Omio News Blog

BlackBerry Live 2013: Physical camera button not be coming to BlackBerry mobile phones; Face time was the original name for Time Lapse

Formerly Research In Motion, now known as BlackBerry, has informed Omio at its BlackBerry Live conference in Orlando, that a dedicated camera button might not necessarily be a feature of BlackBerry 10 OS handsets, along with the original name of Time Lapse.

The company’s Vice President, of User Experience at Research in Motion, Don Lindsay, had a one-to-one briefing with us – where we asked if there could be the introduction of the physical camera key?

“When asked the question about convenience keys [Todd Wood Senior Vice President of Design, BlackBerry] replies, his goal for a hardware standpoint is to simplify”

“Our interest, largely, is how do we take that convenience and recreate it onscreen, in a way that still gives you the convenience but without the requirement for a hard-key on the inside of the device”

“An example of that is … the camera on the lock-screen”

“We have a camera button, you press it and hold, and you’re into the camera”

“The reason we do that hold, is because we don’t want accidental triggers; accidental touch events on the screen, to trigger the camera”

“[it’s] a short little hold, less than three seconds”

“That is the way we can take the functionality of a convenience key and move it to a display”

That indicates a camera key might not be on the cards for BB phones, as it doesn’t exactly simplify anything on the hardware front.

We asked about the Time Shift feature on BlackBerry 10 OS, which allows a selection of faces from a burst mode, for that perfect shot.

“We delivered that; that’s a feature we call face time”

“Sorry, I’m thinking of the original development name”

The BlackBerry 10 OS had been in development for a number of years, where a crossover of feature names seems to have happened.

As it now appears that Apple piped them to post in the naming of that function, with FaceTime video-calling feature launching in 2011.

BlackBerry Live 2013: BlackBerry is proud of reversible gestures

Formerly Research In Motion, now known as BlackBerry, own Vice President, User Experience at Research in Motion, Don Lindsay, has said to us that he is most proud of the reversible gesture inside of the BlackBerry 10 OS, along with the reactions of customers when they try it on another platform.

He responded with the following, to our question surrounding what is outstanding, in his opinion of the new platform.

“For me, the one aspect that is truly innovative in the market place, and that I am most proud of the team for having conceiving, is the ability to take a gesture, that is something as simple, that used to be only limited to triggers – and now we’re thinking of it in a more complex manner, where now gestures are becoming reversible”

“Out of that, emerged the idea of peek”

“The ability that I can take a device that is off, wake it up, and put it right back to sleep again”

“That’s an innovation, in touch”

“The ability that I can be in any application, swipe up, and drag over to see the inbox, but I can also reverse that gesture and go right back to the app”

“I never really left my calendar application: that’s an innovation”

“A reversible gesture seems simple, almost obvious, but to come up with that engineered, prototype it, test it, prove that it’s an innovation … [and] is an example of taking something that is obvious, but we actually execute it”

“A measure of success, for me, is when I see BlackBerry 10 customers pick up a device from another platform and they try to perform that gesture and it doesn’t work”

“You can see the surprise on their face; you can see the disappointment on their face”

BlackBerry Live 2013: BlackBerry Q10 keyboard shortcuts are being worked upon for BlackBerry Z10, with gestures

Formerly Research In Motion, now known as BlackBerry, has told us about its plans to replicate the infamous QWERTY shortcuts, on its full touch screen mobile phones.

Omio had a one-to-one press briefing at BlackBerry Live with Don Lindsay, Vice President, User Experience at Research in Motion – who heads up the team responsible for the BlackBerry 10 OS.

He said: “One of the challenges I gave to the design team is, what’s the equivalent to a short cut on a touch display”

“Things like peek are allowing us to actually find and discover new ways to deliver the equivalent value of a shortcut, but through an entirely touch interface”

“This is an area that we are going to continue to expand the gesture language to find more short cuts, more ways to actually achieve tasks in a faster and simpler ways – using just touch”

“With physical keyboards, we’ve always supported shortcuts, that has been in place with BlackBerry for many many years”

“In BlackBerry 10.1, on the physical keyboard, in the contextual menu, we now show the keyboard shortcuts”

“Now the challenge is: how do we do the same thing, but with gestures”

We asked if there could be a combination of gestures, which could act as a keyboard shortcut?

“One of our guiding principles in the creation of BlackBerry 10 was one handed operation”

“One handed operation has led to decisions such as the placement of the top most item [in the BlackBerry Hub], by default, is in reach of my thumb”

“That fulfils our principle of one handed operation”

“Our design [rules] goes a little bit further than that, it actually says: we must deliver great one handed operation, but it can be more powerful with two hands”

“This is an acknowledgement of, are there ways in which we can interact with two thumbs or two fingers, that can be faster – than just a single finger [or thumb]”

We asked what short cuts from the Q10 keyboard could be taken across to the full touch screen BlackBerry Z10?

