PARROT ON BLACKBERRY Z10. Parrot is a beautifully-designed app that produces very clear audio recordings. (Photo by Max Limpag)
As a journalist, I use my phone extensively for news gathering. Apart from it being my camera, the phone is also my main voice recorder for interviews. I still carry an MP3 voice recorder but this serves only as backup, the quality of recording in smartphones is so much higher.
Whenever I set up a phone, one of the first apps I install is a voice recorder. On Android, my favorite voice recording application is Easy Voice Recorder, which has a free version that more than meets my needs. On iOS, my favorite voice recording app is iTalk, which produces clear and great quality recordings.
On the BlackBerry Z10, which uses the company’s BlackBerry 10 platform, I find Parrot to be the best voice recording application.
Parrot is easy to use and the user interface is beautiful and minimal. It’s easy to use the app for recording.
INTERVIEW. I used Parrot on the BlackBerry Z10 to record the interview by Sun.Star journalists of defeated congressional candidate Annabelle Rama. The recording was very clear. Check out a sample clip below. (Photo by Max Limpag)
Parrot has a live graph of audio input to give you an idea of the sound levels so that you could adjust the placement of the phone.
Listen to this sample clip of the Annabelle Rama interview to check out the quality of Parrot’s recording.
The app is exclusive to the BlackBerry 10 platform.
Parrot also allows you to define the quality of your recording from Low (.awb files), Good (.m4a files) and High (.wav files). You can then copy the recording to the external memory card or share this via Bluetooth, email, BlackBerry Messenger or even NFC.
If you regularly do interviews or record voice memos whenever an idea occurs to you, Parrot on the BlackBerry 10 is an excellent free app for that.
All of our waiting has come to an end. The BlackBerry 10 phones are out, namely the Z10 & the Q10. It is without doubt the best of BlackBerry’s crop, but how does it fare against its competitors?
A lot of specs aren’t given as of now, and that includes the display technology, the processor used and so forth. However, phones like the iPhone are proof that you don’t need extremely beefy specs to run a phone smoothly – all you need is the optimization of the hardware and the software. In fact, it seems like the new BlackBerry phones are all about this.
As you can see above, it does not hold neither the worst nor the best specs. It’s exactly right in between.
The next BlackBerry devices won’t feature 1080p screens and 8-core CPUs, but we’re really impressed with what we have seen. They even feature some stuff that some high-end phones don’t have such as a micro-HDMI port, NFC, expandable storage and all the other small stuff.
BlackBerry 10 doesn’t run on the best specs, but it is more than decent by today’s standards. What is the use of a 1080p phone 8-core phone if it runs on something like the Symbian s60? After all, it’s all about hardware and software working together these days.
Finally! RIM, or should I say BlackBerry, has officially announced its first BlackBerry 10 smartphones – the full-touch Z10 and the keyboard-equipped Q10.
For those who want a full-touchscreen experience, the BlackBerry Z10 offers 4.2-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 768 which equates to 356 ppi. It sports a dual-core TI OMAP 4470 1.5GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, an 8 megapixel rear camera, 2 megapixel front-facing, 16GB of internal storage. microSD card support up to 32GB, Micro HDMI, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, WiFi a/b/g/n, LTE, and a removable 1,800 mAh battery.
Next is the BlackBerry Q10 which is equipped with a QWERTY physical keyboard and an “edge-to-edge” glass. It has a 3.1-inch super AMOLED touchscreen display with 720 x 720 resolution at 330ppi. Like the Z10, the Q10 also has an 8 megapixel rear camera, 2 megapixel front-facing, 16GB of internal storage with microSD card support, Bluetooth, WiFi and LTE.
Both handsets will run the new BlackBerry 10 OS which include new features such as BlackBerry Hub, an improved BlackBerry Keyboard, BlackBerry Messenger with Voice Chat and Screen Share, BlackBerry Balance and BlackBerry Remember.
Local pricing and availability are still unknown but Thorsten Heins mentioned that price points depend on carrier partners.
RIM posted a new banner on their website, one that indicates that the BlackBerry experience is now re-designed, re-engineered and re-invented; also included is a teaser of what seems to be the first phone to run Blackberry 10.
Blackberry 10, RIM’s latest OS, is expected to bring tons of new features like the BlackBerry Hub, the new Blackberry Touch Keyboard and reformatted multitasking features. Don’t forget BB Voice and BB Messenger.
