RIM has just unveiled the latest iteration of the BlackBerry 10 operating system, set to be released on new devices early next year. We have finally gotten a look at the UI RIM will be shipping, and it's an interesting mix of user interaction metaphors we've seen on multiple devices to this point and a strong progression from the version of the software we first saw back in May.The device is running the "Beta 3 SDK" of BlackBerry 10, which has the look and feel that consumers can expect on the actual phones the company is launching next year. RIM has been talking about the "flow" of it's next OS, and there are elements here that are genuinely interesting.
Starting with the device in sleep, you can wake it simply by swiping up from the bottom of the screen — no need to hit a power button. As you swipe up, the lockscreen fades under your finger to reveal the OS underneath in a way not entirely dissimilar from what LG has done on its recent homescreens. The lock screen also shows how many (and what type) of notifications you've missed and allows users to launch the camera directly.
Once you're in, the OS starts with a multi-paned home screen. The first screen holds up to 8 "Active Frames," which are the applications currently running on the phone. The Active Frames are listed in reverse-chronological order, with the most recent at the top left. You close apps by tapping a small "X" in the lower-righthand corner (or, presumably, by opening up a 9th app). Four of them will fit on a single screen, and you scroll down to get the other four.To the right of the Active Frames homescreen is a standard grid of icons. They arranged manually like they are on the iPhone, including support for drag-and-drop folder creation. As we've seen on leaked screenshots, this grid of icons is decidedly square — both the folders and the apps themselves live in small rectangles.
Switching between apps involves a swipe-up from the bottom of the screen, which takes you back to the homescreen where you can select another app. RIM actually removed all of the side-gestures it had in the last version of this OS, so there's no way to switch directly between most apps. Swiping down from the top bring up settings and other menu options, depending on context. In all, it's a user interface that's a mix of Windows Phone, webOS, and iPhone — but there's one major exception, and that's the "BlackBerry Hub."Although describing the gestures to bring up the Hub is a little complicated, in practice it's fairly intuitive once you've done it once or twice. It's also less likely to come up accidentally than what we saw in the last BlackBerry 10 Beta, where it sat on the right of every screen and was brought up with a swipe from the side of the screen.
When you launch an app in "Work" mode, its Active Frame has a small briefcase icon on it to denote that it's running in a secured mode. If you company won't let you copy and paste from the browser, for example, you won't be able to do it in that secured app — but you can launch a "personal" browser instance alongside it.
RIM has a very difficult road to travel with BlackBerry 10: it needs to get a critical mass of apps by launch to even get a second look from consumers, let alone a first one. To prepare developers, the company has had to keep them up to speed by trickling out information about the next platform instead of unveiling it all at once with a big splash. That has made for a series of teases and hints, but not a complete picture of RIM's mobile strategy.
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