“We’re at the point now where we’re trying to see, first of all, what needs to be recreated”

“One of the request we often get is the ability to scroll a list to the top, quickly”

“With our physical keyboards, we have ‘T’, which is a keyboard shortcut for the top, and ‘B’ for bottom”

“The team is now looking at, is there an equivalent to the command to go to the top of the list”

“They’re looking at, is there an intuitive gesture, to get to the top”

“The common ones on the Q10 are F for forward a mail; R for reply”

“Those are the higher priority candidates for us to see, can we do better in this space”

“If we can deliver that kind of efficiency, BlackBerry users will appreciate it”

BlackBerry Live 2013: Directly responding to notifications coming to BlackBerry 10 OS

Formerly Research In Motion, now known as BlackBerry, has told Omio that it is working on an update to the BlackBerry 10.1 OS, where users can respond directly to notifications.

That came to light in an interview with Don Lindsay, Vice President, User Experience at Research in Motion.

We asked what are features are people requesting in the OS?

“One of the things we are now hearing is that customers what more control over notifications; they want to be able to control what notifies them; how it notifies them – more flexibility”

“In 10.0 we had a fairly simple notification solution – basically, on/off (for all the individual applications”

“The challenge for us now, based on the feedback, is can we go more granular, than that”

“Can we give users more control; this is an area we are actively looking at now; to see how can we achieve that, at the same time, not add much more complexity”

“One of our guiding principles, is that we don’t want to deliver a thousand check boxes to users”

“If there’s one criticism of BlackBerry in the past: is too many preferences”

“That level of complexity, we are trying to manage very carefully – to ensure that we can still create something simple, and yet powerful”

“What users are looking for are the ability to respond more directly to a notification”

“That [BlackBerry 10 OS] pops up and gives me a messages is useful, I then now have to navigate to that message in order to respond to it”

“Customers are tell us they want a method to directly respond to a notification”

“Customers are saying to us we want to be able to take action, quickly”

“Given that guidance: that’s what the team right now are saying how can we do better”

“That’s the [feature] right now sitting at the top of the list”

This feature is already an aspect of Android and is a useful one at that; we’ll bring you more on this coming to the BlackBerry OS and as when news comes our way.

BlackBerry Live 2013: When will BlackBerry 10.2 OS be arriving?

Formerly Research In Motion, now known as BlackBerry, has responded to our enquiry on when the next version of the BlackBerry 10 OS will be arriving for its new spate of  devices.

These are the high-end touch screen BlackBerry Z10, QWERTY keyboard based BlackBerry Q10 and its more affordable version, the BlackBerry Q5.

Don Lindsay Vice President, User Experience at Research in Motion – who runs the design team for the BB10 platform – told Omio:

“There is always a roadmap for software”

“In terms of timing, we have indicated with our window of time between 10.0 and 10.1 that we are committed to rapid updates” – this is where only three months had passed, between those two versions.

“We are not going to make any commitments to a future update”

“We are taking spec from our customers; we’re listening to what might be missing functionality; issues they’re having with the software; any kind of feedback our carrier partner’s customers are willing to provide – we are going to react to, and we are going to get solutions into people’s hands, as quickly as we can”

BlackBerry could replicate its current update process, where a new handset will ship with 10.2. This will then become available to its other range of BlackBerry 10 OS mobile phones; stay tuned for more info.

BlackBerry Live 2013: BlackBerry 10.1 OS – hands-on video walkthrough on the BlackBerry Z10

BlackBerry has made public the QWERTY BlackBerry Q10 10.1 OS is starting to roll out to its full touch screen BlackBerry Z10 mobile phones, bringing in a whole host of new features.

Omio managed to catch with Jeff Gadway, Senior Manager, BlackBerry Product Marketing, at BlackBerry Live 2013 – for a hands-on video of the new capabilities that is coming to the Z10.

The footage covers PIN to PIN messaging. That allows BlackBerry users to directly message one another, in a feature that is said to be expanding to Android and Apple iOS users – later this year.

There is improved cursor control in 10.1, allowing better text editing on the BlackBerry Z10.

This brings up a round circle, which can be placed where needed, with features such as tapping on the left part of the circle shifts the cursor back a single space. That is mirrored with up, down and to the right.

Landscape calendar support is also covered, along with the HDR camera functionality.

This offers better, high contrast picture capture that is thoroughly explained in the video.

