Blackberry will come back

                   Blackberry is a mobile manufacturer that a lot of analysts predicted would die out by 2020. Some of them still believe that. But I think blackberry is still a force to reckon with. Especially when it’s current CEO John S Chen is called the turnaround specialist. Still there is nothing much that a man can do to sell a product if it is not good. Blackberry is lucky on this because it has one of the most refined and secure mobile OS in its hand. This is the area we are going to concentrate on today.

                   Blackberry’s current OS is based on QNX a RTOS (Real Time Operating System). RTOS are used in situations where the computations are to be done in real time, ie when you need to monitor many variables and change many other things in real time. A flight autopilot is the perfect example.

          It is not just another version of Linux, in fact it’s not even Linux. It is based on an entirely different concept called micro kernel. Kernel is a low level software that speaks with the hardware directly. It’s the part of code that deals with different drivers and stuff, like a core on which everything else is built upon.

A traditional Linux kernel has all the drivers and other supporting systems on the main kernel. It’s called a monolithic design. Micro kernel is a kernel in which only the bare minimum of code required to run the OS is maintained in the kernel and everything else is run as a separate entity. This makes the total size of the kernel small and prevents the kernel from freezing if anything happens to the “not so important part”. It is this property that makes RTOS the choice of mission critical systems like nuclear power plants. Because of the inherent “isolation” property, most government top secret computers run some version of it.

The reason why I spent this much time is to make you aware that blackberry 10+ OS is inherently more stable, responsive and secure than any other mobile OS currently available period.

The stability factor is made sure by some wise hardware choices too. Even though the specs seem a bit low just remember the fact that micro kernels were designed to run on stripped down hardware very efficiently. And blackberry haven’t compromised on RAM which is the most important when It comes to preventing the force closing of apps. And unlike android, the user interface is given some RAM reserved only for it. This ensures that you don’t have to see some frozen UI when exiting from an app.

 Even the blackberry Z3 have 1.5gb RAM and its more than enough because it is enough for a lower resolution device.I don’t need to explain why security is a major concern nowadays thanks to Edward Snowden.

The major concern of an average customer is the number of apps the eco system have. This was an issue even when there was an option to sideload android apps. The newer android versions have some of the strategic google APIs provided by the Play services app.( I have talked about it here)

 Here begins the problem. Blackberry runs android apps in a striped down version of AOSP(Android Open Source Project) inside a virtual environment. But the Play services is not open source. So its not included in AOSP. And you wont be able to run apps that depend on Play services. This is a similar issue faced by amazon which runs another version of AOSP on its kindle range of tablets and now, the fire phone. Amazon found a workaround by providing counterparts for the missing android APIs.

So by getting 
in a contract with amazon, blackberry can use even more apps than it could through the side loading approach (only if the APIs are also included in their deal.) Now the app problem is sorted out, you get a solid OS with very clean UI without unnecessary navigation buttons with the added security features blackberry is famous for and a very good keyboard. What else do you want?

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