BlackBerry Live: Day 1 Roundup

As we speak, BlackBerry is wrapping up day one of a 3 day event for developers in Orlando, FL. Many missteps and poor decisions have been made in previous years, but it seems Thorsten Heins is determined to turn the ship around. I know that this revamp can't be made in one event, and BlackBerry still has a tough road ahead, but I do feel they made a good effort to regain some market share at todays keynote.

BlackBerry 10.1 Update 
Since the emergence of details surrounding the first BB10 QWERTY, one of the things that most Z10 owners have wondered was when they would receive the bump in operating system versions to the, Q10 exclusive, 10.1 edition. Well, today saw the release of that update to the Z10 in normal rolling fashion. As usual, the arrival of the update will depend on your carrier, and region, of choice, but it is currently available for some European and Canadian models.

BlackBerry Handset Family Has a New Addition
Two hardware related items were revealed in Orlando. First, a new member of the BlackBerry 10 family was brought to life. The BlackBerry Q5 was shown off in public for the first time in five different colors of black, white, red, and pink. This new smaller QWERTY smartphone will essentially replace the Curve line, and will be intended for emerging markets worldwide. The Q5 is slated to be available in select regions of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa starting in July.

The other big hardware news is the Q10 is soon to be in carrier stores. The new king of QWERTY from BlackBerry will be available on all four major US carriers in June. This will include Sprint, who decided to pass on adding the Z10 to it's lineup back in January.

BlackBerry Messenger Goes Cross Platform
One of the cornerstones of the BlackBerry ecosystem has been BlackBerry Messenger. As a pioneer of non-text based messaging in mobile, it helped BlackBerry hold on to many customers in the past, and many felt once the tide started turning against RIM, that the logical move was to open the service to competing operating systems. Well, that idea is soon to be a reality.

The roll-out to Android and iOS is tentatively scheduled to happen this summer, and brings with it many of the BBM essentials. You will have the ability to multi-person, group chat, and share pictures with all your contacts via the service. This is a huge move by Thorsten Heins to bet on BBM being able to compete directly on competitor's handsets, while still presenting itself as a selling point of BlackBerry 10. BBM will also face some stiff competition in market shares with the likes of iMessage, Whatsapp, Skype, and Google Talk.

BBM Goes Social 
BBM is not just taking on mobile instant messaging. It will also be taking a swing at social networking. BBM Channels will allow you to create a channel on BBM that you can update your status and other users can then "follow" your online happenings. This new feature is more focused towards brands and celebrities, but it is an interesting take on what BBM is capable of, and may be a Google+ style move from Waterloo.

Conclusion
As I said in the intro, BlackBerry is not going be the top dog in mobile any time soon. However, I think they did prove that they are not going to allow themselves to fall back into the same stale patterns of the past 3-4 years. They are actively trying to pursue the 3rd roster spot behind Android and iOS. Given their current status I would say that the first day of BlackBerry Live 2013 was a success for BlackBerry, and CEO Thorsten Heins. They have definitely peaked my interest on the direction of BB10. Unfortunately, Google begins their own developer conference tomorrow. So we will quickly know just how well BlackBerry closed the gap today in Orlando.

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I Might Leave Android For BlackBerry...Maybe.

The Past

I used to be a Palm OS guy. Owned several devices over the years. Anyone who knows Palm history well enough, knows they did very little to modernize the Palm OS, and lost their grip on the smartphone world to the likes of RIM, Apple, and Google with their respective OSes.

I'm a fan of hardware and software being made by the same vendor. I thought about an iPhone back when it was first released, but they were locked in with AT&T, and I was locked in with Sprint. I didn't want a BlackBerry. Just never grabbed me with all the menus and trackball. Palm tried to make a comeback with webOS. I was standing on line day 1 waiting for this new chapter in Palm's life. Those were happy times. Really thought webOS was going places.

Then Sprint turned its back on Palm, and wouldn't pick up any new webOS devices. I was crushed. I didn't want to switch carriers, but I wanted new, advanced hardware.

That summer, Sprint introduced the original HTC EVO. I took a dive and discovered Android. It wasn't as elegant as webOS when it came to multitasking and gestures, but between the hardware and the app selection, I was sold.

The Present

Almost 3 years later, and 3 Android devices later, I'm an Android fan. Maybe not fanboy status since I'm writing this, but definitely a big user of Google products: Google+, Voice, GMAIL, Calendar, Maps, Chrome, Drive, GTalk, etc, etc. Three years into the ecosystem, and you could say I'm pretty locked in. Or not. There's still something missing in my Android experience even after almost 3 years.

A lot of the things that make Android great also work against it. Openness, customizations, cutting edge, and choice are all hallmarks of the platform. They also bring inconsistencies at almost every level of the experience. Depending on what version of the OS, which hardware vendor, and which carrier, your Android mileage may vary. While the Nexus program/brand might be the future for Google to bring some consistency to the Android customer experience, it's not a one size fits all solution for everyone. For example, only one carrier in the U.S. has the latest iteration of Google's Nexus smartphone as of this writing.

