RIM revealed BlackBerry OS 10

In the past few months fate hasn’t been kind no RIM and they were losing market positions about as fast as Nokia, who are currently switching from Symbian to Windows Phone. The Canadians, though, are betting everything on just one card – the new BlackBerry OS 10, which is going to debut later this year along with a new series of devices, running on it. At the BlackBerry World event in Orlando RIM officially revealed the platform and for the first time shared some details about it. The OS itself is based on QNX – the same software can be found in the PlayBook, but is, of course, optimized for smartphones. The company’s tablet is also going to receive an update to the platform later this year.

One of the key features, on which RIM focused at the event, were the gestures, which allow the user to quickly access documents, apps and events notifications. Of course, being so popular with their near-perfect QWERTY devices, the Canadians have also had to work on making a remarkable onscreen keyboard. The one, featured in BlackBerry OS 10, is going to rely on enhanced algorithms for touchscreen typing and is even going to learn the user’s habits with time. The keyboard also includes a special word predicting technology and allows for quick access to symbols through gestures.

App developers already have access to a beta version of BlackBerry OS 10 (practically still PlayBook OS) and everyone, who attended the event in Orlando, is also going to receive a test device, which is supposed to help with the development of applications for the platform. The gadget itself is nothing like the models, which are about to be released later this year, but it’s still an interesting one – with its 4.2″ display with a 1280×768 resolution, it should really show the changes in BB OS10 in the best way possible. B. A.