What To Expect From RIM's BlackBerry 10

Over the years, it feels like it's been a constant battle between BlackBerry and iPhone. Some would say that BlackBerry is for business and iPhone is for play. Regardless, both brands have their own awesome features. While iPhone offers customers a full touch screen device and thousands of incredible, exclusive apps (i.e. Instagram – one of the largest photo sharing platforms), BlackBerry has always offered their clients a physical keyboard and a Personal Identification Number (PIN). With this, you can directly message another BB phone through PIN messages or BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) – in other words, you don’t need to use a phone number.

Although both mobile phone brands have had their glitches with software and device speediness, iPhone has always seemed to come out on top over BlackBerry. Many have been “converting” from BlackBerry to iPhone (my BBM contact list has dropped over 30 contacts in the past year due to this). While being extremely tempted to make the switch, I’m holding off for the release of RIM’s newest software – BlackBerry 10.

Photo Source: http://bgr.com/2012/10/31/blackberry-10-release-q1/

The new software will provide plenty of innovative features that BlackBerry owners have never seen before, the following are just a few of many to mention. The first phone (Dev Alpha) is designed to have a full touch screen; the second will have a physical keyboard. There will be no more ‘home’ button, all menus are accessible from just one swipe. The ‘flow’ feature will allow movement from one application to another without having to lift a finger, and the time-shift camera is incredible. See for yourself here.

But, what we really want to know is, will BlackBerry 10 offer the amazing apps that iPhone and Android users all have access to? The answer is yes. Nick Dawson, Director of enterprise sales at RIM, stated that over 100 thousand apps are expected to be available by the time of BlackBerry 10’s release date (Q1 of 2013).
 
Even Instagram? According to sources of Kevin Michaluk, founder of CrackBerry.com, RIM continues to have a strong relationship with Facebook (now owner of Instagram) and customers can expect to see Instagram on the new BlackBerry 10 software. Now that’s more like it.
 
Here’s to hoping that BlackBerry 10 doesn’t disappoint. For me, this is RIM's last chance.


Written By: Angela Cole