RIM BlackBerry OS 7

BlackBerry started out as phones meant for the suits. And executives swore by the gadgets that were, at one point of time, more or less defined by their QWERTY keyboards. But things began changing. Almost every mobile device took on the ‘smart’ tag. BlackBerry’s USP was fading, and RIM found the need to reinvent itself. The QWERTY (in certain models) gave way to touchscreens and the wide candybar form-factor mutated into a slider and even a flip. Still, the changes were mostly cosmetic. The underlying operating system fell short when it came to mainstream uses that included touch navigation, multimedia and digital photography. But, to give credit where it’s due, with BlackBerry OS 7, RIM has made some of its boldest changes.

User interface: BlackBerry has now begun using what it calls Liquid Graphics technology. The icons are more vibrant and colourful, and the graphics and fonts look crisp. Touch navigation using the device’s screen has also become fluid and results in instant response time. Gone are the teething problems that BB faced when it first flirted with a touch interface in the Storm handset launched in 2008.

The new OS also comes with up to five sliding ‘home’ screens – All, Favorites, Media, Downloads and Frequent – to create ‘easy-to-access’ groupings of apps. Besides, on each screen you can slide ‘up’ to view all the applications, or slide it ‘down’ to hide them. All in all, navigation in the new OS, whether through touchscreen or touchpad, is a definitely better than anything that has been seen on BB devices before.

Browser: There is a marked improvement in browser speeds with BlackBerry 7. According to RIM, with the new browser, pages load 40% faster than Blackberry 6 and 100% faster than OS 5. Other features include pinch-to-zoom, multi-touch support, text autowrap, and even support for HTML5. On HTML5-Test.com, the BB OS 7 notched-up 263 points out of 450, quite decent when you consider that the Google Chrome tops the browser scores with 340, while Internet Explorer 9 scores just 141 points.

Going social: Besides, individual apps for Twitter and Facebook, the new OS is also equipped with a centralised hub called Social Feeds. This app allows you to stay abreast of your social networks and even lets you receive news and information from your favourite blogs and web sites through RSS feeds – all in a single window.

Then there is the new improved BB Messenger 6, which when coupled with BB 7 is tightly integrated with several other apps,including the location-based Foursquare social network and Wikitude – an Augmented Reality application that combines the real and virtual via the device’s camera and GPS to provide relevant data – including BBM friends in the vicinity, and even details drawn from the Internet about your surroundings.

Voice-activated universal search: RIM has added voice-activated universal search that converts speech to text – and not only

Devices: Bold 9900/9930, Torch 9850/ 9860/9810 and Curve
9350/9360/9370

does it scour your entire device for emails, contacts, music, bookmarks, browser history, podcasts, tasks, memopad, etc, but also extends the search to the Internet to include YouTube, BlackBerry Maps, Twitter, and even Wikitude.

Forward-looking technologies: One of the biggest changes incorporated in the BlackBerry 7 is the inclusion of forwardlooking technologies such as (the aforementioned) Augmented Reality and Near Field Communication (NFC) that could let users transfer files, contacts, music and photos between two such enabled devices by merely touching one with the other. NFC could even be used to initiate multiplayer mobile games, stream music to NFCenabled speakers, and even make make monetary payments by merely touching one’s phone to an NFC-enabled payment gateway. And while at present, there aren’t any applications for NFC on BB yet, the future for this technology seems to be extremely promising.

Other features: When it comes to entertainment, some of the features in BB OS 7 include OpenGL graphics for 3D gaming, as well as support for high-definition (720p) video recording. Work horses will appreciate that the devices come pre-installed with ‘Documents to Go’ so you can work on text, spreadsheets and presentation files. Of course, as far as data protection is concerned there’s BlackBerry Protect that allows users to backup their data, including contacts, calendar entries, tasks, memos, text messages and even the password database. And in case the device gets lost or stolen, users can also track it and wipe it using the BlackBerry Protect web site.

Our take: For most part – with the Black-Berry OS 7 – RIM is playing catch up with the rest of the competition. On the other hand, it still retains its position as one of the best devices meant for the executives on the go. With this new OS, the company has add a ‘fun’ element to its devices and has been fairly successful in the venture. Without doubt, this is indeed one of the best upgrades that BB has put out in a long time.