BlackBerry Z10 owners rejoice: Dozens of tweaks and improvements are on the way for the new smartphone in the BlackBerry 10.1 OS update, which has now landed for developer testing.
It's still not clear when the BlackBerry 10.1 update will be publicly released, but developers on the platform already received access to 'Bundle 1485' of the OS and began reporting several new features and improvements to look out for.
BlackBerry 10 was a major revamp of the OS back in January, so naturally the upcoming update is meant to fix bugs and plug feature holes to keep the devices competitive with BlackBerry's main rivals, Android phones and the Apple iPhone.
Since the beta update was released this week, BlackBerry developers have taken to the CrackBerry forums to report new features and improvements they spotted in BBOS 10.1. So far more than 14 new tweaks have been found.
New features appear useful
The new features include an option to take photos in HDR mode and a useful option to turn off alerts for specific applications. For BBIM lovers, PIN-to-PIN messaging will also be available in the BlackBerry Hub, and you will be able to select all users in a conversation for broadcast messages.
There are also a bunch of usability tweaks owners will appreciate, including the ability to fully unlock the phone at lock screen with the power button, an improved text picker, and the ability to paste phone numbers directly into the dialpad. Additionally, the sharing menu will return.
For the BlackBerry World app store, you will have an option to redeem coupons for app downloads, while any installed apps will be available to open straight from the store.
So far, there are no major features in this update, but developers are sure to find more tweaks over the coming days as they sift through the beta release.
While BlackBerry Z10 owners were very positive over the BB 10.1 OS update, it's still unclear how many of them there are. BlackBerry didn't release any sales figures so far, although the phone has been available in several countries across the world and debuted on U.S. carriers last month as well.
Chitika , an online advertising network, measured that the BlackBerry Z10 generated 5.3 percent of all North American BlackBerry traffic, but this doesn't give much of an indication of how many phones were sold either.
Overall, the Z10 is available on more than 60 carriers across 40 countries, but analysts have so far sounded tepid when assessing the smartphone's success.
