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Vietnamese site Tinhte (link currently down) claims to have gotten its hands on some advanced screenshots of BB10, which is expected to launch at the end of next month. For the revamped operating system, it looks like RIM has taken pieces from Apple, Google, and Microsoft competitors and jammed them together. It’s the best looking thing RIM has ever done, but sadly, it still doesn’t look very good.
First, a disclaimer: These are supposed leaks that we can’t verify but based on what we’ve seen from an offical video before, these are totally believable screenshots of the forthcoming OS.
The overall UI is pretty conservative, which isn’t terrible considering the prototypical BlackBerry user needs something easy to use. The homescreen and pull down menus look like a direct descendent of Samsung’s TouchWiz skin for Android. The icon design is pretty horrendous. What’s up with the shadowing behind the icons and why is the LinkedIn icon bigger than the others? Hopefully that dimension within the icon will be standardized for the final version. The skeuomorphic page flapping in the wind on the calendar icon doesn’t bode well either. Also, please tell us which enterprise Blackberry client is going to enjoy an app called story maker.
Here we see what appears to be some kind of voice search application. A Siri for Blackberry perhaps. The boxy design of those dialogues sure reminds us of Windows Phone, but that square microphone button at the button doesn’t quite do it for us. Maybe RIM is just trying to avoid getting sued by Apple over the design of the Siri mic button.
Blackberry Hub is the central messaging system for BB10. Hard to judge from what we see here. But then, it’s a little worrisome that we can’t tell what’s going on from a graphical UI standpoint by glancing at it either. It all looks very redundant.
Mercifully, Twitter and Facebook look more or less the way they do on other mobile operating systems.
We’ll see what RIM shows us when BB10 is officially launch on January 30 in NYC.
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The square button at the button? Yes.
Agreed, looks like a shite TouchWiz. Isn’t the LinkedIn smaller than the others, with the Foursquare being the biggest?
Gizmodo seems to have made a habit of disliking everything about Blackberry, which is a shame as it used to be a fairly non-biased blog once upon a time.
On another note, the operating system is all based around being fluid, so the screenshots won’t do any new features such as Blackberry HUB any justice, you need to seem them in action.
Also it will be interesting to see how they re-write the OS for their Physical keyboard device.
Aye, I totally agree. Having said that, neon blue on pitch black only reminds me of the first time I’ve seen ICS on Galaxy Nexus. Lets hope BB live on
So because one person says it looks crappy, means it must be?
I find iOS unfathomable and awkward to use, but people still use it after they adapted to it, and now there are people who must have every new apple product, occasionally because they can’t use any other phone.
If it’s crappy when physically using it, then fine. Until then, I see nothing wrong. It looks more appealing for people who want something that isn’t glitzy and pretentious.
“I find iOS unfathomable and awkward to use”
Wow, really !! Best you stop reading tech sites then, you must struggle to use a computer too…
How so? Using something that works counterintuitive, can be awkward and unfathomable. I don’t see how this affects using technology as a whole.
Whats counterintuative about it. iOS is one of the easiest OS’s to use. Even my mum can use it and she only got her first computer this time last year. Seriously if you find iOS difficult to use then I struggle to see how you even get dressed in the morning.
Almost everything about iOS is counterintuitive but let me give you a couple of examples:
I’m not going to mention how emails, messages and etc. are pushed through even though I think this is almost as important as UI and UX.
- Locked screen new whatsapp message, responding to notification takes to the conversation you are notified about, right? Wrong. You go to last conversation open. How great of UX is this?
- Unless you want to upgrade to iOS 6 and get the worst maps ever created by human race embedded into every single app that uses navigation. You are stuck with previous iOS versions Where if you want to attach anything to an email you are currently writing you have to go back to file, picture, or whatever you want to attach and start over.
- And then there is the in and out of app mechanic, which is married to home button. In my view this mechanic is very old. 5 years for an OS is a mellenia in human years. I rather A little bit more time learning how the OS works and than save 40%-50% operating it. Rather than everything being simple but unforgivably slow, backdated and ineffective.
Just to let you know I’ve owned an iPhone 4S for about a year, worst phone I ever had.
