Mike Lazaridis: OS 6 Coming Next Quarter
Already today we have been fielding a number of comments from members. Their number one question? When will OS 6 be released? It's what everything is waiting to hear from WES this year. Just a while ago, RIM's Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis held a call with analysts in which he discussed OS 6.
The juiciest bit of information he gave is that RIM will release OS 6 next quarter. Now hold on a minute, don't get to excited just yet. Remember how long it took for many of us to get our hands on official 5.0 releases from our carrier? It is spectacular that RIM is fast tracking OS 6, I can't help be reminded of all the chaos that ensued while waiting for carriers to officially release OS 5.0. What I would expect, are OS 6 leaks.
Now for the other burning question everyone has about OS 6... What devices will get it? The short answer is, we don't know, yet. Mike Lazaridis did not specify which devices but did say that RIM is working to make OS 6 backwards compatible. Which is great news for anyone who already has a BlackBerry. The question now becomes, just how far backwards compatible OS 6 will be.
The last interesting morsel Mike Lazaridis gave is some information about the WebKit browser. Mike points out just how integrated the new WebKit based browser will be with the BlackBerry OS. Interesting is how he describes it not as a browser, but as a WebKit rendering engine. Which could elude to even further great things. Such as apps that make nice use of WebKit. The sad part, but is pretty much common sense, is that the browser will not be a stand alone app. Meaning you won't be able to take it, and install it on a device running OS 5.0. It makes sensing in that it will be so tightly integrated into the OS that there just would be no way to installing it as a stand alone app.
Hopefully we'll get even more details about OS 6 either tomorrow or Wednesday during the main conference sessions. We'll be announcing something exciting soon by the way.
All Aboard the OS 6 Express From RIM to Your Carrier
Wow how about this. A number of BlackBerry devices have shown up at the train station looking to hop aboard the OS 6 Express train from RIM. But I don't think everyone has a ticket to ride. We've been fielding numerous comments asking which BlackBerry devices will be getting OS 6. Yesterday Mike Lazaridis went over some of the details of OS 6 in a conference call with analysts. But he did not specifically name any devices that would be receiving OS 6. Just that RIM is working on backwards compatibility. According to a solid source on BBLeaks, we have a possible passenger list.
- Bold 9650
- Pearl 9100 and 9105
- Bold 9700
- Storm 2 9520 and 9550
Let me just reiterate what I said a second ago. These devices are not confirmed to get OS 6. We're hoping confirmation will come later this morning during the general session at WES (8:30am-10:30am EDT), which you can watch live and get up to the minute details here on BBOS. The unnamed conductor of this passenger list also states that OS 6 is still in the early beta stages and carrier testing may not begin until mid July.
