RIM to unveil new BlackBerry

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Research in Motion Thorsten Heins President and CEO speaks about the new BlackBerry 10 in San Jose, Calif., Sept. 25, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Eric Risberg

Research In Motion (TSX:RIM) says it will officially launch its long-awaited new BlackBerry 10 operating system on Jan. 30.

RIM says the new platform will be launched simultaneously in several countries.

Besides marking the official launch of BlackBerry 10, the company will also unveil the first two BlackBerry 10 smartphones.

RIM says details on the smartphones and their availability will be announced at the event.

President and CEO Thorsten Heins said that in building BlackBerry 10, RIM set out to create "a truly unique mobile computing experience."

"Our team has been working tirelessly to bring our customers innovative features combined with a best in class browser, a rich application ecosystem, and cutting-edge multimedia capabilities," Heins said in announcing the launch date.

"All of this will be integrated into a user experience "the BlackBerry Flow” that is unlike any smartphone on the market today," he said.

Among other things, the BlackBerry 10 will offer a large catalogue of applications from games to lifestyle and multimedia apps, as well as applications designed for business and enterprise use.

The company says a feature it calls "BlackBerry flow" allows seamless navigation across open applications. All messages, notifications, feeds, and calendar events come into what is called the BlackBerry hub and no matter what the user is doing with the device, with a simple gesture, can peek into the hub at any time.

The new devices will also have a keyboard that adapts to how the user writes and types to allow faster and more accurate typing.

And RIM says a feature called BlackBerry balance will keep personal apps and information separate from work data, but the user will be able to switch back and forth with a simple gesture.