BlackBerry renews itself

A couple of months ago, a video was made official by Research In Motion (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry line of smartphones, teasing the release of its latest smartphone Operating System, BlackBerry 6. Now, in the last couple of years, we've seen BlackBerry moving from OS 4.7 to 5.0, and now from 5.0 to 6. The interesting tidbit here is that the OS did not look different when OS 5 debuted, and clearly, BlackBerry devices were being left behind as iOS, Android and webOS brought innovation to the consumer market. Like Symbian and Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS belonged to an old era, and OS 5 was supposed to bring RIM's most important product back into the fight. But it didn't. Now the question is, what is BlackBerry 6? Is it just another makeover with a new number to make it feel new? Or did RIM really put in an effort to make its mobile Operating System worth our time? Let's find out.

Where is BlackBerry right now?

First of all, let's clarify something here. Even if, for the last two years, BlackBerry OS has been outdated by iOS, Android and webOS in terms of browsing, multimedia, touch-screen technology (yes, we like the Storm's concept, but we still want a BlackBerry with traditional touch technology) available apps, social networking, user interface and more, RIM has not lost grounds. On the contrary, RIM is actually in front of Apple in terms of market share, let alone Android. Still, many have been wondering when would RIM's market share decline due to its outdated software, which hasn't happened the way we thought it would. BlackBerry devices are still strong in the market, possibly due to its huge pool of enterprise users and because of its brand image, which puts it at the same level as an iPhone in the eyes of regular consumers: a special mobile phone. Like with the iPhone, people don't call BlackBerrys phones, they call them BlackBerrys, and I believe this is why many users still choose to buy a BlackBerry despite their knowledge about iPhones, Androids and Palm webOS devices. And unlike Palm, the BlackBerry line is strong as a brand not only inside America, but also outside, especially in Europe and in Asia. People know what a BlackBerry is, no matter where you go. And, there's still something more. BlackBerry enterprise users will stick to the platform because of one good reason, a reason not even Android's been able to support (yet) despite all of its hardware manufacturers, and that is, world-phones. BlackBerrys might not be superphones, but some of them are called "worldphones" for a reason, and that is, they can have signal anywhere in the world due to their support for both GSM and CDMA standards. If you buy a BlackBerry from Verizon, and travel to Europe, you can put in a SIM card, and at least get coverage, something you can't do with say, a Motorola Droid X from Verizon or an HTC Evo 4G from Sprint, since they're both only CDMA devices.
 

No matter where BlackBerry and its OS is today, it's just not enough

But, there's the chance of consumers liking Android too much, leaving BlackBerry aside. And, there's also a chance of seeing the enterprise start turning away from RIM and look towards Apple and Google, since both of them are improving a lot their enterprise support in their latest platform releases. So RIM has to make a move, and this is the first one:

Let's admit it, RIM went a bit too far saying "BlackBerry is also for young people" in this video, at least if we're looking at it like we've seen it until know, "only for business people". The BlackBerry Storm and its successor meant RIM was serious about making their products appeal to a broader audience, especially the one buying touch-based multimedia devices, but know, we get BlackBerry 6, and looking at it from an objective view, it looks astonishingly good.

Just think about it. How would you take an Operating System which has already been sold in 100 million devices and has always been a symbol for financial district, suits, business and enterprise, and turn it into a mass-consumer product delivering multimedia, social networking, texting, browsing and third-party apps while, at the same time, keeping all of your existing customers happy? Yup, that's what they wanted, and that's what I see in this new OS. We can clearly spot Android in there, with the sliding panel full of apps, search within all the data stored in the phone, or my favorite, the panel sliding down reminiscent of Android's notification bar showing a unified inbox of messages, missed calls and calendar events. Cues from Apple are also here, with a CoverFlow-esque media player. Social Networking is not absent either, with the "Social Feeds" screen, supporting any of the following (AIM, Twitter, Windows Messenger, BlackBerry Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Facebook or MySpace) to keep in touch with one of your contacts, which reminds me of Palm's webOS which popularized the idea of "it's not about the service you're using, but the person you're reaching to". But probably the best part for all of us who use smartphones for heavy browsing, is the WebKit-based browser, which looks amazing with those tabs.
 

What's Changed?

Honestly, not much. BlackBerry 6 is still not truly real, since we haven't seen any device with it, just a couple of promo videos (catch the second one below), but there's a big promise in here. The promise of bringing a truly new generation to BlackBerry smartphones, delivering what we've been asking for, except third-party apps, which I'm not sure we can rely on at the moment. But the real downside is the fact that all of this is old news. Multimedia, Social Networking, WebKit Browser, slick User Interface and touch-based controls are the norm in today's smartphones, and even in some featurephones, so why are we announcing something that's already old? Because it's RIM. If this were Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, LG, Huawei or any other manufacturer adding these into their next smartphone, would we be impressed? No, but we're talking about the BlackBerry brand here. We're talking about a whole generation coming to an end, and beginning its transition into a more connected world, powered by their smartphone. It sure looks good, and we can't wait until RIM makes this transition complete by delivering this software in a production device and the BlackBerry device we're waiting to see, and type in. You know which one we're talking about, right?

 
Pictures obtained from deviantART.