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BlackBerry's Passport is a square in looks, but not personality
For the first time in ages, I'm intrigued by a BlackBerry device. That's rather unusual these days, but it wasn't always this way. I remember when I first saw the Pearl eight years ago; it was one of the most beautiful devices I'd ever seen. The Curve and Bold series didn't disappoint either. But the magic has been missing from the Canadian phone maker for a long time, evidenced by its struggling sales. Only one in a hundred smartphone owners use a BlackBerry, and the company's older-generation hardware is still outselling current BlackBerry 10 handsets. Now it's putting much of its hope in a unique-looking squarish device called the Passport, which launches today in five countries (with 30 total by the end of the year). The $599 off-contract/$249 on-contract device ($699 in Canada and £529 in the UK, off-contract) is designed to appeal to fans of physical keyboards and large displays. It may not restore the magic BlackBerry's lost in recent years, but my initial experience with the Passport has been more positive than I expected. At least that's a start, right?
BlackBerry announces virtual assistant to take on Siri and Cortana
Apple has Siri, Microsoft has Cortana, Google's got Now voice search and BlackBerry... doesn't have a virtual assistant of any kind. This morning, however, the Canadian smartphone maker confirmed that it has one in the works and will be showing up on the company's next major release. Known aptly as BlackBerry Assistant, the new program is a part of OS 10.3 and will be available on the upcoming Passport phone. Assistant is voice-activated and comes with quite a few of the standard features we've come to expect on the other mobile platforms, such as the ability to open apps, send messages and tweets, set reminders and change settings. It also is smart enough to learn and adapt to your needs, so it theoretically should become more useful over time as it gets to know you. BlackBerry isn't revealing all that Assistant can do yet, and it hasn't offered a firm timeframe for availability aside from the fact that it'll be part of the Passport, but so far we haven't seen much to set it apart from the competition. It's at least a good sign that the company is trying remain competitive, however.
