I know what you may be thinking: ‘Oh Paul, so easily swayed by the next big thing, we remember you harping on about Windows Phone 8 after it launched and then denouncing it months later like a proper Judas.’
Ouch. Yes, you’re absolutely right, I did jump the gun a bit on that one. Windows Phone 8 seemed to change all the right things but after a longer period of use I found it distinctly lacking in my day-to-day smartphone activities.
It’s safe to say I’ve learnt my lesson on that one, which is why I’ve been using a BlackBerry Z10 for a longer period of time before passing judgement on BlackBerry 10.
I must admit, my initial impression of BlackBerry 10 on launch was not great. I liked a lot of the ideas behind BlackBerry’s approach, which I’d seen before in pre-release briefings, but in practice the specifics of the gesture controlled interface seemed a bit obtuse to me when I briefly tried the demo model Rich was reviewing way back in February.
I’ve talked before about how interface ‘intuitiveness’, as much as it’s bandied around by phone makers, is highly subjective and not necessarily innate.
Even though some users find some interfaces easier to get to grips with than others there is almost always a process of learning the new control ‘language’ at first, and the real issue is how steep that learning curve is.
This is very much the case with BlackBerry 10: if you’re trying it having primarily used Windows Phone, iOS or (in my case) Android you’re in for a bit of a shock and it will take a period of adjustment.
On that note, I should probably highlight what the specific features and control methods are which might cause a bit of puzzlement initially.
The main thing BlackBerry emphasised when talking to journalists ahead of BlackBerry 10’s launch was how it wanted to avoid the ‘in-and-out’ of multitasking and navigating between apps on mobile operating systems.
When you stop and think about it the company really does have a point there – on any other platform you do spend a lot of time moving between the homescreen and individual apps in a very stop-start manner.
BlackBerry’s solution in BlackBerry 10 is to centralise multitasking by aggregating a lot of the most commonly used functions into one place – email, messaging, social networking, texts and notifications.
These are all wrapped up inside the BlackBerry Hub, which is always accessible from any screen by using a specific gesture: on the BlackBerry Z10 this is a swipe up and to the left, although the tricky bit is the swipe needs to start ‘off-screen’ on the BlackBerry logo at the bottom of the handset. This will probably throw a lot of people at first and it certainly caused me a bit of a headache early on.
Persevere though, and it becomes a very useful mechanic and is a far better executed aggregation platform than Windows Phone’s People Hub ever was.
I should point out that you still can go into individual apps such as Facebook, email and text messaging in full-screen and independently from the BlackBerry Hub, so you really do get the best of both worlds.
Another neat multitasking trick is BlackBerry 10’s almost desktop-like approach to active apps. Rather than using a carousel system as Android, Windows Phone and now iOS 7 all do, BlackBerry 10 lets you minimise an active app with an upwards swipe.
This creates a new temporary homescreen page with tiled previews of up to eight applications. You can scroll up and down this screen if you’ve got a ton of apps minimised and they can be opened with a tap or closed completely by hitting the little cross icon.
Once you get the hang of all this, which doesn’t take too long, it’s a remarkably quick and easy system to use. I’ve dropped hints in other articles before suggesting BlackBerry 10’s multitasking approach is better than Android’s.
I’ll go one further this time by clarifying that I do think it is superior. I think it works well primarily because the whole platform is based around it – everything just clicks together nicely.
Another key aspect is the app ecosystem. Coming from Android, and having been stung by Windows Phone, this was a serious area of concern for me.
I love Android because that old Apple mantra ‘there’s an app for that’ definitely applies equally well on Google’s software – I can find anything I need and although there’s a lot of crap to sort through (as on all platforms) there’s always an absolute gem in there somewhere.
But I needn’t have worried. For one thing BlackBerry App World’s selection, while not as diverse as Google Play or the Apple App Store, is still relatively robust. There are a lot of high quality apps available covering many of the most essential smartphone capabilities or services (well, most of them, more on that in a bit).
More crucially though, is the fact that I don’t have to pine for missing apps from Android’s ecosystem, because you can sideload Android apps onto BlackBerry 10 very easily. It takes a fairly short amount of time to set this up via a PC or Mac, but once you’ve got the software setup you can port Android apps across in the blink of an eye and you can even do it within Google’s Chrome browser.
I quickly ported Tumblr across from Android to my BlackBerry Z10 and now, along with the existing Facebook and Twitter apps, as well as the BlackBerry Hub, my needs are met and I’m a happy man.
At present this doesn’t work with all Android apps, only those compatible with Android 2.3 and below but BlackBerry 10.2 is pegged to include support for Android 4.2 apps, which should bring everything right up-to-date.
Whether that will mean the two most glaring gaps in the BlackBerry 10 app portfolio – Netflix and Spotify – can then be used, remains to be seen. I don’t use those services, so that doesn’t bother me personally, though I can understand it’s a subject of much frustration for those who do.
It’s not all flowers and sunshine though. BlackBerry 10 is far from perfect. While it looks much, much better than its predecessors it still has that oddly Windows 95 vibe to the icons and interface elements which may not suit everyone.
I can live with this, but I’d argue Android still looks better, as do other rivals. It also has a fairly limited drop-down quick-settings menu which I think BlackBerry should seriously consider expanding in a future update.
I also think the BlackBerry Z10 is not the best carrier for the platform. The design is great, the screen is lovely and it’s a nice feeling phone in the hand but the battery life is pretty poor.
Personally, I’m not interested in the BlackBerry Q10 due to the smaller screen real-estate, which leaves me waiting for a BlackBerry Z10 successor with a bigger battery pack.
When that happens I’ll there with bells on.
by pbriden via Featured Articles
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