
So the launch of BlackBerry 10 was what Bloomberg called a “do-or-die moment for the company” – a chance to “reverse that slide and help return the company to profitability”.
According to IDC, BlackBerry was poised for third place (as at end of 2012) with 4.7% of the global market – behind Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android – which together speaks for 90% of the market.
As at the end of last quarter, BlackBerry had an installed base of 79 million subscribers.
Since his appointment last year, Heins has tried to turn around the company, axing 30% of its workforce to try save $1 billion.
Although RIM’s stock had more than doubled since late September, the shares have been losing those gains throughout this week, culminating in today’s drop.
Tags: Apps, BBM, BlackBerry, BlackBerry 10, launch, operating systems, Q10, Research In Motion, RIM, smartphones, Thorsten Heins, Z10
[…] Update (30 January, 2013): […]