BlackBerry 10 UI Breakdown–Rebuilding the User Experience for Next-Gen, Gesture Based OS

BlackBerry 10 represents a complete departure from older BlackBerrys. The company, formerly known as Research In Motion, has completely taken on the brand identity BlackBerry, and has done away with the old company–a symbolic way of putting down the giant that was RIM which brought them from 1984-2013. In term, a reflective way for them to say an era has ended and, with the launch of this platform, a new one is about to begin.

With that said, the user interface developed by powerhouse TAT (now RIM Sweden), who were also core designers of original Android, is a total redesign. To put it simply, the UI is a salad of every kind of UI element we’ve ever used in the last 5 years, bundled together in a neat high-function design. From taps, to swipes–strokes to flicks, the UI represents every paradigm used together in harmony. The software platform is taken to whole new industry levels, and the competition better check their core architecture models. Since before Microsoft ever launched Windows, there was QNX. QNX is the Real Time Operating System that lays at the core of not only the new B10 but at the heart of automotive infotainment/telematics from all major car OEMS like Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, and Porsche. Major healthcare equipment like EEG, bone density monitors, LASIK eye surgery and cardiac monitors also run QNX. Some military predator drones, nuclear reactor control modules, parts of the International Space Station and every NASA shuttle all utilize the rock solid QNX OS underneath. For a full in depth software review delving into individual apps click here

It’s these very vertical applications to which this platform is specifically designed. Utilizing gestures for navigation and user exchange ups the ante of the entire medium. BlackBerry introduced the first smartphone with a real time network and won big in the space on the keyboard paradigm, made an industry standard by laptops. While this jump changed mobile communication and has brought along other refinements, such as touchscreens like iPhone and customizable albeit fragmented ecosystems like Android, this new BlackBerry 10 OS challenges everything the last 5 years have meant in mobile.

THE LOCK SCREEN:

Right from the lock screen, you can see just how much attention to detail BlackBerry has put into this next generation OS. While the button-less face may seem confusing at first, assume the BlackBerry logo on the bottom bezel is your home button, as it is from there that you will do a couple of the core gestures.

As you slide up, the OS wakes beneath the glass in response to your touch. The newly touted Touch on Lens display, at a resolution of 1280×768 with a PPI of 356 (Greater than Retina), looks amazing and the colors balance as well as any other top smartphone. As your finger slides up, the lock screen will fade away underneath it, revealing whatever area of the OS it was left in.You can regress the wake gesture up from the BlackBerry logo and send the phone right back into standby mode. This is great when you just want to check on the time quickly or see an incoming notification. On the lock screen, you have a column of those notifications as well as a pressure sensitive touch button for the camera that launches the camera after 3 seconds. Upcoming calendar events, as well as personal messages, can be set to appear on the lock screen as well.

ACTIVE FRAMES:

Active Frames are not live tiles, nor are they widgets. Similarly, as seen on PlayBook, the active frames are the actual running application in a scaled down fashion. The ultimate experience you get from them is similar to the one you find on your desktop. The added benefit of these frames over tiles is that they aren’t glorified app icon launchers, they are simply miniature versions of the app. BlackBerry has given developers access to the whole UI tree so that in their frame mode the app can update and show important information, like a live tile. Apps currently either appear as static screens or live updating frames, dependent on the developer. The frames stack chronologically in the area between the hub and icon grid. The upper left will always run the most recently launched app, while the lower right will have the least recent app. The experience here reminds me of dealing a spread of cards vertically 2 by 2. It’s pleasant although sometimes I wish we could pin active frames so that they’re always running.

You can run up to 8 applications simultaneously in real time thanks to the QNX OS, the Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, and the 2 GB of RAM. 4 will display at a time and you can simply scroll down to reveal the other 4 tiles, a process I found natural.

IN APPS & BLACKBERRY HUB:

In Apps, the experience is not too different from what you find navigating around the UI. To the right of many core apps, you’ll find the overflow menu, which I find takes the place of the old BB menu button. Here in BB10, the menu is extended by pressing the 3 white vertical dots to the bottom right.

To the bottom left, you’ll see the 3 horizontal line box which usually signifies that the apps content can be filtered down into individual feeds. Simply tap and a menu will un-collapse revealing those segregated feeds/or accounts.

The BlackBerry HUB is not really an app. It lives intrinsically on the device, like photo editor or the document editors. Even voice control isn’t really an app –more a UI element usable when you need it, not when you don’t.

