There’s no denying that RIM (Research In Motion) is in trouble. Its current Blackberry lineup consisting of handsets such as the Bold 9900 and the Curve 9360 is simply no match to what the competition has to offer such as the Apple iPhone 4S or the Samsung Galaxy S2. This means that the Canadian company is in dire need of fresh new hardware and software to offer its customers. This is exactly what RIM plans to do, and its prototype device the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha shows this.
The BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha is a prototype device that runs the developer build of BB10 (Blackberry 10), RIM’s next generation operating system. It is meant to show developers what the new OS can do.
One of the things this device can do is work without RIM’s usual QWERTY keyboard. It sports a virtual touch keyboard with predictive input options. This means that it predicts the word before you finish typing. All you have to do to select the word is swipe it from the screen.
In Thorsten Hein’s keynote speech at Blackberry World, the CEO said, “Nobody else out there can do this. We stream all feeds to one place – no worries where they come from, you have them all in one place.”
He adds, “Our target customers are hyper-connected.” This based on the company’s findings, claiming “77 million BlackBerry People” visit social networks more than rival platforms.
It looks like RIM will be less focused on trying to gain new customers and will focus more on trying to enrich the overall experience of its “Blackberry People”.
Will BB10 help RIM regain its past glory lost to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS? This remains to be seen.
