[Dapper37]

Yes, I have a Dev Alpha A that I got when I attended the Vancouver Jam in August. The system software has been updated a couple of times, and the current level is very close to complete.

Sweet, do you have any apps out, PlayBook/other. hope to see some of your work.. Enjoy the DevA..

[s0be]

I won't miss the Home button, but I will miss the way that hitting the Call End button always took me back out to the main menu, no matter how deep I was in an app or something.. I still wish the call keys were present on BB10 phones, to be honest.

Its gonna take you 3 days with BB10 to forget about the home buttton... thats the user experience were talking about...

[jasonvan9]

Probably one of the best, most honest interpretations of BBOS7 that i've read. People that think "ZOMG it's going to blow the competition away!!" are deluding themselves and everyone else. Fact is, as you put it, it'll be the little things about it, that over time, will make people compelled to use it. At least, if it's going to be successful, that's how I envision it happening.

This is the way i read it, because BBOS7 did all of these same things, just a BUNCH of small little efficiency things built in and you use them without even realizing it. The way the BB menu tries to predict what selection you will use, etc. This is the core of BlackBerry, this is why power users appreciate and keep coming back to BlackBerry. I always assumed the move to QNX was to help clean up the laundry list of issues users had with BB, spinning clock, freezes, slow downs, etc. They have used QNX as a solid foundation, and have rebuilt BB and stuck to the core strengths that made BB the fast efficient messaging tool it is.

BB10 is going to be big, as long as they can make people realize these small details add up to something major, keeping you connected and productive like no other platform can. I think they failed at this with BBOS7, marketing was the downfall, as we all know the story... BB10 is going to win BIG, cannot wait till 2013/01/30

[timmy t]

Probably one of the best, most honest interpretations of BB10 that i've read. People that think "ZOMG it's going to blow the competition away!!" are deluding themselves and everyone else. Fact is, as you put it, it'll be the little things about it, that over time, will make people compelled to use it. At least, if it's going to be successful, that's how I envision it happening.

Well, if you add security and Balance to it, it will blow the competition away.

[texazzpete]

Well, if you add security and Balance to it, it will blow the competition away.

What does the average consumer care about these?

When I try to sell BB10 to my friends, I tell them what impresses them the most: No more laggy performance on your BB, no more crashes and freezing and spinning clocks, bigger screen, more apps and games. More importantly, no more awful battery life like the 9900 had.

That is what they care about. The common stability, performance and battery life issues the 9900 had has really soured off a lot of the people I know from BBs. Convincing them of a future phone on the horizon where all these issues are fixed has kept many interested. January 30th, we'll see.

[BlackBerry Guy]

Well, if you add security and Balance to it, it will blow the competition away.

That's something IT managers will like, but like texazzpete said, not somthing the majority of consumers will care about. What they want us a good user experience and interface, a decent ecosystem, and a device that's able to "do things".

[BlackBerry Guy]

The gesture UI, after you use it even for a short time, makes you realize you can be so much faster at navigating and without even thinking you come to demand it from everything else.

Once you learn it, gestures become incredibly natural to the normal flow of using a touchscreen device.

Even when I use my iPad I hardly use the home button and will use gestures instead (although Apple's version feels a little more unnatural because they require 4 fingers to use - more like hand gestures as opposed to the PlayBook's finger swipes).

[pantlesspenguin]

The gesture UI, after you use it even for a short time, makes you realize you can be so much faster at navigating and without even thinking you come to demand it from everything else.

Yep, everything. Back when I had my PB, of course I'd try to use gestures on my phone...but I'd also try to use them on things that made me stop and think "Penguin...wtf are you doing?"....like my tv remote.

I've noticed recent updates to Android apps I've used for a long time are starting to become gesture based. An example of this is imo.im. It's become REALLY handy and intuitive to use gestures instead of menus, and it's making me excited to try out the different apps on BB10.

[aragone79]

Heh heh... just validates what I've been trying to tell people for months.

It's a stretch to call the BB10 UI "earthshaking", but it's actually very usable. Maybe most importantly, it provides the best scheme for managing open apps that I've seen yet. That's the sort of thing that a user reads about and yawns, but when they actually use it for a couple of days it dawns on them that it actually makes a difference.

Same with the keyboard. Just looking at a demo, it's tempting to dismiss it as gimmicky, but when you actually USE it for a while you start to get that it's a genuine breakthrough.

The biggest problem with this is not that these are hard things to use at all, but that it will take a couple of days of use before many users actually understand the benefits. A quick demo in a store may not work for many. That's why I think early word-of-mouth is going to be a far more important marketing tool for this phone.

I hope RIM still run their planned marketing campaign which included many blackberry users to become BB advocates to help RIM spreading words of blackberry 10 and helping others blackberry users.

[belfastdispatcher]

Yep, everything. Back when I had my PB, of course I'd try to use gestures on my phone...but I'd also try to use them on things that made me stop and think "Penguin...wtf are you doing?"....like my tv remote.

I've noticed recent updates to Android apps I've used for a long time are starting to become gesture based. An example of this is imo.im. It's become REALLY handy and intuitive to use gestures instead of menus, and it's making me excited to try out the different apps on BB10.

Yes lol, I even done it on my 9900 a few times.

[SMocek]

Why would you unveil a phone that you're not releasing yet? If they haven't released it yet, it's because it's not finished. If it's not finished, they're not going to unveil it.

There might be a possibility -

Two BlackBerry 10 Devices to be Launched on Jan. 30th! 1- All-Touch and 1- QWERTY | NerdBerry.net

SM

[THBW]

What does the average consumer care about these?