The HUB acts like the notification bar from legacy BBOS, this time however, instead of notifications jumping you into different apps to respond, the communication is streamlined into the Hub. Your social accounts such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Twitter have direct connection within hub to core functions like composing a message or status. Your texts, calls, voice mail, notifications and BBM are all collated. The HUB is an area on the far left of the OS. This area can be entered by swiping through the app grid and active frames into the Hub or by continuation of the “Peek” gesture to the right, which pushes whatever you were doing out of the way to reveal your HUB underneath. A clever 5 gesture swiping pattern will restart the HUB if you have any issues or ghost notifications as well.

The Peek gesture is a simple upward swipe from the bottom bezel. Within HUB, this gesture lets you see incoming or unchecked notifications. In an app, the gesture miniaturizes the full screen app, bringing notices or any other apps/splats to attention in from the left. Continue the gesture up and the app will minimize into its active frame.

OS BACK BUTTON &  SETTINGS PANE:

BlackBerry 10 marks the introduction of the world’s first smartphone with no buttons on the face. This innovation is made possible by paradigm parts called Peek, Flow and Hub. Peek is built throughout the OS to deliver instant tactile and visual feedback to the user. Because there is no home or back button, BlackBerry Peek exists to make the back button essentially a stroke from left to right in which the gesture pulls the current page to the right and brings the previous page in from the left. It alone makes every user interface paradigm on iOS, Android and WP seem both antiquated and cumbersome.

BlackBerry 10 is all about context and the OS aims to deliver it throughout the UI and core apps. B_ren has written a great write up of the OS and all those internal applications.

Next to last, we have the setting Pane. You bring down this pane by swiping down in the OS from the top bezel. This gesture doesn’t work the same way in apps, where you’ll pull down a contextually aware menu for the app. Within the HUB, app grid or active frame area you can down this interactive menu to get quick access to some device settings. While you can click the word and transition into the specific app or setting, you can tap the icon to simply toggle the features on and off. I find this remarkably easy and overall a nice refinement.

OVERFLOW MENUS:

BlackBerry 10 marks the introduction of the world’s first smartphone with no buttons on the face. This innovation is made possible by paradigm parts called Peek, Flow and Hub. Peek is built throughout the OS to deliver instant tactile and visual feedback to the user. Because there is no home or back button, BlackBerry Peek exists to make the back button essentially a stroke from left to right in which the gesture pulls the current page to the right and brings the previous page in from the left. It alone makes every user interface paradigm on iOS, Android and WP seem both antiquated and cumbersome.

BlackBerry 10 is all about context and the OS aims to deliver it throughout the UI and core apps. B_ren has written a great write up of the OS and all those internal applications.

Next to last, we have the setting Pane. You bring down this pane by swiping down in the OS from the top bezel. This gesture doesn’t work the same way in apps, where you’ll pull down a contextually aware menu for the app. Within the HUB, app grid or active frame area you can down this interactive menu to get quick access to some device settings.

While you can click the word and transition into the specific app or setting, you can tap the icon to simply toggle the features on and off. I find this remarkably easy and overall a nice refinement.

BLACKBERRY PEEK:

I’ve talked about Peek various times, and here’s another example of where it comes it handy. Both Peek and Flow make the experience of BlackBerry 10 dynamic and at the user’s fingertips. In this example, you see actions from left to right. From the full screen Twitter app, a simple swipe up and hold brings the application into the middle screen, where battery, notifications, time, coverage and connection are all exposed. I use the phone over HDMI a lot, and I appreciate the cinematic experience in several apps, like the browser. The peek gesture allows me to check on status bar information easily, and I can slide the gesture to the right to push Twitter out of the way and reveal the HUB underneath.

Flow is something you grasp naturally over time. I can’t take a screen shot of it or even really explain it aside in situations. IF a summation needed to be given. Flow is the the whole gesture based user paradigm that drives BlackBerry 10. It truly is a unique offering in the regurgitated space between iOS and Android. There are genuine user interface innovations here. Let alone standout features, like the on screen flick enabled keyboard, time-shift camera, or DNLA Play On feature. All in all, out of the box the Z10 may be the most ready to go phone ever designed. It’s industrial design follows closely behind what has come previous in PlayBook and OS7, but pays internal tribute to the specs of the time. BB10 is stable, fast, and a shift for everyone in the operating system game. As Mozilla, Canonical, and Jolla bring their new OSs to market, they will have a new top dog to fight against to gain marketshare. BlackBerry 10 is a seriously powerful OS and to disregard the new BlackBerry this early is foolish. They have just begun. Against the stale Windows Phone UI, BB10 offers an agile and unique user interface that rivals anything ever seen on a touchscreen.