Despite some negative press in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where BlackBerry services are being banned, RIM managed to put itself in the spotlight yesterday.
Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of Research in Motion, showed off the company's newest device, the Torch, running the latest versions of its operating system. Notably, the new software is no longer referred to as BlackBerry OS - it's just BlackBerry 6, now.
Sitting behind the new interface, some new core functions have been added to BlackBerry 6. The biggest addition is a new Webkit-based browser, capable of rendering pages (and e-mail) in HTML5. This puts it on par with the iPhone and Android browsers. In fact, early tests have shown the BlackBerry 6 browser to be a wee bit faster in certain benchmarks - it'll be interesting to see how Apple and Google respond to this.
Improved Internet integration comes in the form of a new social networking application called Social Feeds. This consolidates data from BlackBerry Messenger, Facebook, Twitter, Google Talk, Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger, giving users a unified interface to interact with all their contacts. Even with these newfangled social messaging services, traditional text and multimedia messages have also been given an overhaul. New views are available in the Text Messages application, along with options to share multimedia content.
Thankfully the new software won't be limited to just the Torch - more recent BlackBerry devices will be able to run it, and the company will make the updates available in the coming months.
The three existing devices eligible for an upgrade to the new software are the Bold 9700 and 9650, and the Pearl 3G. Obviously, all upcoming BlackBerry phones will also be loaded with BlackBerry 6.
Expect a full test, when we get our hands on the update.
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