BlackBerry 10 prototypes to be dished out to developers in May

The fact that Research in Motion has been lagging behind some well known operating systems, such as iOS, Android and even Windows Phone OS comes as no news. Top dogs at Research in Motion too have been getting a whiff of this, prompting them to make major changes to their top line-up of execs. News has it that to make way for the new Chief Executive, Thorsten Heins who has come aboard with significant plans for the brand, RIM have done away with their old head honchos. With the introduction of the new CEO, RIM has started to make a much needed headway in their OS. One of these plans is centered around their upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS, which will be a cross-platform software that will run on the BlackBerry PlayBook as well as their upcoming line of smartphones. Though there is not much to go by as to what will be featured in their range of BlackBerry 10 handsets, an image surfaced in early February showing a slide of their upcoming BlackBerry London smartphone with the caption stating, “London is about changing the game.” The latest bit of information of these BlackBerry 10 handsets comes in the form of a Bloomberg report, according to which RIM will provide developers prototypes of the upcoming handsets by May.

BlackBerry 10 prototypes to be given to 2000 developers

As per the report, Alec Saunders, RIM’s Vice President Developer Relations said that there are going to be as many as 2,000 BlackBerry 10 devices given to developers during RIM’s BlackBerry Jam conference in Orlando, Florida which are mainly designed to allow developers to build apps using the underlying operating system. He goes on to state, “It’s a huge step forward on our path to eventually launching BB10. It’s tangible evidence of the company making progress to finally shipping the device. The experience on this device from a consumer’s perspective is not in any way indicative of what the final experience on BlackBerry 10 will be like. We are holding that back to create the interest around that at launch time.”

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The report also goes on to state that RIM will release the new BlackBerry 10 handsets in the latter half of 2012. As of now, going solely by the roadmap, we can gather that by September, the first BlackBerry 10 handsets will be made available to the public. But hopefully before that we should see some leaked images of the handsets and some features of BlackBerry 10.