BlackBerry Live officially kicked off yesterday at 9PM local time. Lots of exciting news was revealed, and I am still trying to get my head around most of them. The headaches and cold I am having are certainly not helping. So I am just going to do a quick recap based on the screenshots I captured.
Opening keynote by Thorsten Heins. Talked about his thoughts and feeling over the past year, and getting BB10 to market.
Introducing C-Level guys at BlackBerry.
What the media/consumers have been saying about BB10.
Introducing the mid level BB10 device the Q5.
Available in Pink, Red, Black, and White. Hot. Hoping for more colours.
Thorsten talking about Mobile, and BlackBerry knows Mobile.
Talking apps. A new milestone. 120,000 apps in BB World for BB10.
Some BB10 apps that are coming.
Talking about BB10 as a Mobile Platform, not just a Smartphone OS.
BB10/QNX in automotive. Showing off a BBM video call in the car. Too awesome. Lots of potential here. QNX is already being used by a lot of car manufacturers, so the potential is huge here. A list of those I know; BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Acura, Chrysler, Daewoo, General Motors, Hyundai, land rover, Porsche, and Saab (well… lol).
Talking BES 10.1. In a nutshell, one server to rule them all. Also talking about the advantages of deploying BES. Not going to go further on this even though lots have been said, as this doesn’t exactly applies to normal consumers. It is no doubt extremely important, but I am just too wiped to go through them again.
Talking Marketing. Unifying the brand, no more RIM, Bold, Curve, etc. BlackBerry will be the main brand that will be marketed strongly.
Some other initiatives was mentioned, but this particularly one interest me the most since I have recently joined the Elite program that just started in Singapore. (Thanks to BlackBerry SG for that!)
Lewis Hamilton on stage. He also introduced the new BBM Channels that is now in beta. You can grab it now if you are on the Beta Zone. I have it and its pretty nice.
—-> Apologies for the lo-res shots here, I had to drive my cousin to see a doctor so I could only stream over my Z10. Well, at least I could. I tried to open the stream on an S3 and it doesn’t support the stream. In between the Marketing part and Lewis Hamilton, Alicia Keys did come on stage and talked about a scholarship program for women interested in tech. At least that’s what I can remember. I was driving at that point of time and could only listen in, so apologies again.
BBM Channels to me, is like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all rolled into a single package. Been using it for a few hours, and its pretty great. It feels like what a Mobile focused blogging/social network platform would be. I will try to have another post on this if possible to explore more of it. Nonetheless, my thoughts about it are really positive thus far.
Final and biggest announcement to me at the end. BBM going cross-platform. It will be available in the summer for iOS 6.0, and Android ICS and up. No love for Windows phone though. The app will launch with basic messaging and group chat features. With feature parity planned, such as Video chat, voice chat, and screen sharing.
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This is too huge to not comment about it. There have been a heated debate for a while whether BBM should go cross platform long before this announcement, both sides having valid points. My take?
Bravery. Its a risky move no doubt. Huge risks. People who used a BlackBerry just to use BBM can now switch away without missing BBM. But there are also potential for consumers to be impressed with the app and show BlackBerry in a different light. Provided the app is rock solid. Double edged sword if you ask me. More thoughts here if you aren’t asleep by now. lol.
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Well, that’s about it for BB Live. Apologies for the really really long post. But there was just so much news, and frankly I already skipped a lot of them (not to mention the Jam keynote afterwards). Anyway, here’s a quick recap of BB Live Day 1.
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