RIM's Future vests on new Blackberry 10 platform

Blackberry maker RIM CEO Thorsten Heins gave a preview of the new Blackberry 10 OS with  smartphone(full touchscreen model without the traditional qwerty keyboard) and its features to its developers at a gathering on Tuesday in San Jose, California slated to release by first quarter of 2013.

An introductory video of  BB10 OS features is given below:
 

Early reviews of BlackBerry 10 have generally been positive -- but if RIM's future rests solely on the success of this OS, it has a lot of ground  to make up. Waterloo based RIM( the maker of  Blackberry) has lost a substancial portion of its market share worldwide with the customers tastes and preferences shifting  to Apple’s iOS and Android based platforms.

The company is now in dire need  to revamp its resources and financials so as to give an optimistic view to its customers and  investors in line with improving  its brand image. An atmosphere of pandemonium seems to be raging in Tech world over RIM’s future looking at its sales ,market share and financials.

According  to the lastest IDC report :

•        Shipments of Blackberry phones plummeted  41% over the year to 7.4 million  last quarter.

•         It’s Market Share has reduced to less than 5 % of the total smartphone devices worldover,lowest since 2009.

• Cash reserves are depleting  with only 2 billion $ in hand.

•   Its sales falled  43 % compared  to last year losing  512 million $ in a quarter itself.

•   RIM shares have lost 54% of their value in 2012 alone

On the silver lining ,it has added  2 million more subscribers this quarter making its total customer base to 80 million worldwide.BB10  OS too has received  opitimistic response from tech experts and markets.

RIM shares rose 37 cents, or 5.6 percent to $6.97 in midday trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday. The stock, which had been hovering around nine-year lows, had already risen almost 5 percent on Tuesday.RIM's Toronto-listed shares were up 5.4 percent at C$6.85 at midday on Wednesday.

Some interesting features of  BB10 OS expected to impress the markets are :

Lock Screen -  On switching on the device ,a more intuitive and useful lock screen experience comes up.Turning the device on, you can now see the useful and fun lock screen experience .

·        your finger from the bottom up unlocks the display, and as you move your finger you can literally see through to the OS. The OS will open back to wherever you left off.

·        Quick access to the camera is available through the lock screen, and there's also a preview of message

·        One interesting feature when you swipe down from the top on the lock screen brings the Bedside Mode which will literally tickle with invtations like gd ngt ,gd morning etc. 

Horizontal Scrolling in App Drawer – A change from Applicaton shotcuts scrolled vertically .We can now jump panes and rapid scroll through 5 panes of app in 1 go.

Active Frames - When apps are open but minimized, they appear on a dedicated pane on the home screen, where up to the most recent eight running apps are displayed. These are now referred to as Active Frames. Not widgets. Not live tiles.. For example, with BBM, the Active Frame will update to show you your most recent incoming message. 

BlackBerry Hub - BlackBerry Hub is the new name for the unified inbox on BlackBerry 10, which is a fitting name given that it's so much more than an email inbox. BBM, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, Linked in all integrate . At the launch of the BlackBerry 10 ,developers will be able to tie into the Hub for delivering notifications, and soon after will be able to tie right into the native Hub.

Quick Settings / Menus - Swiping down from the top of the phone of the screen reveals a quick settings menu. 

·        As for menus, with no physical "menu button" on BlackBerry 10 phones, the menu button is represented throughout the operating system via a graphic with three little dots. Core app functionality will mainly be displayed at eye level, but additional features and options are accessible via this menu overflow button.

·        When tapped, the menu slides in and can we swiped away. It's a really clean implementation.

One-Handed UI touches - A great example of the one-handed friendliness of BlackBerry 10 can be found in the web browser. Instead of putting the url bar at the top of the display, where it's out of easy reach of your thumb, it's been moved to the bottom of the browser sense that everything of importance is accessible from your thumb.

• Blackberry App World -One of the features that most excited to everyone was an updated BlackBerry App World, which now features the ability to directly purchase Music, Movies and TV shows. Now ,every BB user can make content purchases beyond apps and games using the unique  Blackberry ID assigned using one payment account via paypal,credit card and even carrier billing.

• Blackberry Messenger Amplified 

Pictures, Lists and Events are brought to the display layer and take advantage of the active frame functionality found on the BlackBerry 10 homescreen. For example, if a new picture is posted to a BBM group, the newest picture will display on the Active Frame within the Picture's active frame on the Group's homepage.

BBID will now play a roll in Blackberry Messenger.Instead of setting up a BBM list separately (backed  from email address or SD card),it will now be managed by BBID .Once logged in with BBID ,your BBM contacts will all be there.