Project 'Highlander': A hybrid creation for BlackBerry OS 7
BlackBerry OS 7, about which we have heard very little recently, is to be codenamed "Highlander", except for a leaked slide a month ago indicating it would be released by the end of this year.
According to sources, it appears that instead of going for the full-blown QNX experience that we expected in OS 7 - with the BlackBerry PlayBook being the benchmark 'testing' environment - the next generation smartphone will run an amalgamation of BlackBerry OS 6.1 and QNX.
It does raise some confusion, mind you, as it appeared late last year that QNX would "entirely replace" the BlackBerry operating system as it stood now.
BerryReview seem to think that BlackBerry OS 7 will have a QNX-core, and the look and feel of the existing BlackBerry OS 6.0 operating system.
It would be a mistake, after all, to change the look and feel of the BlackBerry user interface, as so many people of the younger generations really do not like change.
And with faster smartphones with greater memory and increased power from the dual-core mobile processor, it would be a logical progression to move from a Java based kernel to a QNX-based one.
But in the meantime, we must not forget that for now, the next generation of the BlackBerry operating system lies with 6.1, which will see an entire generation of smartphones emerge into the market.
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