He responded: “What we’ve learnt with the Z10 is it’s a virtual slider, where the keyboard goes away, as well as it comes out”

“In many ways, it’s delivering on that best of both worlds class”

“We focussed on trying to fix the problem of typing on glass, and I think we’ve done a good job – based on the feedback we’re getting”

Is the BlackBerry Z10 the interim BlackBerry 10 OS Torch?

“Torch evolved?”, he answered.

“We learn a lot by every product that we’ve done, touch or slider or QWERTY”

“We looked at that learning and said, what are those essential elements of the DNA of BlackBerry; which bits do we bring forward, with the new platform”

“It was almost limitless what we could do”

“It is now the mix of goodness from the past and all the opportunity of the future”

That wasn’t exactly a denial and he couldn’t specifically comment on future roadmaps; however, we have recently written an article on BlackBerry filing a patent of a slider handset  - see here.

Perhaps a revisit to the 2011 Torch 9810 and then2010, Torch 9800 model is on the cards, for this year?

Todd Wood, Senior Vice President of Design at BlackBerry, answered: “There is certainly a trend towards larger screens”

“Our choice for the Z10, was that we took the width, the exact same width as the Q10 product – and that extra width makes the virtual keyboard easier to use with two thumbs”

“That is a BlackBerry style of typing”

“You can also do it one thumb, but it is faster, more efficient, with two”

“That’s defined what we believe is really a sweet spot, in terms of form factor”

“60 millimetres wide, 100-odd long and less than 9 millimetres thick.

“That’s a sweet spot; we have a portfolio with a few choices QWERTY or touch”

“Depending on market demands, we’ll look at different sizes in the future, by listening to customers”

BlackBerry hasn’t dismissed then the larger screen handsets of the Samsung Galaxy S4 4.99-inches, or the bigger phablet style of an increased size.

What also came to light in our meeting was that 60mm could be the standard width of screens going forward, no matter what length the display might be.

That would be ideal for developers, in recoding and reformatting their apps – just as they did for the 3.1-inch Q10 and Q5, from the 4.2-inch screen of the Z10.

This information has come courtesy Don Lindsay, Vice President, of User Experience at BlackBerry – who heads up the team responsible for the BlackBerry 10 OS.

We asked about any current industry trends that will be coming to its mobile phones.

“From the outset, we were always looking at the automobile”

“Our focus right now is still on how do we maintain the simplicity of the platform, as we move from one product to the next – and into the automobile”

“How can we preserve the best of both BlackBerry and BlackBerry 10, the platform”

“This is an interesting challenge in facing the team; less about adding features and more about how to we maintain a consistent experience, as we move around from scenario to scenario”

“Mentioned in the BBM Jam keynote was a feature called mirror cast”

“Which is a wireless video transmission [feature], with the ability to project the interface on a another larger screen”

“For us, it’s how to we take our interface and project it on another display”

“What’s interesting about it and what we are delivering on the platform – is that the interface as seen on [a BlackBerry Z10, Q10 or Q5], does not need to be the same interface you’re projecting”

“It can be tailored to whatever the needs are”

“In the case of an automobile, you want a much simpler UI; you don’t want to the complexity here recreated in an automobile”

“You’re operating in a different ergonomic setup; where touch is typically operated at arm’s length; you need larger text and touch-targets”

“What we’re delivering is the ability for an application developer to actually achieve that, having a different interface both on the device and whatever the display is being projected to”

“[Mirror cast] is a capability of the handset, we’ll be delivering it in an updated SDK, we’re releasing later this year”

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.

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”

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”

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.

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.

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.

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