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Research In Motion might not be the leakiest mobile maker in the world — that plaudit is currently held by Sony Ericsson — but in recent weeks a host of new BlackBerry smart phones have been splashed over the Web, and now RIM’s entire 2011 roadmap has been revealed to the world by CrackBerry.
Earlier this month, we wrote about leaked info and pics of the BlackBerry Curve Apollo and Dakota handsets, as well as the BlackBerry Storm 3.
The big news: a handset called the Curve Touch, but codenamed Malibu, is slated for release either late this year or early next. The Curve Touch is described in RIM’s documentation as “the accessible all-touch BlackBerry”, with a 3.25-inch display, 5-megapixel camera, and an 800GHz processor.
The roadmap document reveals that the BlackBerry Storm 3 — codenamed Monaco — will hit the US in the third quarter of this year. As we wrote before, it’ll sport a 1.2GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, a 3.7-inch a 3G mobile hotspot feature and a 5-megapixel camera.
The roadmap is for North American CDMA smart phones only, however. While
you can assume these handsets will get GSM versions for the UK, the
release dates probably won’t be the same. That’s bad news for PlayBook fans — the hot-looking tablet isn’t scheduled to arrive in th US until the second quarter of this year.
The documents also talk about how the BlackBerry 6 OS will develop over time, with plenty to chew on. Forthcoming updates will include support for magnetometers (digital compasses), including APIs to help developers make augmented reality apps.
BlackBerry OS 6.1 will also support HD video recording at up to 720p resolution, and richer Open GL games. RIM is also promising ‘Liquid Graphics’ to make apps and the BlackBerry user interface much more attractive. A beefed-up browser, voice search and more home-screen customisation are also on the menu.
