How to Use the Blackberry Z10 (Navigating the OS)

Picked up a new Blackberry Z10 and have no clue how to use the darn thing? Well, considering it’s a redesign of Blackberry’s entire operating system, no one can blame you. Add on top of that the fact that they made sure to try and have differentiators from other popular smartphone operating systems and you get an OS that might benefit from some initial guidance. Let’s see if we can help you get a bit more familiar and a bit more efficient at using the Blackberry Z10 and the new Blackberry 10 OS.

I. Gestures

Gestures are Blackberry’s way of getting around physical buttons. Instead of hitting a home button, for example, you swipe up from just under the screen onto the screen to get out of any app. In total, there are three gestures:

• Swiping from just below the screen on to it – exits any app and gets you to all of your open apps.
• Swiping from just above the screen on to it – opens the settings menu within any app.
• Swiping from off the bottom of the screen and continuing your swipe to the right – takes you to the Blackberry Hub and any notifications you may have.

II. Homescreens

The device has one main screen that displays all of your open apps. This screen is reached by using the up swipe gesture we mentioned above. On this screen you can switch between apps and close running apps. Swiping to the left brings you to all of your installed apps and swiping to the right instead brings you to the Blackberry Hub, which we’ll explain next.

III. Blackberry Hub

Blackberry Hub is a native app developed by Blackberry to consolidate all of your messaging, email, BBM, and social networks into one unified inbox of sorts. You get to this hub by swiping up from off the screen to get out of whatever app you are in and then swipe to the right to open the hub.