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A file photo of a Blackberry Bold smartphone. RIM announced the new version of its smartphone, the Blackberry 10, at a developer conference. (Wikimedia Commons)
Beleaguered Canadian smartphone maker Research in Motion (RIM) announced the latest version of its smartphone, the Blackberry 10, at its annual developer conference.
RIM’s CEO Thorsten Heins had previously unveiled the new platform at May 2012. A developer prototype was shown and given out at the Blackberry 10 Jam Conference held in Florida this month.
The new device, which was initially supposed to be named BBX, had to be renamed to Blackberry 10 due to copyright issues with another company that held rights to the name “BBX”.
The new version of Blackberry is reported to support the running of Android apps through an “Android player”. RIM had announced support for Android in previous versions of its operating system, but mostly enabled them through updates and patches. The Blackberry 10 may mark the first time that the Android player (and the Dalvik runtime that enables Android apps to run) is being built into the first platform release.
Early reviewers of the Blackberry 10 platform said that the system looked like a mix between Android and the Windows Phone operating system. The Blackberry is based on the QNX operating system.
RIM’s ‘Keep On Loving You’ Music Video
In addition to what should have been a straightforward developer conference, accompanied by a product release, RIM also got a ton of press coverage and mixed reviews for one other “release”: a music video showing RIM staff belting out a love song … to its Blackberry developers.
The video, which was a viral hit on Youtube after its launch and also got mixed reviews, featured RIM staff serenading to lyrics modified from the original music video of REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on Loving You.”
The music video was titled “Devs, BlackBerry Is Going To Keep On Loving You” and featured its developers belting out lyrics such as “Our Updated SDK is really cool” and “The API’s complete” and other technical jargon retro-fitted to the REO Speedwagon’s 1980 hit single.
