Research in Motion officially launched BlackBerry 10 today in New York City. Many people have been anxiously awaiting this day for a long time. Did RIM live up to the hype? Maybe, not really.
The BlackBerry 10 OS looks really different, and really nice, although there is a learning curve to make you productive on the phone. Users will have to learn the gestures and will have to forget about using a Home button. There isn't one.
The central focus of the OS is the Hub. BlackBerry has sort of merged the inbox and notifications into a single place. In fact, the Hub is just an inbox where everything comes in together. All of your notifications, texts, email will all be in one place. Will that work for most people or will that be confusing?
The BlackBerry Z10 phone looks a bit like the iPhone, but a little wider and a little thicker. Other BlackBerry 10 devices will be launched in the future and I would expect the build quality to be good.
The big question for BlackBerry is will people dump their iPhones or Android phones and make the switch. That remains to be seen, but it doesn't seem likely at this point. There is not a single killer app that would cause me to switch to BlackBerry. Smartphone growth rates are already slowing as most people already have smartphones. Now that they are invested in a platform, they will need a compelling reason to switch to BlackBerry. I don't see that reason yet.
I love the gestures in BB10, but the apps aren't all that good. BlackBerry 10 can run Android apps, but it's 2 or 3 generations of Android back. The UI experience isn't consistent and that will be a problem for BlackBerry. That situation will improve going forward, but for now BlackBerry still seems very far behind the pack.
This is an exciting day for BlackBerry. It represents a new start for the struggling company. The question is, was this day too little too late? We'll have to stay tuned to find out.
The BlackBerry 10 OS looks really different, and really nice, although there is a learning curve to make you productive on the phone. Users will have to learn the gestures and will have to forget about using a Home button. There isn't one.
The central focus of the OS is the Hub. BlackBerry has sort of merged the inbox and notifications into a single place. In fact, the Hub is just an inbox where everything comes in together. All of your notifications, texts, email will all be in one place. Will that work for most people or will that be confusing?
The BlackBerry Z10 phone looks a bit like the iPhone, but a little wider and a little thicker. Other BlackBerry 10 devices will be launched in the future and I would expect the build quality to be good.
The big question for BlackBerry is will people dump their iPhones or Android phones and make the switch. That remains to be seen, but it doesn't seem likely at this point. There is not a single killer app that would cause me to switch to BlackBerry. Smartphone growth rates are already slowing as most people already have smartphones. Now that they are invested in a platform, they will need a compelling reason to switch to BlackBerry. I don't see that reason yet.
I love the gestures in BB10, but the apps aren't all that good. BlackBerry 10 can run Android apps, but it's 2 or 3 generations of Android back. The UI experience isn't consistent and that will be a problem for BlackBerry. That situation will improve going forward, but for now BlackBerry still seems very far behind the pack.
This is an exciting day for BlackBerry. It represents a new start for the struggling company. The question is, was this day too little too late? We'll have to stay tuned to find out.