I don’t reckon these are legit screenshots. The UI is just too shit and borrows too heavily from everything else out there to be real.
The UI is definitely real, I had a play on one of these a couple of weeks ago with a BB rep. Im not generally a Blackberry fan, (I have a Lumia 920). But the main things that were positive were.
1. Amazing build quality – And it was a prepro.
2. The UI was fast, fluid and was easy to operate.
3. The browser destroyed every phone in the room in web speed tests. The phones were a mix of GS3′s, Ip4s/5′s Nokia Lumias and BB’s
The UI in particular was a good balance between modern and corporate.
Im certainly tempted to get one when it arrives.
how much are they paying you to say that
Not a dime im afraid
I couldn’t be more critical of the current bb offerings if I tried, they really have been poor over the last 3 years or so. But this was honestly a good device in the minimal time I had to play with it.
Some of the features, like the notification area were a little quirky, but all in all it was a good device.
BB if you are listening, I am open to royalty payments
It doesn’t really matter how great all that stuff is if people are left with the disastrous app store that Blackberry have been lumbered with in the past.
I don’t see any way they (or Windows phone) will be able to compete with Apple and Google after they have such a huge head start on quality, range and number of apps available.
isn’t the ‘Hub’ the all-in-one message centre – so collates all notifications … as shown in the picture?
If so… seems pretty rubbish journalism for bashing something you don’t even understand…
“why is the LinkedIn icon bigger than the others”
it’s not, the four square one is though.
Do i win a prize yet?
not this again!
Sorry Bhenn, but i’m like a dog with a bone, all slobbery and stinky.
They have a bone in their penis you know!
Oh Dear. Lets not start dragging the conversation down to the level of discussing penises, for where does that end up? Trouble, thats where.
I too have also been lucky enough to have a nose around one of these devices. And I have to say I really like it… I have had iPhones since the 3G and starting to feel a little cheated by Apples half baked releases. I quality of phone the BB are offering is superb. Such attention to detail.. Just wait till you hold one and use some of the features that Rim are leading the way with.. Remember this isn’t a phone designed to be like any other, you’ll get that when you use the UI… It’s well intense!
Nice to see all the BB fanboys coming out to defend BB10
Unfortunately, all I see is a “me too” UI that offers nothing new over the existing phone OS’s out there. Will it cause me to go back to BB? Not in the slightest. WP8 tried something new with the live tiles but this just looks like a tired Android skin lacking in innovation. People will jump ship if they perceive there to be something new/different but unless I am missing something, this is just one big “Meh!”.
a ‘me too’ UI? Have you seen the videos of the s/w rather than images? The phone’s UI is based around the core function of the phone – data (voice, email, text) – and has a slick approach for this.
“Slick” you say? Wow. Why didn’t they mention that in the article. I’m sold!
As it happens, yes, I have the videos and no, it doesn’t change my mind – still a clone of iOS and Android.
this article is rubbish anyway lol, doesn’t mention lots of stuff like the camera app.
If the peek feature is in android or iOS, please let me know where I can get it
There may be some interesting features like peek, but at the rate of adoption of Android and the speed of their development, these will be absorbed into future versions of Android anyway. Unless you come up with something radically different (like WP8), there isn’t much to differentiate BB10. Add to that, developers will shy away from building apps due to development costs (I know my company is) of what is, a small OS in terms of market share. It’s a shame, BB had the smartphone market sewn up and was the go-to phone of the corporate market. That crown has long since slipped and now they are trying to play catch up. I wish them luck
I’m not going to disagree with what you’ve said here but I initially replied to your ‘me-too UI’ comment – unless Apple and Android come out with same peek and camera s/w that BB are planning to release in phones in 2 months time, won’t Apple and Android be seen as the copiers if they duplicate BB and BB seen as the innovator?
Everyone “borrows” from each other. When it comes to smartphone UI’s, everyone copied Apple, Apple copied some Android, MS copied both etc etc. Very incestuous but such is the tech industry. It does look odd though, seeing the word BB and innovator in the same sentence though.
I like it. I seem to be the only person who gets sick of iOS. I’ve had a few iPod Touch’s and now an iPad, and I’m absolutely bored of the whole thing. This would be a refreshing change.