By: Martin Rand, III
Date:December 4, 2012
Am I the only one getting excited about the revamped Blackberry lineup coming next year?
In my friend circle of Androids and iPhones? Yes. But with the rest of the world? No.
That's because Research In Motion, manufacturer of Blackberry, stock has been on the rise. With the assurance that Blackberry 10, the revamped operating system for Blackberry and the software that RIM is hanging the company on for survival, will be released Jan 30, RIM stock has went up nearly 80% since late September.
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| Will the Blackberry 10 OS save RIM? |
However, just the mere arrival isn't enough to get me excited about the Blackberry devices. The things RIM are doing in anticipation for the devices have me excited.
For starters, RIM isn't just making a new OS, they're trying to be a leader in mobile technology. According to the Blackberry Developer blog, the mobile web browser the Blackberry 10 devices will use have passed Ringmark 1, a standard browsers must achieve to be produce the highest quality HTML 5 apps.
Ringmark is a browser test suite for building apps on the mobile web. Developed by Facebook, Ringmark "will help developers know, in a glimpse, whether their app can or cannot run on any given mobile browser. It will help mobile browser vendors build browsers that better serve developer needs and bring better apps and games to consumers," wrote Matt Kelly on Facebook's HTML 5 blog.
There's three levels on the ring test, Ringmark 2 being the highest, which RIM hopes to achieve before the launch of the Blackberry 10 devices.
However, even if it doesn't, it will still be one of the best OS on the market.
According to HTML5.com, a site that automatically test browsers compatibility with html 5, the beta version of Blackberry 10 achieved a 484 score out of 500. Compared to Apple iOS6 (386), Windows Phone 8 (320) and Android 4.0 (297), Blackberry could make them look like the old-school flip phones browsers.
Tizen is the only other browser to score higher than Blackberry 10, achieving a 485 score. It's also currently in beta form.
Also, starting this month until Feb 5, RIM is giving out 1,500 beta devices to developers so they can start making apps that utilize the OS of Blackberry. This should give owners of the new Blackberry a slew of apps to choose from so they won't miss the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Developers are really liking the new platform as well.
"I hope it's not too late for them because this product is great," said Mobtapp's Sean Green, who has built a shopping application for BlackBerry, to PC World.
Also speaking to PC World, Mario Angula, a user experience consultant for Tesseract Space, which builds applications for the publishing industry, said the new way the Blackberry funcitons is "real cool."
This will be key for RIM. To not only bring the casual smartphone user into the Blackberry fold, but also, lure devout Apple and Android users away from their iPhones and Samsung Galaxy S3s.
According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, in the third quarter of this year, Android still owns a majority of the smartphone market with 75%, Apple is far behind in second with 14.9% and Blackberry is lagging in third at 4.3%.
I guess it's safe to say Android and Apple don't have much to worry about anytime soon. However, that line of thinking is what got RIM in the predicament it's in now.
As early as three years ago, Blackberry was the leading force in the cellphone market owning 41.6%, according to comScore. At the same time, Apple was second with 25.3% and Google brought up the rear with 5.2%.
However, RIM's lack of belief that consumers wanted a fully-touchscreen phone instead of a QWERTY keyboard as well as not developing a bigger app store led Blackberry to fall out of favor with the average consumer quickly.
RIM doesn't want to want to make the same mistake twice. This time they're trying to get ahead of the curve.
"We’re no strangers to the importance of standardization – especially in support of Web technologies," said Kelly. "We’re diligently working to continue our support for the Ringmark standard and to provide developers an increased sense of confidence in the web as a platform."
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