It's been almost exactly one year since BlackBerry 10 made its official debut, and BlackBerry is celebrating by announcing the details of the next major update to the platform. The BlackBerry 10.2.1 update brings with it several new features as well as other tweaks that BlackBerry promises will make using a BB10 device "faster and easier." Here's a list of some of the goodies that are packed into the 10.2.1 update:
- Custom pinch gesture to filter messages in BlackBerry Hub. Filter can be set for Unread Messages, Sent Messages, Level 1 Alerts and more.
- Refreshed phone app with ability to swipe to answer or reject call as well as new shortcuts to silence or reply to a call with a message.
- Support for SMS and email groups.
- Actionable lock screen notifications allow users to tap on an alert and open the message from the lock screen.
- Picture password lets the user place a number from 0 through 9 on an image. To unlock the phone, the user will drag a grid of digits around and line up their number with its placement on the image.
- Customizable quick settings lets users decide what shows up in their device's Settings menu.
- Offline reading mode in the browser can save articles for later reading.
- Preferred contact sync lets the user choose which sources contact information should be synced with (like a corporate address book or Gmail).
- New device monitor gives info on battery and memory usage, storage, etc.
- FM radio support for the BlackBerry Q5, Q10 and Z30.
- Option to enable automatic software updates.
- Additional enterprise and security features.
BlackBerry says that the 10.2.1 update will be made available to all BlackBerry 10 devices. The good news doesn't stop there, though, because the update will begin rolling out today in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America. As with most software updates, the exact timing will vary between carriers.
BlackBerry has certainly been having a rough go of it lately, but this BlackBerry 10.2.1 update is pretty exciting news for both the company and anyone that's sticking by it with their BlackBerry 10 device. There are quite a few goodies included with 10.2.1 for those users to tinker with, ranging from basic stuff like FM radio support to more advanced features like device monitoring. Here's to hoping that this rollout is a speedy one so that anyone using a BlackBerry 10 phone as their daily driver won't have to wait long for their newest software treat.
If you've got a BlackBerry 10 device and want to check for this update manually, you can do just that by heading into the System Settings menu and selecting Software Updates.
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