When I try to sell BB10 to my friends, I tell them what impresses them the most: No more laggy performance on your BB, no more crashes and freezing and spinning clocks, bigger screen, more apps and games. More importantly, no more awful battery life like the 9900 had.

That is what they care about. The common stability, performance and battery life issues the 9900 had has really soured off a lot of the people I know from BBs. Convincing them of a future phone on the horizon where all these issues are fixed has kept many interested. January 30th, we'll see.

I think security is a huge concern. There have been an increasing number of articles and interviews in the popular press about how security inadequate Apple/Android devices are. On the CBC, they had a 20 minute interview from a guy with Wired magazine who described how every one of his Apple devices (computer, iPAD and iPhone) plus his icloud were wiped clean in less than an hour by Jr. high kids. Yesterday, the NYT wrote an article about how the unsecure nature of Apples/Android cloud facilities allows state sponsored hackers (Iran) to gain control of numerous severs and bring down banking services at large US banks. Yikes.

[Superfly_FR]

I think security is a huge concern.

For consumers, name it privacy and banking protection. NFC is on its way, now many won't say "pfff, I don't care, I have nothing to steal on my phone".

[Skeevecr]

Why would you unveil a phone that you're not releasing yet? If they haven't released it yet, it's because it's not finished. If it's not finished, they're not going to unveil it.

If they are not fully releasing the keyboard version, then the most I'd expect is "we'll have the keyboard version released in 2 months" or something. But not actually show anything?

They are bound to do some limited demos of it just to prove it exists to those that have doubted that in the past and to ensure that they avoid accusations of not telling people before they bought an l-series

Depending on how close it is to coming out is likely to be the limiting factor on how much they show, a brief intro demo of it and no confirmed date and we can probably assume that l-series was trickier to finish than they would have hoped.

[Skeevecr]

There might be a possibility -

Two BlackBerry 10 Devices to be Launched on Jan. 30th! 1- All-Touch and 1- QWERTY | NerdBerry.net

They have always said that both touch and qwerty were going to be shown at the launch, but the qwerty would come out after the touch.

[Blacklatino]

LOL. Always interesting to see the endless jabs at the other devices. I get the excitement, but, assuming that Android and Apple are going to just "sit" on the pot and not (well, do something) move their platforms forward is a little naive. "Any device" can be considered trendy- regardless of the device....even Blackberry. As far as cool, that depends on the owner of said device. Anyway, BlackBerry has always done what it does best.......just needed to step their game up to maintain existing consumers, bring old consumers back, and attract new ones to BlackBerry.

[Thunderbuck]

Sweet, do you have any apps out, PlayBook/other. hope to see some of your work.. Enjoy the DevA..

Thanks for that. I'm new at app development, though I've got at least enough of a passing acquaintance with code to have convinced RIM to let me have a seed unit. I took that very seriously, and hope to have a couple of minor apps out for the launch.

[CopperTec]

so i guess the question i will ask on jan 30th is going to be....did we leapfrog the competition....or just slightly align ourselves with them....

[Thunderbuck]

so i guess the question i will ask on jan 30th is going to be....did we leapfrog the competition....or just slightly align ourselves with them....

In a funny kind of way, I'm not sure that RIM has even had that close an eye on the competition this time. In a good way. I think that they've worked hard to make BB10 as genuinely usable as possible. We'll see soon enough how well the market takes it.

[lorax1284]

I'd put it this way: using the PlayBook / BB10 UI compared to iOS / Android will kind-of be like walking on land vs. walking on the deck of a ship on a rough sea. Sure, after some time, you get used to walking on a ship's deck on a rough sea... but when you get back on dry land, it's a little odd at first, in a good way, then you realize "I don't really wanna go back on that ship."

When I go back to my iPad or my Android devices, I'm constantly making mistakes: exiting apps when I just want to switch, or WANTING to exit them and having to dig to get to a point where the apps actually CLOSE (not all apps have "close" or "exit" functions on the menu)... but with PlayBook, it's always the same to switch and close apps, and no buttons or menu items to find.

Anyone who uses a BB10 device for long enough to get used to it will feel that the iOS and Android UI is seriously primitive... at least, that's how I feel.

[Dapper37]

The good will from the usual haters is a positive sign!

[aha]

agree, positive press

[luv4berrycrack]

Everyone that sees my playbook with the bezel to screen gestures loves it. Especially opening multiple apps at once and bouncing back and forth between them with a couple of simple swipes. Cant wait to do this on a phone. I too find my ipod touch to be ancient with the home button. Home buttons will be more or less for little children that cant yet comprehend the swipe features yet. Like my 2 yr old that loves to push the home button on my ipod touch and wife's I4s.

[mf1982]

That's something IT managers will like, but like texazzpete said, not somthing the majority of consumers will care about. What they want us a good user experience and interface, a decent ecosystem, and a device that's able to "do things".

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have another phone that is locked down by your IT department, you are restricted in what you can do with it and may need a second device to meet your needs/wants.

With BB10, you get those two devices in one, IT can lock down the Balance profile and you have free reign over the personal profile. That will matter to end users.

[Jake Storm]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have another phone that is locked down by your IT department, you are restricted in what you can do with it and may need a second device to meet your needs/wants.

With BB10, you get those two devices in one, IT can lock down the Balance profile and you have free reign over the personal profile. That will matter to end users.

Your right it will matter to a lot of people.
There are a lot of people carrying two phones. I'm one of them.
Our IT department has the phones locked down tighter than... well you know.
Balance will allow me to go back to carrying only one phone. That's a huge plus!