So given my dissatisfaction with the disjointed experience one sometimes gets with Android, you would probably think I'd be headed towards iOS now that it is available on my carrier. However, I have owned an iOS device. An iPad 2. After a year of use, and running it side by side with Android Ice Cream Sandwich on my dual-booted HP TouchPad, I realized iOS just didn't work the way I worked. Just didn't have the same flow. Speaking of flow…

The new re-designed, re-engineered, re-invented BlackBerry 10 has been on a tear in the news lately. Admittedly, a year ago when there were rumblings of a comeback, I was truly skeptical. However, all of the recent image leaks, specs, talks about major carrier support, number of apps that will be available, and videos showing off the gestures and integration supported, have had me really intrigued. RIM also makes the software and hardware, something I've always been biased towards. From what I can tell, RIM has developers fired up and aims to market the hell out of the platform. Also the BlackBerry, like the iPhone, is iconic and has its own mystique amongst its fans. Even though I was never part of that collective, I was, however, a webOS fan. I can see some of the similarities between RIM's attempt at a revival and Palm's. On that note…

The Future

Recently, RIM's CEO, Thorsten Heins, told the media he would be open to selling off the hardware unit, and licensing the BlackBerry OS. That sort of talk gives me flashbacks of Palm, and I would hope Mr. Heins would look back in the not too distant past to see how that worked out for Palm. It makes me uneasy to think about jumping into the BlackBerry World if they are unsure about what direction they want to take the company long term.

My other concern with RIM is how long it's actually taken them to arrive at this point. To be on par with iOS and Android. Can they innovate rapidly going forward, or will they end up like Palm?

There's also the fact that I use so many Google apps, and so do millions of others. Will Google provide a level of support with applications for the new BlackBerry platform as it has with iOS, or see it has a threat to Android? Even if Google doesn't see BlackBerry 10 as a threat to Android, because of a smaller user base, will it think it's worth developing for? Maybe. If all the other big names are there it might follow. Or it could ignore BlackBerry, essentially crippling the platform, since Google apps are some of the most widely utilized apps. Just check the iOS App Store for most popular apps downloaded and many of Google's apps are listed.

In reality it's not life or death. I could try out BlackBerry 10 for a while and love it. I could also hate it, just rejoin the legion of Android users, and hope Android gets its act together by then. Either way, the industry's future looks a bit brighter now that there actually may be other viable choices on the horizon.

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Three reasons I think BlackBerry 10 has a shot

The general consensus right now is that BlackBerry is in the gutter and doesn’t have a chance of getting out. However, I believe the once king of mobile has a legitimate pedigree to achieve a rebound. I don’t think they can ever regain the top spot in the near future, but the mediocre sales of Windows Phone 8 have left the third spot still a viable option.

With the groundwork laid in the past, and the innovations of the present, BlackBerry 10 has a chance to succeed. First, and foremost, BlackBerry still has a huge brand name, and user base. Currently, BlackBerry still has over 80 million users worldwide. Granted, all of those users are running BlackBerry 7, they still have a Berry in their hands, and allow RIM the opportunity to continue on their current path. BlackBerry doesn't have to blow things out of the water. It just needs to be on par with the iOS and Androids of the world, and offer BB7 users an upgrade path. If RIM can bring in top name developers, many current users will stick with what they know.

From the demos we've seen of BlackBerry 10, the software seems to offer some fresh ideas on a gesture based UI. I know that some of these are refreshes on things we've seen from the likes of Meego and webOS, but RIM has tweaked them all into a single idea of the “Flow” interface. The new way to interact with the UI with gestures in BB10 looks promising, and can really take over for the initial wow factor left wanting for apps. Both webOS and Meego showed how passionate a fan base can be around an intuitive, and new, paradigm of how to use a touch screen device. While the companies backing those operating systems have failed them, RIM has the opportunity to do something completely different. They just have to do it well.

Last, but not least, I still believe there is a huge benefit from smartphone software and hardware being produced by the same company. There is no arguing that part of the success of Apple directly correlates to the fact that the software is built for that specific device in mind. BlackBerry has always had a similar philosophy in Waterloo and I think it will translate well with BlackBerry 10. With launching with a select few handsets all running similar hardware, RIM has a chance to create a nice harmony between software and hardware and produce a fluid end experience.

RIM still has a lot to do to make BlackBerry 10 a success, and not all of the pieces are in house problems. They still have to find a way to make developers excited about the new platform launch, but RIM isn't quite ready to just become a chapter in smartphone history books either. With the launch event on January 30, we will really begin to see just how this story may unfold.

Image Credit: Tinhte.vn

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