RIM Signals Shift to Virtual Keyboards As It Bets Everything on BlackBerry 10

RIM is handing out the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha prototypes to developers at BlackBerry World. Photo: RIM

RIM CEO and President Thorsten Heins took the stage at BlackBerry World 2012 in Orlando this morning to not only showcase elements of RIM's new mobile platform, but to show the world that his company isn't ready to give up yet. RIM is betting the farm on BlackBerry 10, an entirely new platform that's focused on virtual keyboards, shifting away from the legacy of physical keyboards and BlackBerry 7.

"I'm here because I believe in the unique value BlackBerry gives to our customers every single day," Heins told the audience. He telegraphed a total reboot of RIM's mobile platform, a move that will "take it to the next level and deliver unique value."

The many windows of the Flow interface. Photo: RIM

Total reboot, indeed. The transformation of the OS is so dramatic, the new BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device that RIM showed off has no physical keyboard. This is a huge development. Physical keyboards have been the hardware platform's calling cards. Without them, what will compel CrackBerry addicts to stick around? Or, perhaps more germanely, what will convince adventuresome consumers to switch to a BlackBerry phone?

Physical keyboards are still in the company's product roadmap, but when RIM's developer reference hardware comes keyboard-free, you know big changes are afoot.

What little we did see of the upcoming platform looked promising. The new Flow interface uses "glanceable" gestures to move quickly between documents, apps and screens within apps. A flick of your finger displays the last three windows you opened like a deck of horizontally fanned-out cards. A quick screen tap shoots you to a selected pane. The onstage demo worked smoothly with no discernible lag.

The company's existing virtual keyboard — familiar to users of the BlackBerry Storm — is getting a software upgrade with an adaptive keypad. According to Vivek Bhardwaj, RIM's Head of Software Portfolio, the keypad learns how users type and adapts the keys to a user's typing style. For example, as you type, the keypad adjusts itself so you no longer hit the I key instead of the O key.

Control the keyboard with swipes. Photo: RIM

The virtual keyboard relies heavily on swipe gestures. A quick swipe downward reveals your number and symbol keys — say goodbye to the shift and/or function key. And predictive text technology presents words that can be swiped up into the message. A swipe from right-to-left deletes words.

The whole typing process looks incredibly slick, and if it delivers, RIM users could quickly forget about the hardware keyboard they've come to love.

The last feature RIM demonstrated was the BlackBerry 10 camera software. When the camera is launched, it actually begins caching what it sees. So, if you take a photo and find that someone closed his eyes the moment you clicked, you can go backward or forward in time by scrubbing along a timeline interface. From here, you can find the perfect moment when the subject had his eyes open. The change can be made in a selected area of a photo, leaving the rest of an image untouched.

BlackBerry 10 is expected to launch this fall with new hardware optimized for the platform. Today's sneak peek shows promise, and as long as RIM can get developers on board, the company could be primed for a comeback — at least in terms of innovative technology. It remains to be seen if customers will join RIM as it marches forward.

Update: In a earlier version of this post, we insinuated that RIM is abandoning physical keyboards entirely. In fact, RIM will build devices with physical keyboards for the BlackBerry 10 platform. We apologize for the confusion.

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Original Page: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/rim-ditches-physical-keyboards-as-it-bets-everything-on-blackberry-10/

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Regards,

Derik Chan