Some good news is on the horizon for long-suffering BlackBerry Z10, Q10 and Q5 users, with an update for the company’s BlackBerry 10 operating system and a native Skype client set to be released soon.
In an official statement, BlackBerry has announced it will begin rolling out BlackBerry 10.2 out this week through carriers in Europe, Canada, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, with carriers in other countries set to follow.
A key feature the company is promoting as part of the update is the Priority Hub, which groups users’ most important messages at the top of their BlackBerry Hub inbox.
“Priority Hub learns what conversations are most important to you and automatically puts those messages at the top of your inbox, helping you to stay focused on the most important items. The new attachment view helps you find files and documents across your messaging accounts and within specific message threads,” the company states.
The company is also hyping the addition of natural sound for BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) voice and video calls, as well as the ability to preview SMS, BBM and email messages from any app.
While not being promoted, a far more important feature for many users will be the ability to download, install and run Android 4.2.2 JellyBean apps on their devices.
An added piece of good news came over the weekend from BlackBerry’s manager of developer relations, Brian Zubert, who announced on Twitter that a native Skype app will soon be released for the updated operating system.
“Nice update today to the @Skype #BlackBerry app. Huge improvement, but still looking forward to the full on native app! Might be 10.2 only!” Zubert said.
Over the weekend, the company racked up another milestone, with 10 million Android and iPhone users downloading the company’s BBM app through the iTunes App Store and Google Play.
The rollout was restarted on Tuesday of last week after an abrupt halt to the rollout in late-September, which the company blamed on a leaked version of its Android app overloading its servers.
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