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Comment by bravura | Hacker News Reader

Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins is unveiling the first phones built on the BlackBerry 10 operating system this morning in New York. The new software is designed to let users multitask more effectively than on rival devices, including the iPhone. Heins is looking to grab the attention of smartphone buyers who have dumped their aging BlackBerrys in recent years for Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc.’s Android.

Seriously? Your plan to fight iPhones and Droid devices is to tout your phone's multitasking ability?

How many consumers complain about their phone's multitasking capabilities? How many consumers even understand what that means?

[edit: If they are talking about the business meaning of "multitask", as some child comments have noted, then I agree that this would be a cool feature. I also find it annoying how hard it is to do work in multiple apps at once.]

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I'm tired of pogo-sticking in and out of the various apps to get one thing done. For example, if I get an email asking if I'm ok to meet at 3pm on Friday at Joey's Cafe. Today, I need to jump to my calendar app, see if I'm available at that time. I also need to check where Joey's Cafe is located via Google Maps, so I can make it over there after my 1pm meeting. I also need to jump to my task manager app to remind myself to prep notes in advance of the meeting.

The vision painted here is to move swiftly between the core things you do the most. Whether or not the execution is sufficient, it's hard to say without trying it out in person. But the BlackBerry Hub looks like a good start.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/30/3929760/blackberry-z10-rev...

I find this to be an incredible annoyance on iOS, particularly iOS 5 and earlier, but I have to say that Android really nails this experience with the 'intent' model - I don't think twice before opening Google Maps directly from a Google Calendar event that was itself created directly from an email that I read in my inbox.

I read that as "multitask" in the original meaning of the word; not the technical sense. For example BB has a single inbox for all your email and messaging services. You don't need to fire up multiple apps just to check your different services.

Not to bog down in meaningless pedantry, but the original meaning of the word "multitask" was in its technical sense as applied to computing.

Interestingly enough, the Verge review calls out the OS for being poor at handling multitasking, so it sounds like they don't even have much of a leg to stand on there:

"I don't feel BlackBerry 10 deals with multitasking or notifications as effectively as other platforms do (most notably Android), but it's not a total strikeout."

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/30/3929760/blackberry-z10-rev...

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