Five features Windows Phone should absorb from
Blackberry
By Manthan Gupta | October 16, 2013 7:00 AM
Blackberry’s pretty much dead in the water right? If there is anything approaching
a consensus among the technology community about things that will happen in
the near future, that’s about as close to a certainty as you can get. It sucks.
It’s not fun for anyone, especially fans of that platform, but it’s going to happen. Sorry.
But Blackberry might have a chance for life after consumer-product death.
Sure they’ll live on in enterprise software – maybe – but when it comes to
consumer handsets, Blackberry has a real shot at continuing
forward, albeit in a more of a “The Walking Dead” kind of role.
If Blackberry can’t be successful in the consumer market,
maybe its legacy can continue forward in
Windows Phone with a few key features inspired by Blackberry.
You might remember some of these features from our reviews ofBB10 and the
We’ll wait.Now, whether these features make it onto the platform by licensing
(Blackberry may as well make some money of developing BB10) or by “
borrowing ideas” (for reference see iOS multitasking vs. webOS) is neither here nor there.
I suppose in an idyllic world, Microsoft approaches Blackberry and licenses
the features from them, being all copyright-friendly and such. More likely though,
if these features are to live on, they’ll be copied. Either way, here’s a list of the top
five features we at Pocketnow would salivate over should they show up on a…
.what’s the word that I’m looking for? – successful consumer handset.
The Hub
The Blackberry Hub is one of the more fantastic features about Blackberry
and it fits in perfectly with something that Windows Phone is lacking – notifications.
Integrating a Hub-like feature into Windows Phone would potentially solve this
notification center issue with all manner of possibilities.
Sure the live tiles would still be there, all flippy everything. And live tiles would
begreat for the important notifications – your main inbox, your calendar, etc.
Plus live tiles would be perfect for apps like “Battery” which wouldn’t really
work in a Hub-like format. So, by all means, we are not advocating the
destruction of live tiles.
But for a virtual command center of all of your notifications, the Hub is where
you would want to be. With the ability to integrate messages from all manner
of emails accounts, instant messengers (maybe fix that Facebook messenger situation),
game notifications, etc. all of those could be available from the command center
. In fact, call it the “Command Center”. Gold.
Peek
Along with the Hub, you almost have to integrate Peek functionality. In my world,
Peek is what made the Hub the coolest thing ever. The ability to swipe up form
the bottom of any screen and get an instant and non-disruptive look at the Hub
without ever leaving your current app would make it da bomb. If I had ever
owned a BB10 device, the combination of those two features would have
been what I looked forward to using the most, plus the most fun to show off at parties.
Notification light
LED notification lights. Ok, so this isn’t a Blackberry innovation exactly,
and it’s not uncommon elsewhere, but this is quite possibly the one thing I
miss the most from my webOS days. Just glancing at my phone and seeing if I had
any notifications waiting was awesome and I miss it dearly. My GSIII has a light for
just such an occasion, but in my opinion it’s under-used as well.
In a perfect world, I would have the Windows logo at the bottom of the phone pulse
when there is a notification, plus I would have it pulse in different colors depending
on what the notification was. Yes Microsoft, you can go ahead and send me a check.
You’re welcome. Yes, the usual address.
Virtual Keyboard
business by more than a few reviewers. I personally am more of a SwiftKey kind
of guy (on Android of course) but I’d consider the Windows Phone keyboard
a pretty close second. I rarely had the occasion to use Blackberry Keyboard,
unfortunately, but the word-flicking thing did very much grab my attention.
Most virtual keyboards incorporate autocomplete in some fashion, often at the
top of the keyboard, but Blackberry is the only one that puts the suggestions
on the keyboard itself, as opposed to above it.
I don’t know about you, but when I type on a virtual keyboard, I usually look at the
keyboard, as opposed to above it. Further, the less distance my fingers have
to travel, the more efficient typing can be. Personally, I see it being more useful
for one-handed use than, but better is better, so let’s all be better. Better?
Two for the price of one
The fifth item is actually going to be a combo deal. A buy one get one free
deal if you will. We’re going to talk about one feature which may have already
come to Windows Phone, and one which will likely never come to Windows Phone.
App Closing
GDR 3 came out yesterday, and with it came a bulletpoint that said
“Now you can use the App switcher to quickly close apps when you’re
finished with them.” This is really cool. Previously, the only way to close
an application was to use the back button to get out of it. The only way to
close all active apps was to either mash the back button repeatedly until it
wouldn’t go back any more, or to reboot the phone. Neither of these was
particularly ideal. Blackberry had a minimized card system similar to webOS,
Windows Phone, and pretty much everyone else nowadays.
The one main difference between Windows Phone and everyone else is/was
app closing or lack thereof. It seems GDR 3 may have had a premonition
about this article and gotten on top of that, and good on them. Well done.
about this article and gotten on top of that, and good on them. Well done.
Feel free to salivate
Sideloading Android
The last page we’d like to see Windows Phone take out of Blackberry’s playbook is
Android app sideloading. This feature, which admittedly was not a favorite on many,
Android app sideloading. This feature, which admittedly was not a favorite on many,
would solve a lot of problems for Windows Phone, most notably the lack of Google
service utilization. Having access to Andorid apps would bring a lot of missing
functionality to Windows Phone and might placate those who screamed for an
Android Lumia 1020.
It will never happen of course. Google won’t even let Microsoft’s developers make
their own Youtube app. Do we realistically think that Google would not drag
Microsoft into court the very moment the phrase “Android apps” is whispered
within Microsoft’s headquarters? I’m almost positive they would, and they would likely win.
Also, my very brief and limited exposure to the app development world made
it seem very much like the architecture behind Windows Phone and Android is very,
very different. Is it more different than the gap between BB10 and Android?
I have no idea. So I’m not even sure if it would be possible. Actually,
I’m reasonably sure it would be possible; I just have no idea how hard it’d be.
Since Google would rather chop off their left pinky than let it happen, it’s rather a
moot point.
So that’s our wish list. Do you think we missed anything? I personally would
be a lot happier picking up my Lumia 920 if those five features were there.
Is there something that Windows Phone could do without? Sound off in the
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