RIM standardises BlackBerry 10 screen resolutions

Research In Motion’s upcoming operating system, BlackBerry 10, is looking to wow the world when phones running the anticipated OS finally come out. RIM recently made a blog post on the BlackBerry developer blog about the screen resolution the next version of BlackBerry OS will use.

The developer alpha devices running BlackBerry 10 that have been handed to some developers run on a screen resolution of 1280 x 768. The blog says, “Let’s just go on record and confirm that this will be the screen resolution shipped with the first BlackBerry 10 full touch device.”

RIM chief executive Thorsten Heins has mentioned that full touch isn’t going to be the only BlackBerry device with BlackBerry 10. The company is also going to continue with its keyboard phone lineup with a screen resolution of 720 x 720. RIM is confirming that it is standardising the resolutions for its BlackBerry 10 devices with 720 x 720 (1:1 aspect ratio) and 1280 x 720 (16:9 aspect ratio).

Now with standardised screen resolutions

While these are the resolutions that will be standard for devices moving forward, the first device is still slated to run on a resolution of 1280 x 768. The devblog has two suggestions for developers making fullscreen apps for the OS. Developers can either "modify their application for each resolution to make use of the full resolution of the different BlackBerry 10 device screen resolutions", or they should "consider “letter boxing” their app to 1280 x 720 on the first BlackBerry 10 device, leaving 24 pixels on both sides of the screen, so that they don’t have any changes to make on the next generation full touch screen resolution."

RIM had released an update to its developer alpha devices for BlackBerry 10 OS last month. One of the biggest features in the new build of BlackBerry 10 was the voice command feature with an operator whose voice sounds very similar to Apple’s Siri.

The new voice command feature is accessed by pressing the voice command button set between the two volume buttons in the developer alpha devices. It is still an early beta build so the voice command has limited functionality, but demonstrations show that it has a universal search function, apart from calling and sending text messages. It may not yet be ready for prime time use, but it sounds very similar to Siri from Apple’s iPhone.

The voice command technology is speculated to be powered by Nuance, the same company that Apple acquired Siri from.

According to earlier reports, RIM had confirmed that BlackBerry 10 will include a video chat feature through RIM's popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service. This didn’t come as a surprise, considering that the BlackBerry PlayBook also has a Video Chat feature and the Dev Alpha devices being handed out to developers had front facing cameras. This was the first time RIM confirmed that there would be Video Chat available on BBM.