BlackBerry 10 hands-on
Like any good show pony, BlackBerry 10's been trotting around the world, strutting the fairly limited elements of its known UI in an effort to court developers. The platform, without question the nail upon which RIM's fate and fortune hangs, had its big coming out party this past May at the company's showcase in Orlando, an event at which we also got to meet the Dev Alpha -- a glimpse into future hardware design -- and espy three main features of this new OS: camera, keyboard and app switching. What we didn't get, however, was any actual hands-on time with the software, leaving most members of the tech press to take Waterloo for its word.
Cut to the present and on this segment of RIM's dev-focused Jam tour, nearly two months later, we finally got a chance to cut through the smoke and mirrors of the company's polished powerpoint presentations to get some honest-to-goodness, up-close and personal time testing the software. So join us, won't you, after the break, where we'll delve into our first impressions of this Hail Mary in Motion.
Clearly, the crown jewel of the BlackBerry brand has always been its physical QWERTY keyboard, so it stands to reason RIM would want a good amount of initial focus on BB 10 to laser in on how that distinctive BB hardware feature translates to a touchscreen-only experience. The layout is clear and unfettered, with each letter taking up an appropriate amount of screen real estate to accommodate even the chunkiest of fingers. If you've seen videos of it in action, then you'll be glad to know it functions just as simply and intuitively as it's been portrayed. Pressing on any letter summons a host of predicted words that will then hover over corresponding characters, awaiting your eager flicks. So, for example, if you tap on the letter 'W,' a host of word choices will pop-up, such as 'with' over the letter 'I' or 'were' above the letter 'E.' To add those words to the text box, you need only to swipe up. Given time to learn your particular linguistic habits, the keyboard will eventually anticipate your word choices in keeping with the context of your message. Deletion also take the form of a natural and, again, intuitive gesture, as a gentle swipe to the left will complete that action. To minimize the keyboard, you gesture much like you do on the PlayBook, swiping up from the lower left hand corner.
At the moment, the dev unit we played with didn't have haptic feedback enabled for this next-gen touch type experience and when we pressed RIM for comment, they weren't able to assure us as to its eventual inclusion in final production hardware. Whether it does make the cut or not, we don't think many users will notice nor care, as they should be far too busy acquainting themselves with the refreshing efficiency text input takes on in this BB 10 incarnation. We're not entirely convinced it'll win over devotees of the company's physical keyboard -- tactile responsiveness still trumps the thumbs-on-glass alternative -- but users accustomed to other software keyboards may find themselves swayed by the abbreviated number of gestures needed.
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