Component provides solution to minimizing apps on smartphones and then scrolling through a series of screens to open new ones.
RIM is depending considerably on its upcoming mobile operating system BlackBerry 10, and it believes one reason for its potential success is the platform offering an active frames multitasking feature.
Minimizing apps on smartphones and then navigating through several screens to open new ones is frustrating to say the least. Active Frames, however, creates a batch of minimized windows on screens showcasing all of the currently running apps to BlackBerry 10 users. It then lets users scroll through them without the requirement of returning to a central home screen and clicking on icons.
"What we’re trying to do is streamline [the multitasking] process, break down the silos that exist between a lot of those applications … and introduce a new flow to the whole user experience paradigm," Jeff Gadway, RIM’s senior manager of brand and marketing communications, said. "That’s something we’re confident is going to set us apart… It’s all about trying to put information that you’re going to need at your fingertips so you don’t have to go looking for it."
VentureBeat stressed that the component won't necessarily be a major feature if RIM can’t gain the support for key apps such as Instagram upon BlackBerry 10's launch. Gadway, however, stated that 99 percent of developers who are in possession of prototypes “have indicated that they’ve started work building for BlackBerry 10.”
While RIM has said it is on target to release BlackBerry 10 during the early stages of 2013, an analyst recently suggested the mobile operating system will release during March at the earliest instead of a launch shortly after the New Year.
For that reason, I may have to give this new one a try before I switch to Android.
Is it too much to ask for? Just have a touch friendly way of managing running apps but handle them the way a desktop OS does, eg in windows you now when a application is running and the OS will not randomly close them because you were in another active app for a while.
If blackberry wants to be successful their new Os better support android apps and it better have good multitasking in way where apps don't go into a sleep mode when minimized and where they don't save their state and close them self completely because you have not checked on them in the last 20 minutes.
Other than that, apps are the most important aspect. look as how webOS failed even though it has a better UI and far better multitasking and was more screen space efficient. The main issue was there were not enough apps and no one buys a computer smartphone and only uses what it comes with (how many of you bought a windows based PC and never installed any software.
How many of you would use windows if it has no additional apps and only allowed you to use what comes with the fresh install? The answer should be obvious and shows that the goal of a user choosing an OS is not the OS it's self but what they can do with it and run with it.