BB10 Interview With the QNX Boss of BlackBerry OS

News
By Marcus Yam, Alex Davies
published

We talk with one of the key architects behind QNX and BlackBerry 10's operating system software.

In 2010, Research in Motion acquired QNX to help develop its next generation software platform. At the BlackBerry Experience worldwide yesterday, BlackBerry -- the new name for RIM -- showed all the hard work and progress made since QNX's contributions to the Playbook tablet.

We had the chance to speak with Sebastien Marineau, senior vice president for BlackBerry OS, to discuss the following topics:

  • Hardware vs. software keyboards
  • Keyboard shortcuts for the Q10
  • In-house apps
  • Application development
  • BlackBerry 10 for Playbook
  • Future additions to BB10
     

We also got a confirmation that the maps application was custom developed for BlackBerry 10 by TeleCommunication Systems (TCS), while the maps, points of interest and traffic data is from TomTom.

Check out our hands-on with BlackBerry 10 on the Z10.

Interview With the BlackBerry Z10, Q10 Industrial Designer

A Complete Video Walkthrough of BlackBerry 10 OS

Read the full live blog here from the BlackBerry Experience

Contact Us for News Tips, Corrections and Feedback

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • edlivian
    Not trying to troll, but this would have been great 2 years ago. it is a little too late to get people to switch when they are already entrenched in other platforms. For example, I will not repurchase apps that I already bought for myself on android, and for my wife on iOS.

    Why was RIM soo stubborn, they could have gotten the same look and function by skinning android and adding a hardware encryption and it would have been released 2 years ago. it boggles my mind how long it took to get this out. And then have the audacity to ask all the android devs to just do a straight port of their apps. If you wanted android apps, you should skinned android and be done with it.
    Reply
  • dthx
    It looks like a sweet system and many enterprises have waited for that. Even so late, many of the enterprises who waited will probably find that this is a better fit than any iOS or Android system (management tools, etc...).
    Still, what a waste of time... imagine if this had come one year earlier ! Now they've lost so many customers already, I hope they can recover quickly, this product is their last chance !
    Reply
  • AndrewMD
    edlivianNot trying to troll, but this would have been great 2 years ago. it is a little too late to get people to switch when they are already entrenched in other platforms. For example, I will not repurchase apps that I already bought for myself on android, and for my wife on iOS.Why was RIM soo stubborn, they could have gotten the same look and function by skinning android and adding a hardware encryption and it would have been released 2 years ago. it boggles my mind how long it took to get this out. And then have the audacity to ask all the android devs to just do a straight port of their apps. If you wanted android apps, you should skinned android and be done with it.
    Yes, it should have been released 2 years ago, heck, it should have been released a year ago, but reality is, it has finally been released.

    As far as using Android with a skin, no thank you. In most cases they probably thought about it but found it was too much of a mess and liability to modify it. Considering Amazon was able to modify Android to their needs, the time it took would have resulted in a similar timeline release.

    Now, how does the unit function? From online demo videos compared to the latest and greatest Androids, it is solid and quick!

    Here is hoping Google makes some major changes to Android, otherwise people will start leaving it for three other good platforms.
    Reply
  • edlivian
    AndrewMDYes, it should have been released 2 years ago, heck, it should have been released a year ago, but reality is, it has finally been released.As far as using Android with a skin, no thank you. In most cases they probably thought about it but found it was too much of a mess and liability to modify it. Considering Amazon was able to modify Android to their needs, the time it took would have resulted in a similar timeline release. Now, how does the unit function? From online demo videos compared to the latest and greatest Androids, it is solid and quick!Here is hoping Google makes some major changes to Android, otherwise people will start leaving it for three other good platforms.
    I am sorry, there is nothing I saw in the demo that could not be done by using android as its underlying platform. For example, playbook and Kindle fire shared the same guts, and they felt similar in UI speed.

    I will give BB10 props for its speed and looks like a much more evolved version of webos, gestures are fantastic, so are the quick peeks. But nonetheless could have been on android.

    You may not like the skinning that many vendors are doing these days, either do I, but the fact remains that every hardware vendor that switched to android has been successful. And the skinning that these vendors are doing can hardly be called skinning or a theme. The Samsung and HTC are adding a ridiculous amount of features upon the underlying platform. Instead of worrying about the underlying platform, hardware vendors have much more time to program useful features. It could have been a win-win for Rim, but they have decided on their own path, and it going to be very difficult. Just saying it could have been much easier road, and they would have been in a much better position today.
    Reply
  • meltbox360
    edlivianI am sorry, there is nothing I saw in the demo that could not be done by using android as its underlying platform. For example, playbook and Kindle fire shared the same guts, and they felt similar in UI speed. I will give BB10 props for its speed and looks like a much more evolved version of webos, gestures are fantastic, so are the quick peeks. But nonetheless could have been on android. You may not like the skinning that many vendors are doing these days, either do I, but the fact remains that every hardware vendor that switched to android has been successful. And the skinning that these vendors are doing can hardly be called skinning or a theme. The Samsung and HTC are adding a ridiculous amount of features upon the underlying platform. Instead of worrying about the underlying platform, hardware vendors have much more time to program useful features. It could have been a win-win for Rim, but they have decided on their own path, and it going to be very difficult. Just saying it could have been much easier road, and they would have been in a much better position today.
    So android can run multiple apps at the same time. BB10 I believe allows you to run up to 8 in the background at any one time. The limit is likely because even 2gb of ram is not enough to run more in a lot of cases. The keyboard was of course doable but the security and the level of customization is impossible as an android skin. I don't understand Dalvik (the java jvm that runs android apps) but I know that it is NOT as secure as a virtual machine should be likely thanks to the native code afterthought. There are a lot of reasons not to skin android and android CANNOT do this without a core rewrite which would have also taken a LONG time and then every other handset manufacturer could just take that code as large parts would have to be open source and after a month they would no longer be unique. I'm getting one and I hope others will at least give it a look even if they don't buy it.
    Reply
  • edlivian
    meltbox360So android can run multiple apps at the same time. BB10 I believe allows you to run up to 8 in the background at any one time. The limit is likely because even 2gb of ram is not enough to run more in a lot of cases. The keyboard was of course doable but the security and the level of customization is impossible as an android skin. I don't understand Dalvik (the java jvm that runs android apps) but I know that it is NOT as secure as a virtual machine should be likely thanks to the native code afterthought. There are a lot of reasons not to skin android and android CANNOT do this without a core rewrite which would have also taken a LONG time and then every other handset manufacturer could just take that code as large parts would have to be open source and after a month they would no longer be unique. I'm getting one and I hope others will at least give it a look even if they don't buy it.
    whats there to know, android is based on linux, and you could do whatever you want with it, and if you are going to try to explain that blackberry can ever be as secure as linux than you lost me. You can put the secure stuff in the linux space, and other stuff in dalvik
    Reply
  • meltbox360
    edlivianwhats there to know, android is based on linux, and you could do whatever you want with it, and if you are going to try to explain that blackberry can ever be as secure as linux than you lost me. You can put the secure stuff in the linux space, and other stuff in dalvik
    Yes but the only reason to switch to android is for the apps. For the apps you need Dalvik. The security problem lies in Dalvik. They already rewrote all of Dalvik that can be secure to the playbook and BB10 as the android runtime. Secure linux server distro != android.
    Reply