FEATURE
BlackBerry OS: What you need to know BlackBerry OS is the proprietary mobile operating system developed by Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) for its range of BlackBerry smartphones. The success of BlackBerry devices started off in the corporate sector, with a reputation built based on class-leading push email support, excellent fingerfriendly QWERTY keyboards and a strong emphasis on security. s the addictiveness of BlackBerry grew (referred to as “CrackBerry” at one stage), with support from even President Barack Obama, its popularity spread to regular consumers too. The BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), offering email, browsing and social networking for a fixed R59 per month, and BlackBerry Messaging (BBM), an instant messaging service, found an especially willing market locally. Although internationally RIM’s market share has seen a decline thanks to the strength of Apple and Android, here in SA (and other developing markets), it’s still a massive
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BlackBerry OS versions ike with most mobile OSs, new features are included with each new incarnation of BlackBerry OS. Users have to connect their device to their PC, and use the BlackBerry Desktop Software to download and install major OS feature updates. However, a lot of the minor feature sets (or bundle packs) can be downloaded over the air (OTA). You can check for the availability of these by going to settings in the main menu (wrench icon), then selecting “Device” and finally, “Software Updates”.
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powerhouse. According to Strategy Worx Consulting, BlackBerry makes up a staggering 44% of the local smartphone market, in contrast to Android’s 8% and Apple’s 4% (see p15).
End call button. If you want to exit an app and get back to the main screen, press this button. You can also hold it in if you want to turn your smartphone off.
The main buttons
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all button. Pressing the call button takes you to a list showing the numbers you recently dialled. You can also search for someone’s contact info by typing their name or clicking on the phone book icon to search through your contacts.
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Menu. Hitting the Menu button provides you with a list of options to choose from. This list will differ depending on whether you pressed the Menu button whilst in an app, or within the main menu. Optical trackpad. This five-way button allows users to scroll their way through the menu system or webpages by swiping either up, down, left or right . You can also press the button to select something within the menu system. Back. Like its name suggests, the Back button takes you one step back within the menu structure. BlackBerry 5 OS. The majority (47%) of BlackBerry users run this version on smartphones such as the Bold 9700 and Curve 8520. BlackBerry 6 OS. Released in 2010, BlackBerry 6 OS brought new features such as a unified social networking feed, enhanced browser and universal search to RIM’s mobile platform. This version is used by 34% of BlackBerry users on devices, including the Torch 9800, Curve 9300 and Bold 9780. BlackBerry 7 OS. The latest version was released late last year, and although it looks virtually the same as version 6, it is a lot smoother and faster to navigate. BlackBerry 7 OS runs on smartphones like the Torch 9810, Bold 9900, and Curve 9380.
he biggest draw card for BlackBerry devices is also the main reason why BlackBerry smartphones remain so popular in SA – RIM’s BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) and BBM (BlackBerry Messenger). A R59 BIS subscription provides BlackBerry users with free access to their email (up to ten different accounts), chatting services, internet browsing (barring video streaming or large file downloads) as well as social networking (Facebook and Twitter). BBM (included with BIS) is an instant messaging platform and one of the largest mobile social networks in the world. It enables BlackBerry users to chat with each other, send multimedia content such as photos, music as well as videos (though limited to sending 6 MB sized files), and even challenge their friends within certain BBM-connected games.
The BlackBerry line-up urve range: RIM’s Curve line-up is targeted at users that don’t want to spend more than R4000 on a smartphone and includes devices such as the all-touch Curve 9380 and 9360 (nontouchscreen with QWERTY keyboard). These offer slightly scaled down specifications in regards to CPU, screen resolution, etc. Bold range: The high-end Bold series offers the best specs and functionality available to users of RIM devices, including the company’s fastest smartphone processor on the Bold 9900 (singlecore 1.2 GHz QC 8655 processor). The Bold range includes a physical QWERTY keyboard, and now, on the 9900, also a beautiful touchscreen. Torch range: Like the Bold series, the Torch range offers the best functionality available to users of the Canadian firm’s smartphones. The difference is that all Torch phones include a slide-out physical keyboard for when some serious typing needs to be done, while a touch-screen allows browsing and email checking on the fly.
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