1) A usable on-screen Keyboard : Any of you that had the (dis)pleasure of using a Torch 9860 had the (dis)pleasure of using it's atrocious on-screen keyboard, what appeared to be a nice looking keyboard had next to no auto-correct, haptic feedback or help in an way shape or form, it was BAD, which is a shame because RIM made Bar-none the best Physical QWERTY's out there. The new QWERTY on screen keyboard has an awesome auto correct and auto predict feature where it places the words it thinks you're going to use above the next letter and you swipe up to pick that word, I'm sorry, that's great.
2) Good Hardware : BlackBerry 10 brings round a new load of hardware, capable hardware, not severely outdated 600Mhz ARMV6 CPU's, no I'm talking Qualcomm Snapdragon S4's, Dual -core Krait Architecture, it might not be the Flashier S4 Pro (like in my Nexus 4) but its still a more than capable chipset, and outside of North America TI's OMAP 4470 (as used in the Samsung Galaxy Premier) and Higher res screens, the Dev Alpha devices have had 4.2" 1280x768 screens (with a PPI of 356 or so) , though the only specified resolutions that are go for BB10 are 1280x720 and 720x720 (Square screens FTW!)
3) Newer, hopefully better, Apps : BB10 has a new App ecosystem, and Thank god, those of you who know me or follow me on youtube know i have a Blackberry, a Pearl 9100 to be exact, the apps are pretty dire, not because they're slow , though they are, but i attribute that to my slower phone than the apps themselves, my problem with the apps is that they suck, they look terrible, they're expensive, very expensive, and there isn't many of them at all, and with BB10 RIM has been doing Port-a-thons to entice devs to either write new Apps for BB10 or port their current ones to BB10 and the last time i checked i believe they had over 70,000 Apps ready for the BB10 launch at the end of this month,which is nearly quadruple the amount of Apps currently in the BlackBerry App World.
4) Up to date Connectivity : BlackBerry Smartphones have long used trailing networks, i mean , up untill 2010 most of their smartphones still had 2G connectivity, so with the news that BB10 supports, 3G, 3.5G, 4G, Wifi 802.11 A/B/G/N , and NFC, I'm quite excited as to what the future holds for BB10, maybe som Qi Wireless charging sometime in the future, who knows.
5) Video and Voice BBM Calls : this might just be a "me" thing, but i've always wondered why there was no type of Voice calls on BBM (i know BBM 7 update added this feature,but why did it take so long?) video calls i could understand, as no BlackBerry had a front facing Camera,but still,voice calls over WiFi should have been a pretty easy thing to implement.
6) Gestures : Man, oh man i love gestures, it's one of the few reasons i went and got a Pre, and a Pre 2, and a PlayBook, and why im looking forward to Ubuntu Smartphone OS and Jolla's Sailfish OS and of course BB10, once you've learnt gestures, using that OS becomes second nature, i'll tell you what, trying to go back to android after using WebOS for a while was very jolting and difficult, and even on underpowered hardware, it still felt smooth and worthwhile, all the gestures in BB10 look to be just as simple, and just as effective.
7) Work and Play Modes : now they aren't called this, but there is a mode to switch from a personal device of sorts to a work device, when its in work mode, Work emails get prioritized, work calendar events get prioritized, special security and you can only install apps sanctioned by the Administrator of all the devices, play mode as i call it, lets your phone be you, do whatever the hell you want with it, and you switch between the two modes via, you guessed it , a gesture.
8) A new Way to multi-task : BB10 has "Active frames" now these aren't widgets, and they aren't exactly live tiles, they are saved states of apps that you cant switch between quickly, using gestures, a swipe up from the bottom bezel gets you to the multi-tasking screen if you will, now im a fan of the way WebOS (and the PlayBook OS) do it personally, but hopefully i can get my hands on one of these to see how it all works, it looks smooth and functional, but not all that pretty, it looks a bit like MeeGo Harmattan on the Nokia N9 but more utilitarian.
9) A good browser on a BlackBerry, Finally : Now any of you that have used a BlackBerry know, the browser was never its strongest point, in fact it was the weakest link in rusty chain mail armour,but i digress, BB10 looks to have a phenomenal browser, from what i gather it in itself is a HTML5 app, ,and I'm not sure what trickery RIM have done, but this thing smokes the competition on test hardware and incomplete software, i look forward to when its actually released.
10) Hopefully, Innovation : Now RIM itself may not have innovated that much, the UI looks a bit like a mish mash of lots of different OS's jammed together, the gestures apart from the "peek" one seem lifted from other places and the hardware, though improved isn't top of the line any soon as this is released and stagnate again, i really want this to succeed, and for that to happen RIM, along with all other OEM's need or Innovate, whether it be on Screen technology, Camera, Batteries or SoC's, i don't care, someone needs to innovate, if it means RIM has to license the OS, then by all means do it, I like my BlackBerry, i use a PlayBook Daily as well as my pearl, I'd hate for them to die, it might be the novelty of using an underdog platform, but the novelty hasn't worn off in almost 3 years, I'm cool with that.
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