Six Important Features From Blackberry 6

RIM released more information this week about the upcoming overhaul to the BlackBerry mobile OS. This BlackBerry 6 is scheduled to arrive by the end of the 3rd quarter, and right now it can’t come fast enough for the veteran smartphone maker.

New research released this week revealed a double whammy for RIM: Fewer buyers are planning to purchase a BlackBerry and customer satisfaction with BlackBerry has dropped off a cliff. That’s a bitter pill to swallow when you consider that BlackBerry was ranked number one in customer satisfaction by J.D. Power and Associates in 2007 — the year Apple first released the iPhone.

While BlackBerry remains the overall leader in smartphone market share in the U.S., iPhone and Google Android have stolen away all of the momentum with touchscreen devices that are much easier to use, much better for browsing the Web, and offer better third-party apps.
That’s what BlackBerry is up against and those are some of the areas where the platform is trying to catch up with the next release. Take a look at the latest video demo of BlackBerry 6 that RIM has released to see how much ground you think they’re making up. Then, read my list below of the top six new developments to watch for in OS 6.

1. Multi-touch interface

The screen resolution shown in the video demo above is 360×480, which is the current resolution of the BlackBerry Storm. The demo itself also extensively makes use of a multi-touch interface and a touchscreen keyboard, which makes it appear that BlackBerry is likely to use touchscreens on all future models.
That doesn’t mean BlackBerry’s signature hardware keyboard will go away. The widely-rumored BlackBerry 9800 (likely to be called the BlackBerry Torch) features a full touchscreen like the Storm but also includes a slide down keyboard, similar to the Palm Pre. It appears likely that BlackBerry will move to two primary product lines — one with touchscreen-only (Storm) and one with a touchscreen plus a slide-down qwerty (Torch).

2. Webkit browser

The current Web browsing experience on BlackBerry is slow, difficult to navigate, and frustrating. That’s why RIM bought Torch Mobile last year and decided to revamp its Web experience using Torch Mobile’s WebKit browser. As shown in the video above, the new BlackBerry browser now offers pinch-to-zoom and touchscreen scrolling. That will be great for touchscreen models, and could bring BlackBerry browsing up to speed with iPhone and Android, but the bigger question is how will the new Webkit browser affect existing BlackBerry smartphones? Will they not get the upgrade?

3. Redesigned home screen

The classic BlackBerry home screen has one row of five to six icons and then you hit the BlackBerry key to see the rest of your apps. The new BlackBerry 6 home screen has two rows of four apps each and then you use the touchscreen to swipe left or right to see different groups of apps.

4. Universal search

Following the lead of Palm webOS and iPhone, BlackBerry 6 will offer an all-device search that will help you find mail messages, contacts, apps, songs, videos, etc. And it will let you extend the search out to the Web if what you’re searching for isn’t on the device itself.

5. Context-sensitive menus

The BlackBerry key has always served as a menu button to provide additional options (kind of like right-click on a PC). BlackBerry 6 extends that concept into the touch interface. For example, you can touch a person’s name and you’ll get a pop-up contact menu that will then allow you to quickly call, text, IM, or email that person. In other places you’ll be able to touch items on the screen to get more info, configure, or navigate. This should make BlackBerry more intuitive and solve the current headache of having to dig through lots of menus and options to perform simple tasks.

6. Social tools

BlackBerry has already worked with Facebook and Twitter to build solid apps for the BlackBerry platform, but in OS 6, BlackBerry is building some social hooks into the platform itself. With its new Social Feeds app, for example, it will let you post status updates to multiple social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). That app will also allow you to view updates from your contacts across multiple social networks in one place.

BlackBerry Bold - Features and Specifications!

This is first review of the pre-release BlackBerry 9000 (thanks eBay!), then I announced the 9000's new BlackBerry Bold name to world. Now it's time to BE BOLD and finish things off with the final release features & specs of the new BlackBerry Bold Smartphone. Much of following was known, and I'll skip the standard BlackBerry gimmes, but we now have precise answers to some of our lingering questions, including the internal memory the BlackBerry Bold will feature...
BlackBerry Bold Smartphone Features & Specs

• Size - Length: 114mm, Width: 66mm, Thickness: 14mm
• Weight (with battery) - 133g (same as the 88xx series. I can attest to it!)
• Memory - 1GB on-board (storage) and 128 MB Flash (applications)
• Battery - 1500mAhr lithium cell
• Est. Battery Life - Standby: 13 days, Talk Time: 5 hours
• Network Support - UMTS: 2100 / 1900 / 850MHz, GSM: 1900 / 1800 / 900 / 850 MHz, GPRS, EDGE and HDSPA networks
• Wi-Fi - 803.11a/b/g enabled
• Display - HVGA, 480 x 320 pixels, Transmissive TFT LCD, supports over 65k colors
• Media Player, Video Support - DivX 4, Div X 5 & 6 are partially supported, XviD is partially supported, H.263, H.264 and WMV3
• Media Player, Audio Support - .3gp, MP3, WMA9 (.wma/.asf), WMA9 Pro/WMA 10, MIDI, AMR-NB, Professional AAC/AAC+/eAAC+
• Media Player, Audio - BlackBerry Media Sync allows you to transfer your desktop iTunes music to your BlackBerry!!!
• Camera - 2.0MP, 5 x digital zoom (with flash of course)
• GPS - internal GPS with extended ephemeris, BB Maps is standard
• Bluetooth - Bluetooth v2.0, all the normal stuff and Bluetooth Stereo Audio via A2DP and AVCRP
• USB Port - Enables charging and high-speed data synchronizations via USB "A" to mini-USB "B" cable (I can personally say moving files back and forth is now lightning quick!)
• Browser - HTML browsing, View Movies/Clips from websites built for mobile streaming, RSS feed support

All good stuff, but you can see in orange what has me excited here. When it comes to memory, the 9000 will be packing a Gig of built-in storage space for media files, etc. You won't be able to install applications on this (that's what the 128MB flash space is for), but it's still a welcome and much needed addition. It also seems all of us frustrated BlackBerry/iTunes users will no longer be frustrated!! And native DivX support? Sweet!
I don't have final confirmation yet on whether the BlackBerry Bold will ship with a holster, skin (that's what was included with my eBay 9000) or pouch, but I'm guessing it could be carrier dependent. Either way I'm hoping a big selection of BlackBerry Bold 9000 Accessories will hit the market soon as I've never been a big fan of what ships standard.