Lastly, is how to download the free update.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Global Sales Set To Top 10 Million

It looks as though Samsung’s latest foray into the smartphone space is a hit, as Mobile Magazine reports that the Galaxy S4 is poised to break the 10 millon sales mark worldwide at some point this week.

Despite initial stock constraints and detractors claiming gimmickry over innovation in the latest Android-powered flagship from the Korean manufacturer, a monstrous global marketing push – including draping London’s IMAX in Samsung Galaxy S4 livery and placing ads across cinemas and TVs across the land – has seen increased popularity and a faster sales run than the S3.

In a report to The Korean Times, Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun, said: “We are confident that we will pass more than 10 million sales of the S4 next week. It is selling much faster than the previous model.”

Source: Mobile Entertainment

BlackBerry Live 2013: BlackBerry 10.1 OS – hands-on pictures on the BlackBerry Z10

BlackBerry announced this week that the BlackBerry 10.1 OS will be rolling out to its BlackBerry Z10 mobile phones, placing it in line with the Q10 – which shipped with that platform.

Omio is now publishing hands-on pictures of the new OS, running from the flagship full touch screen handset, in the company’s portfolio.

The first image shows that BlackBerry 10.1 is actually running on the device, with its array of new features.

These two shots are of the new PIN to PIN messaging, offering direct communication between two BlackBerry’s.

This will also be coming this year to Android and Apple is based devices, although basic BBM and group messaging will initially roll out.

Above is the new, more accurate cursor control – where tapping once on the screen brings up the cursor.

From here, you can grab the blue circle and then drag it around to the insertion point.

The next few pics are of the HDR camera functionality of the BlackBerry 10.1 OS, with greater detailed images; the red-eye reduction and lastly, the landscape calendar mode.

BlackBerry Live 2013: Will there be a BlackBerry Z5 mobile phone, as a budget version of the BlackBerry Z10?

Formerly Research In Motion, now known as BlackBerry’s Managing Director of UK & Ireland at BlackBerry, Rob Orr has responded to our questioning on the feasibility of a more affordable version of the Z10 arriving – under the name of Z5.

We asked if there would be a Z5, as a cut down version of the Z10 – in the same way as the Q5 is a cut down version of the Q10.

Rob Orr responded “You are in that roadmap territory”, indicating he couldn’t really speak about that.

He did add, “We have said six devices, from launch, but no specifics beyond that”

“[There will be] six devices in due course; we’re looking to address all the segments in the market”

“Starting with the high-end, which was delivered in Q1”

That isn’t a categorical denied and logic dictates that if the Q5 is budget version of the Q10, why couldn’t there be a budget version of the Z10.

BlackBerry switched from using a Super AMOLED display in the Q10, to an IPS LCD version in the Q5 – while still keeping the same 3.1-inch screen size, and display resolution of 720 x 720.

There was also a reduction of internal memory, from 16GB to 8GB and the megapixel count was brought down from 8 to 5MP.

This could all be mirrored in the Z5; stay tuned and we’ll bring you more on this.

BlackBerry Live 2013: BlackBerry Q5 to replace BlackBerry Curve mobile phones, and will become the enterprise fleet handset

Formerly Research In Motion, now known as BlackBerry, has informed Omio that the 4G BlackBerry Q5 is set to replace the older BlackBerry Curve handsets.

Rob Orr, the Managing Director of UK & Ireland at BlackBerry said in a meeting with us about the Q5:

“For us, it’s about bringing the BlackBerry 10 and the platform to the existing [BlackBerry] Curve base”

“It will be more expensive than a 9320, that is available to today“, where we have already written about the pricing, as it is set to arrive in the £20 something a month tariffs.

We asked which Curve device will it be replacing -

He replied, “It will be replacing them all”

“We will continue to sell the 9320, but it is an obvious upgrade path for all of the Curves we have sold over the past two to three years”

“And even for devices like the 9790, those customers will be upgraded to the [Q5]”

Rob Orr also said: “There are several groups within my market in the UK that are absolutely desperate for the Q5”

“The first one is that mid-range, mid-tier, twenty odd-pounds per month tariff bracket. [They] require a device that is not priced at the high-end”

“I have a big base of existing Curve users in the market that have bought pre-paid or entry-level tariffs – that the Q5 will play to”

“Secondly, a big focus for is in [BlackBerry Live 2013] is the enterprise”

“I’ve been upgrading customers in the UK to [BlackBerry Enterprise Server] 10, for the last six to seven months – even before we launched the platform in January”

“The reality for those businesses is that not everyone will get the high-end phone; so the Q5 becomes the fleet, deployed device in the enterprise“