The BlackBerry used to be the undisputed queen of mobile computing. In the days when “smartphone” wasn’t even in the culture’s lexicon, a little company named Research in Motion developed the BlackBerry, a device which could manage your email on a phone, unheard of in 2003. The company has gone through many iterations of their software and their edge has been lost in recent years with the arrival of the iPhone and Android options. The company, however, has refused to sink. In a highly-anticipated press conference, they announced their new line of phones and new BlackBerry OS, which promises to be redesigned from the ground up. They also announced their name change from Research in Motion to simply “BlackBerry.” So is it enough to bring the floundering company back from the brink? Possibly.
The new Operating System brings a host of new features, some of which are original and others which have been adopted from competitors. As BlackBerry has always been an Enterprise/Business solution, the new designs focus on speed and data accessibility. To this end the new operating system incorporates the BlackBerry Hub, a new feature. This “Hub” integrates all your notifications into one design, allowing you to check your texts, emails, Facebook, and BBM with a simple swipe while anywhere on the phone. It can be intimidating but will probably become more intuitive with use.
Possibly the best and certainly the most innovative feature in BlackBerry 10 is the keyboard. It scans through your emails and messages and generates a list of most-commonly used words and sentence structures. That way when you type, the word that you are most likely to type next appears above the next letter you’d have to type to spell the word. It’s a good replacement for touch-typing, as the majority of smartphone users have had to resort to hunting and pecking on virtual keyboards.
The new Operating System also includes many other features: an iPhone-like voice recognition package, a camera that lets you choose pictures from before you took them, an improved app and content store, and built-in Flash support. Add to this the usual host of phone improvements and you get a pretty solid phone. Only time and software updates will tell if the new phones will be able to reclaim some of BlackBerry’s territory in the smartphone market, but it looks to be a promising challenger. For the tech enthusiast or the businessperson who’s looking to use a more “serious” phone than some of the options offered by iPhone or Android, it’s a great choice.
About The Author: Andrea Eldridge is CEO and co-founder of Nerds On Call, a computer repair company that specializes in on-site and online service for homes and businesses. Andrea is the writer of a weekly column, Nerd Chick Adventures in The Record Searchlight. She prepares TV segments for and appears regularly on CBS, CW and FOX on shows such as Good Day Sacramento, More Good Day Portland, and CBS 13 News, offering viewers technology and lifestyle tips. See Andrea in action at callnerds.com/andrea/.
