Leaked product images reveal that BlackBerry smartphones running Research in Motion's next-gen BlackBerry 10 operating system will feature home screen "widgets" for calling up apps and mini-apps, video chat capability, and improvements to the email client's design that look to be the handiwork of The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), which RIM acquired in late 2010.
The leaked photos come courtesy of the CrackBerry.com blog, which on Tuesday said it had received a 14-page presentation featuring BlackBerry 10-based BlackBerrys from a tipster.
If the images are authentic, it's pretty clear that RIM is working on a major makeover of its BlackBerry interface. In addition to the more eye-pleasing design of the home screen buttons, it looks like RIM has also packed in some more useful features—for example, the clock icon still shows the time of day but also the time at which the alarm is set to go off.
Another screenshot shows RIM's Universal Inbox, which is also available on its second-generation PlayBook tablet. The design of this email interface is the work of the TAT team, according to CrackBerry.com. Finally, there's a shot of a Caller Display screen that gives maybe two-fifths of the screen real estate to a big profile pic of the contact on the line, plus that intriguing Video Chat button.
Unfortunately for RIM, leaked product photos do not a turnaround make, and the company remains on the ropes following last month's news that long-time co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis were stepping down amid a growing storm of shareholder discontent.
RIM's recent troubles include delays to the release of handsets running BlackBerry 10, which may look pretty good in a presentation deck in mid-February but aren't expected to be made available for real until the fall.
The company has attributed the delayed rollout of its first BlackBerry 10 phones to the unavailability of the hardware RIM wanted for its next-generation handsets. But outside reports have claimed that what's really at issue is getting the software to work—BB10 is a blending of RIM's BlackBerry OS for its smartphones with the QNX operating system it used for the first version of the PlayBook tablet.
The first PlayBook didn't have native email, BlackBerry Messenger, and other key productivity apps upon which BlackBerry smartphone users have come to depend. It's reportedly been difficult for RIM to get some of those key features to work in the next-gen OS, though the company did recently demonstrate them functioning on its PlayBook 2.0, which runs on a software platform that the company describes as a kind of stepping stone from QNX to BB10.
For more on RIM, see PCMag's reviews of the BlackBerry Curve 9370 and the BlackBerry Curve 9350, as well as the BlackBerry OS 7 slideshow below.