BlackBerry 6 OS Breaks No New Ground: Review

BlackBerry 6 OS does a good job preaching to the choir but probably won’t attract many new converts. The new OS delivers a familiar and solid messaging experience that now extends to social networks, along with the typically excellent administration feature set when part of an end-to-end BlackBerry deployment. But the new consumer-oriented features break no new ground and don’t stack up well with competing platforms.

With BlackBerry 6 OS, Research In Motion was squarely focused on delivering new features and services that would appeal to consumers and end users – much as Microsoft is trying to do with the soon-to-come Windows Phone 7. eWEEK’s tests found RIM did a good job not losing touch with its core audience while delivering these enhancements, as the company continues to deliver a similar experience to users and administrators for corporate messaging and enterprise manageability. Indeed, BlackBerry 6 OS remains a solid platform for enterprise business customers, particularly on the management side of things.

However, I see little inside the OS that would generate enthusiasm and attraction for a new audience. To be clear, the new features are nice to have and make for a more modern smartphone experience from the BlackBerry, but other competing devices and mobile platforms do a better job of it. While I suspect these improvements will help staunch RIM’s customer bleed, mollifying many current customers, I doubt the platform will do much to drive new consumer activations.

Administration

When it comes to central administration, Blackberry 6 OS behaves much as prior BlackBerry versions have. As I noted in eWEEK’s tests of the first Blackberry 6 OS device (the Torch 9800), the device slid seamlessly into our BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0.2 infrastructure. I found my standard, default device policies worked without a hitch. Password lock and complexity settings, device feature lockouts (for Bluetooth or camera settings, for example), Wi-Fi configurations and wirelessly pushed application sets all deployed successfully, with no modifications required.

I also noted that remote access to protected file shares – a feature introduced in BB 5 OS – worked equally well in version 6.

While my BES infrastructure is fully up-to-date, RIM representatives make clear that BB 6 OS devices should work equally well with previous versions of BES 4.x and 5.x. However, 5.0.2 does offer some policy controls not available in previous versions–such as controls for the new BlackBerry Podcasts application. Also, 5.0.2 will be the first BES edition that adds corporate support for personal BlackBerry devices (a feature that should be supported on the client side of things by the end of the year).

On the device side of things, BB 6 OS introduces a number of enhancements to help bring users closer to their data–whether that information is on a device or on the web.

Like BB OS versions, the BB 6 OS highlights incoming messages (emails, texts, Facebook messages and call log events) in a Notification bar along the top of the screen. With version 6, users can click on the notification bar to access an overlay screen showcasing the most recent messages of each type to get a better at-a-glance perspective on what’s new. I liked how easy it was to toggle between the home screen and the overlay without needing to change the overlay or requiring a customised theme. However, I was disappointed that I could not access the overlay while using an app, as I first needed to navigate back to the home screen.