Its almost a week ago now that I loaded Sprints 6.0.0.415 on my 9650. I figured it was time I wrote down a few of my thoughts on the subject before they vanished into thin air.
Prior to installing BlackBerry 6 I was more than a little skeptical about it. The negative things I’d read had me troubled. Most of these negative comments originated from BlackBerry users that either carried multiple devices or switched completely. These comments I took with a grain of salt.
Screen transitions are a particular pet peeve of mine. I can’t stand em. As applications started updating to be compatible with BB6 they included more transitions then ever. I feared that this might well be a clear indication that RIM filled BB6 with screen transitions. I was correct. However, the screen transitions in BB6 are smoothly fluid and barely noticeable. Not what I had expected.
In my opinion the native browser RIM provided in BB5 and older versions of its operating system was a miserable failure. I do believe that any 3rd party browser is superior. It was my understanding the BB6 included what was called a Webkit Browser. It was my understanding that this was by far better than those previously released by RIM. Is this webkit better? I find it to be the best mobile browser I’ve used thus far. I’ll say I think its better than the Android browser. Just show me another browser on a mobile device that allows the user to have multiple windows open at the same time. I have had as many as 10 windows open. I love the ability to easily switch from one window to the next. How many windows or “Tabs” can be open at the same time? I’ve got no idea. Are there some minor issues to be worked out? Yes. I much prefer to view most site in a column view. There is no option for this. At least not in the .415 build. This is overcome with the ability to zoom in on the page. This isn’t perfect yet. But, it certainly is nice.
The Options menus will take more time to learn than any other part of BB6. This is one area that will simply take time to learn I see no way around it.
The stock/default theme I wrote about previously. Read about that Here.
Text messaging now has a BlackBerry Messenger look and feel to it. I love this change as I really enjoy the feel of BBM. I’ve found what I think are a couple of small bugs. Its not unusual to receive or send a sms or mms message to many people at the same time. Personally I prefer to use bcc when I do this. I really not want nor need everyone I send a message to knowing whom else received the same message. I see no option for this. When I go to reply to a text, that was sent to multiple people, I want only the original sender to receive my reply. However, when I simply hit “Reply” everyone that got the same text I did now gets my reply. I see there is an option to “Edit Recipients.” I find this extremely annoying and I hope its corrected soon. Receiving an mms message with multiple used to present a slide show. Now, the pictures are presented in BBM thumbnail style. I’m torn on this one as I did like the slide show presentation. Though this new format is much more in line with BBM. As for video clips received via mms, I think its great. Now I must click it to play the clip rather than having it auto-play when I open the message. I’m really in conflict with myself here. I guess I’ll just wait and see what gets fixed or changed.
All in all, I really am enjoying this Operating System. I can’t wait to load Verizon’s newly released 6.0.0.431 on my 9650 this weekend. I may load the full “fat” file and take that for a quick spin before I shrink it.
