BlackBerry maker Research in Motion has announced a new smartphone, a brand new operating system, a handful of apps and a surprising alliance with Microsoft, at this week's BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida.
The new BlackBerry Bold 9930 (or 9990 as it's known in the US) is poised as the thinnest RIM device to date, with a slender 10.5mm profile -- still fatter than the iPhone 4, but it shares Apple's aluminium-rimmed design.
The new device, released this summer, has the best of both worlds with a full QWERTY keyboard and a hefty touchscreen. There's a 1.2GHz processor under the hood and a five-megapixel camera around back. The smartphone carries 8GB of storage and 768MB of RAM.
It will also be the first device to run the new BlackBerry 7
operating system. The OS adds HTML5 and a Just-In-Time (JIT) JavaScript engine to the web browser, BlackBerry Balance support (which aims to keep your private and business lives separated), enhanced universal search and a new theme. There's also one more, rather surprising, addition to the operating system.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer bounded onto the stage at RIM's conference to announce that BlackBerry 7's search and maps would be handled by Bing. Microsoft's Google competitor will add functionality such as voice-activated search and street-level mapping to the phone, and Bing-related apps will appear on the phone's store.
RIM also announced, and released, new apps for its PlayBook tablet. The firm's device was heavily criticised at launch for missing out on fundamental apps such as email, messaging and video calling. The device's manufacturer will be adding those tools in forthcoming updates, starting this week with a free FaceTime-esque Video Chat app.
In the coming weeks and months RIM will also add a native Facebook app, on-board email and contacts software and, the one app that no 21st century gadget can be without: Angry Birds. Rovio will bring the popular bird-flinging puzzle game to the tablet later this year.
Finally, RIM announced that its BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which manages and secures data on mobile devices, will be coming to Android- and iOS-based devices later this year.
"We recognise the opportunity to continue leading in the enterprise market by providing customers with a common platform to help simplify the management of a variety of mobile devices," said Peter Devenyi, vice president of RIM's communications platform group.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
