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Yes, it was fantastic - minimal, elegant, simple, fast, had low learning curve and everything had a description - even icons in action bar[0]. As their competit

by pqb 6y ago

Yes, it was fantastic - minimal, elegant, simple, fast, had low learning curve and everything had a description - even icons in action bar[0]. As their competitors, namely iOS7+ and Android 5+ totally replaced gradients into flat design I was very welcoming the balanced UI redesign on my Z10[1]. However, autocompletion on their touch keyboard was probably the best [2], you had 3-5 suggestion that were spread around on the keyboard and to use them I had to place a finger below and flick it up. On BB Passport it was even more pleasant with physical keyboard - it had small gesture sensor and reacted on swipes in the air above the keyboard. On the developer side, documentation was also amazing. There are tens of full, working example applications. BB10 used QT behind the scenes (Cascades UI). It had also a Python (2.x) binary on the device among other typical UNIX programs. [0]: https://developer.blackberry.com/devzone/files/design/bb10/images/10_3_action_bar_large.png https://developer.blackberry.com/devzone/files/design/bb10/i... [1]: https://developer.blackberry.com/devzone/design/bb10/10_3_visual_updates.html https://developer.blackberry.com/devzone/design/bb10/10_3_vi... [2]: https://developer.blackberry.com/devzone/design/bb10/keyboards.html https://developer.blackberry.com/devzone/design/bb10/keyboar...

ahartmetz 6y ago
I've been involved with Qt for a long time and got a Z10 as a conference freebie, but the great developer documentation is actually news to me! I prefer to just use phones, I develop for PC hardware for fun and embedded platforms for money these days. At the time, some of my coworkers helped with porting Qt to QNX. I worked on a different Qt project on QNX and I was also duly impressed by the technical quality and elegance of the OS. The BB10 UI was built on something like QML (the language and runtime) from Qt 4 with their own UI elements and an OpenGL based backend from the acquired company The Astonishing Tribe. They had animations e.g. for slider switches running in the render thread, perfect 60 fps. Qt Quick (the UI framework based on QML, colloquially called "QML") only got an OpenGL backend in Qt 5. Another very good Qt-based phone OS (after the Nokia N9, got one of these at a conference as well) that failed :( By the way, the Ford Sync 3 IVI ("in-vehicle infotainment system") is also based on QNX and Qt and it received fairly good reviews. I think I made some tiny contribution to it, if only helping a coworker with something.

by pqb 6y ago

ahartmetz 6y ago

I've been involved with Qt for a long time and got a Z10 as a conference freebie, but the great developer documentation is actually news to me! I prefer to just use phones, I develop for PC hardware for fun and embedded platforms for money these days. At the time, some of my coworkers helped with porting Qt to QNX. I worked on a different Qt project on QNX and I was also duly impressed by the technical quality and elegance of the OS. The BB10 UI was built on something like QML (the language and runtime) from Qt 4 with their own UI elements and an OpenGL based backend from the acquired company The Astonishing Tribe. They had animations e.g. for slider switches running in the render thread, perfect 60 fps. Qt Quick (the UI framework based on QML, colloquially called "QML") only got an OpenGL backend in Qt 5. Another very good Qt-based phone OS (after the Nokia N9, got one of these at a conference as well) that failed :( By the way, the Ford Sync 3 IVI ("in-vehicle infotainment system") is also based on QNX and Qt and it received fairly good reviews. I think I made some tiny contribution to it, if only helping a coworker with something.