Last night BlackBerry gathered the tech industry’s best known and most quotable journalists together to unveil BlackBerry 10 – a new mobile platform for a new breed of phones. More specifically? The only-just-official BlackBerry Z10. As with any generational leap, there was a lot to take in, but what did the tech press make of it all? We were there, and we’ve got the inside view.
For the most balanced view, you don’t just go to one source, you get the thoughts of everyone that matters. In this case, we’ve spoken to soe of the web’s key opinion makers to get a level idea of what BlackBerry 10’s all about. So what do the experts think?
The verdict
Well, the good news is that the tech press seem to be buoyed by the new-look BlackBerry platform. “People in the UK are going to be very excited that they get to have it tomorrow,” said SlashGear’s Chris Davies. “BlackBerry’s certainly going all out to try and position BB10 as more as a fully-fledged OS out of the gate, with all of the apps and all of the partnerships it’s made with developers.”
“BlackBerry’s certainly going all out…”
That raft of apps – over 70,000 at launch, to be precise – struck a chord with others in attendance, too. “They’ve done really well to focus on apps,” said The Guardian’s Stuart Dredge.
“Saying they’ve got 70,000 apps is great,” he continued, “but saying they’ve got the really good ones that everyone wants is important.” He was referring to big hitters like Angry Birds, Facebook and the BBC iPlayer being onboard from BB10’s launch – just three of a laundry list of top flight apps already available on the Z10.
Stuart rounded off by saying that “the phone looks really nice,” which was an opinion shared by many. “The device itself looks impressive,” said T3’s Libby Plummer.
“The BlackBerry Z10 is a really nice-looking bit of hardware,” said Hannah Bouckley of Recombu, adding: “I think the BlackBerry Flow is a different way of operating a phone, and I can’t wait to try it out. It’s good to see BlackBerry going in a different direction to other operating systems.”
Matt Brian from The Next Web agreed. “BlackBerry 10 looks pretty slick,” he said, adding that BlackBerry’s focus on getting developers on board will help it flourish as a platform from day one: “They’ve got everyone on board. You might find that game-changing apps like Instagram could come to BlackBerry 10 because of inbuilt support for Android developers.”
So there you have it. The force seems strong with BlackBerry 10, and the press is impressed. For more information and to buy the BlackBerry Z10, head to vodafone.co.uk/blackberry.
