Although I'm sure most CrackBerry readers are already aware, the BlackBerry Classic will see the return of some of the traditional BlackBerry shortcut keys plus bring the addition of the ability to create your own custom shortcuts. Following up on the first look at the hardware navigation keys on the BlackBerry Classic, Inside BlackBerry's Donny Halliwell has now shared a new video that shows you just how to use those keyboard shortcuts on the BlackBerry Classic.
The keyboard on the BlackBerry Classic, as you may have noticed, is reminiscent of the trusted (and imitated) BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard found on the still-popular (and available) BlackBerry Bold 9900. I've read in recent comments that many of you are still huge fans of the Bold, and still cling to it and similar devices, like the BlackBerry Curve, to make your real work happen[. We are listening, as John Chen explained earlier this month.
The great news for you is, in addition to the easy, familiar navigation made possible by the Classic Navigation Keys, the QWERTY keyboard comes with time-saving default shortcuts. Take advantage of these, or customize them to suit your personal needs. As you once could on your beloved BlackBerry Bold, you can make use of nearly every letter in the physical keyboard and give it an action like Speed Dial for a contact, or use them to launch your most-used apps.
On top of showing how the shortcut keys will work on the BlackBerry Classic, Donny also shared some of his favorite shortcuts and advanced tips for the device. Truth be told, a lot of them work on already available BlackBerry 10 QWERTY devices such as the BlackBerry Passport and the BlackBerry Q10 but, some of them only come by way of running leaked operating systems so they may not be known to everyone and as such, the BlackBerry Classic could be their first experience with using them.
- Launch the Browser – B
- Compose a Message – Within the BlackBerry Hub – C
- Launch the Weather App – W
- Launch the Calculator – U
- Launch BBM – N
- Lock BlackBerry Classic – K
- Change Notifications to Silent – Q
- Launch Settings – O
- Open Contacts/Address Book – A
- Launch Help – H
- Within the Hub, browser and a number of other lists, you can press B to go to the Bottom and T to reach the Top.
- When in a text field, like an email, BBM Message or SMS/Text, type "mypin" and hit the spacebar to display your PIN number.
- Similarly, you can type "mynumber" to bring up your phone number, "LT" for the current time and "LD" for the date.
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