RIM demoed the latest features of BB10 at its big BlackBerry Jam event for developers. (Yes, that's really the name.) The company is pushing a smartphone UI that differentiates itself from the rest of the pack with integrated features that RIM hopes will expand its appeal beyond the business folk long the core of its fan base.
The heart of the new OS is Hub, Flow and Peek. The features pull back from the app-centric world of e-mail, calendar and social networks. Instead, a unified inbox captures all of a user's e-mails, social interactions and BBMs. The Hub is not an app; it runs at the OS level, always waiting for your messages.
To access the Hub and its messages goodness, RIM has introduced Peek. Swipe from the bottom to see notification information for e-mail and social networks. After swiping up to access Peek, a continuous swipe to the right goes to the Hub. It's all one movement for one hand use — something RIM touted throughout the Jam.
RIM wants you to use one hand for everything, from anywhere in BB10. In any app and any setting, no matter where you are, Hub and Peek is just a swipe away.
This one-handed swiping UI is called Flow. The demo of Flow swipes and taps were snappy — when they worked. The dev alpha device used for some of the demo appeared to utterly ignore some gestures while trying to access the Hub. It's a demo, but with BB10 already being delayed until the first quarter of 2013, it's something everyone took notice of.
RIM continues looking toward the business segment with a robust calendar feature that includes the "day, week month, people" view. It goes one step further by integrating a timeline of all the e-mail, shared meetings and social information that is relevant to the meeting.
That's a nice addition for business users, but Blackberry Balance is a better solution for people who use their device for both business and personal use. The feature creates two accounts with partitions for Work and Personal. Users can quickly switch between the two environments by swiping down from the top of the device.
This is good news for IT departments. The Work account can be administered by company IT departments and be remotely wiped if the device is lost or stolen. For the users, they have a separate account where they can keep personal stuff separate from the Work account and beyond the reach of the corporate IT wizards.
RIM showed off some very nice features for its upcoming OS. And while the company is giving developers a new developer device, for consumers, none of this matters until the new devices and OS are in their hands.
