BlackBerry OS 10.3 features new icons, buttons and other UI elements, with a flatter, more modern design.
Minimized apps are Active Frames. You can have up to eight Active Frames on your Home screen. The first app you minimize takes the top left position of the grid, and each new app follows sequentially. In BlackBerry OS 10.3 you can reorder the placement with a long press on any frame. The frames will begin to “pulsate”, like app icons, and you can then drag a frame to a new position.
With 10.3, apps now run in the background without an open Active Frame (“headless apps”).
The Action Bar in BlackBerry OS 10.3 highlights the most common task for each panel of an application. For example, while composing a message, the Attachment icon is highlighted.
The cut, copy & paste functionality in BlackBerry OS 10.3 has been enhanced, giving you even better cursor control and is integrated with the touch-enabled keyboard.
BlackBerry Assistant on the BlackBerry Passport smartphone allows you to manage your work and personal email, contacts, BBM, calendar and other native BlackBerry 10 applications through both voice and typed commands. It helps you execute essential tasks quickly in any situation, whether at your desk, in your car or in a meeting. Offering unique capabilities such as having your email read to you and replying back hands-free and eyes-free, or saying “book a meeting” to schedule an event, BlackBerry Assistant has a best-in-class architecture and new language processing that yields a very high rate of accuracy and recognizes voice commands in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.
BlackBerry OS 10.3 includes a dial pad look up. Type the first few letters of the name or phone number to access a list of matching contacts.
Advanced Interaction uses the phone’s sensors to enable certain behavior, such as setting the phone face down to save power.
A new and improved device monitor provides you with essential details on battery usage, the impact of installed apps on battery life and memory, data and storage usage, as well as CPU stats.
If a BBM or text message message arrives, you can instantly reply to the message without even leaving the app you’re in, including now from within BlackBerry Hub and email.
Meeting Mode (in Calendar Settings) will automatically silence your phone when you are in a meeting.
When you receive an email with multiple attachments, you can now download them all at once.
You can now immediately access the dial pad from the Calls Hub.
Triage Hub - Tap the icon to open a context sensitive side menu (Instant Actions) that lets you quickly file or delete a message, or respond to a text or BBM. The side menu also pops up for a short period after you close a message.
Draft messages now automatically save, even if you swipe away from the message to do something else. You can also select Cancel, which gives you the option to save the draft.
If you are replying to a message, you now have the option to delete the original text.
The Amazon app store is preinstalled. You can simply download and run Android apps directly from the store.
The media player includes an equalizer with 17 different presets.
Remember has been redesigned to be simpler and easier to create and manage tasks. Entries can include notes you type as well as attachments such as photos, videos and voice notes.
BlackBerry 10.3 gives you extensive control of what appears on the Lock screen. You can even set a different wallpaper for the Lock screen and Home screen.
And those are just the items that BlackBerry felt were important enough to note. There's plenty of other little touches and moments of charm that make BlackBerry OS 10.3 feel more complete over its earlier versions.
