[ssbtech]

My Dad's phone managed to get stuck with the 10.3.1 update since it was configured to receive updates automatically.

He messaged me asking where his stuff went (the blank home screen) and complained about a few other things. So I went over there and helped him out.

Here are my quick impressions:

UI look and feel -
It's light and fresh, but despite the use of colour, the colours look drab. I also find with the pale colour scheme things blend together more than they should. Too little delineation of interactive elements. Flat icons are dull and the text is hard to read against light wallpapers (he has a snowy photo he took at his farm as his wallpaper) The loss of the backgrounds behind the top clock bar and phone/search/camera icons make the icons blend into the background too easily.

Hub -
The file and delete columns next to messages are handy. Everything seems nice and snappy.

I very much dislike the "quick action" button that's bigger than the rest of them. I can find the Compose button just fine without it being big and blue. Heck, what if that's not the option I use most frequently? (It isn't, I rarely compose new emails on my Z10).

I noticed that the search and attachments buttons disappeared when scrolling down the list of messages, but the compose and two menus on the side remain. It leaves the action bar looking very chopped up and messy.

The three-bar menu button in the bottom left no longer does the nifty little slide thing.

Calendar -
We all know where I stand on this. Everything is big, bold and in your face and it's impossible to see which days carry a lighter load for scheduling without tapping on them. Massive step backwards regardless of any other positive changes in the calendar app.

BBM, SMS -
The light colour scheme of the UI again made it harder to differentiate between elements on the screen. The keyboard is really quite dull looking.

Search -
Sorry, BlackBerry Assistant. Search is virtually gone. All I want to do is tap the search icon and type. I don't want to have to tap on the "Type here..." box three times to begin searching. I searched for an app and tapped it to go to the app. Closing and re-opening search revealed no search history. Really? This is a feature I use every day on my Z10 with 10.2. I rarely go hunting in folders for apps, I just search. And with them in my search history, they're very easy to get to later.

Camera -
I'm sorry, but I don't care if iPhone users are too simple to figure out the tap-anywhere-to-snap feature. At least the volume buttons can still be used to take a photo. I guess the panorama feature is nice, but I'll never get to use it.

At this point I pretty much gave up. I really wanted to like it. It felt fresh and clean, and the "new car smell" drew me in but that came at a price of usability.

[Johnyone]

Camera - panorama excellent but big blue take button actually gets in way of composing pictures, tap anywhere to take was fine.
Calendar - new month view a complete disaster, why should we have to get used for somehow that is just not as good as it was. No longer able to see how busy a day actually is or a quick indications of when meetings are.

Otherwise pretty pleased with 10.3

Posted via CB10