We are expecting this new OS to be available early 2013; the phone, however, is still a mystery. There were multiple rumors on what the phone will look like and on what specs will it run.
Some said it would be much like a smaller BlackBerry PlayBook – very similar to the Dev Alpha devices. Based on the Dev Alpha phone, we can probably say that the phone will at least pack a 4.2″ HD display, 1 GB RAM, an 8 megapixel camera and a dual-core processor. A variant with a QWERTY keyboard is also said to be released soon.
Based from the teaser, we have made a render for you to enjoy down below. This is to keep all of us from waiting on the much-awaited and much-delayed BlackBerry 10 device.
We’re here at Bangkok, Thailand for the BlackBerry Jam Asia 2012 or previously known as DevCon Asia (Developer’s Conference). We got a chance to talk to the RIM’s head honchoes to tell us more about their latest project, the BlackBerry 10.
The upcoming BlackBerry 10 was built from the ground up following RIM’s three major principle; Integrated, Social and Beautiful. Each aspect of the new OS revolves around those three things, from the UI down to the apps that the company has heavily invested on.
BlackBerry Flow and Peek
RIM has put in a lot of effort in to the BB10’s UI that veers away from the typical physical keyboard/button navigation. In addition to this, the company also envisioned a UI which would let the users seamlessly switch or open a new app without having to close the previous app. The multi-tasking experience they’re gunning for is similar to the PC experience, wherein users can just switch from app to app without the UI closing the other app that they were using it.
The result is a UI called BlackBerry Flow which, to our opinion, looks very promising. The interface is, in some aspects, similar to the UI of the BlackBerry PlayBook which relies heavily on swipe gestures. But RIM took it to the next level by ensuring that users can easily transition from one app to the other and letting the other open apps run on the background while they’re doing it. In addition, BB10 allows user to just Peek in to the other apps such as BlackBerry Hub by just swiping a little to the right without having to close the app that they’re currently on.
To give you a better insight on how BlackBerry Flow, here’s a short demo courtesy of RIM’s Head of Software Portfolio, Vivek Bhardwaj.
BlackBerry Hub
As mentioned earlier, Integration is one of the key aspects of the BB10. RIM understands that users will most likely be in multiple social networking sites and managing each separately can be a pain in the neck. Having said that, the company unified most of those SNS to a single purposeful native app called BlackBerry Hub.
With BlackBerry Hub, SNS notifications, email, even calendar events/invitation are now all in one place. Another great thing about it is that it allows users to update their FB status or Tweet directly inside the app. This in turn makes it easier for the user to interact with their friends because they don’t need to go to the FB/Twitter app to do it.
BBM 7.0
Messaging is an integral part of the BlackBerry ecosystem. It’s been RIM’s bread and butter which made their device a must-have for some users. The company took it upon themselves to improve the BBM service by incorporating some of the sough-after features found on other communication apps.
BBM 7.0 enables BlackBerry users to communicate better thanks to its new feature called BBM Voice that allows them to make free calls over Wi-Fi. The good news is that the latest version of BBM is not only limited to the BlackBerry 10 , meaning it’s compatible with older BB handset so long as it’s running on BB OS 5.0 and up.
You can also check out our previous
Two new BlackBerry handsets
Along with the launch of the upcoming BlackBerry 10, RIM will also launch two new BB handsets that will run on the new OS. One will be a full touch device while the other one is a hybrid handset that is both touch-enabled and has a physical keyboard.
The device that’s getting all the attention (praises or criticism) right now is the full touch model because it’s the only device that RIM has distributed to developers. However, RIM announced yesterday that they will start seeding Dev Alpha C devices to eligible developers so they can start creating/porting their apps to the QWERTY-sporting BlackBerry handset.
Summary
RIM acknowledges the fact that BlackBerry’s strengths have always been BBM and the handset’s keyboard. The company is hoping to capitalize on those two aspects again by offering relevant enhancements to make each aspect more functional and appealing.
Now I can keep on blabbing how awesome the BlackBerry 10 is but I think it’ll be better if I just let Christopher Smith, Martin Mallyck and Alec Saunders tell you what you can expect from BlackBerry 10. Enjoy!
Note: Listening to this may cause severe LSS. You’ve been warned.
RIM will be unveiling the BlackBerry 10, along with the two new handsets on January 30 next year. We hope that we’ll be invited to cover the launch, but even if we’re not, rest assure that we’ll bring you the latest buzz on the upcoming OS and the devices that will feature it.
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