Looks like RIM needs to fire someone as it seems the Boy Genius has gotten his hands on an internal company document that spills the beans on the incremental improvements coming to the version 4.6 operating system that will ship on the hopefully soon to be announced (and released!) BlackBerry 9000. As we have seen in earlier leaked photos, version 4.6 kicks the "Pretty" factor of the BBOS up to a whole new level. But it's more than lipstick as there are some nifty feature enchancements as well. You can take a quick run through of some of the things coming in 4.6 after the jump and visit BG for actual word doc snapshots! Oh, one last thing before you continue reading... supposedly a "July" launch date is what we're looking at here folks.
Richer Web Browsing
Improved Web Page Rendering including support for the following AJAX capabilities:
- Javascript 1.5
- CSS 2.1 (including Lists, Box Model, Positioning, Floats, Visual Effects, Tables, Colors, Backgrounds, & Text Properties; NOT including system fonts and generated content)
- DOM L2 (including Core, HTML, Style, Events)
- HTML 4.01 (including Forms, Maps, Tables, Frames, Objects)
- XMLHttpRequest
Multimedia Enchancements
Support for Inline Video Streaming in the Browser
When selecting video streams from within the Browser the user will be able to view these right inline within the browser to allow simpler navigation. Note: the webpage must be designed to allow for inline video presentation.
Improved Full Screen Camera Preview Screen
Now when the user takes a picture with the Camera using "Full Screen" viewfinder mode they will also be presented with a Full Screen preview screen that will allow them to Zoom, Pan, Send, Set as Home Screen Background, etc...and image immediately.
Launch Camera from Video Camera
The user will now be able to launch the Still Camera from the Video Camera just like they can already launch the Video Camera from the Still Camera. By adding this ability the "Video Camera" icon will be removed and only the "Camera" will remain.
Improved Picture Library
From the main Pictures Library screen, users will be able to view all pictures stored on the device's internal AND external memory. They can view "All" pictures, or select to view top level folders that contain pictures.
Automatic Playlist Song Viewing
The user can now select an automatic playlist and see all of the songs that are inside that playlist that meet the criteria they have specified
Themes
The BlackBerry 9000 will ship with these default themes:
- Precision Zen
- Precison L
- Precision Today
Precision Zen Theme
Precision L Theme
Precision Today
Language features enhancement in 4.6
Additional support for Japanese and Chinese smartphones:
- Japanese - truetype font without hinting, upgrade omron engine to v2.3, new trackball UI for input, new keypad with Japanese input (for Meteor to Japan only), additional punctuation on zero key, reducing number of mode selections in the menu
- Chinese - improvements for PINYIN prediction, add JianPin support for phone bookk searching, add JianPin support in text entry field, associate English alphabet input to simplified and traditional Chinese for contact searches, address book wordlist, add predictive mode showing characters instead of complete word
Security Enhancements in 4.6
No need to go into Advanced Options to delete!
Some of the security enhancements coming in 4.6
- Delete Applications from Ribbon (homescreen)
- Unicode Support in S/MIME and PGP
- Support for Password Based Encryption in S/MME
More Information
