Native Photo Editing App Coming to BB10, Serves as Proof That RIM is on The Right Track

By Briley (Google)

Photo editing apps are a dime-a-dozen these days. The Android and iOS markets are littered with apps that include all kinds of creative photo filters and image enhancement features.

Instagram is one of the most popular image editing apps, because it also allows users to share their artistic creations through an integrated social network. Sure, Instagram was purchased by Facebook, and the social network is now ridiculously littered with artsy fartsy photos, but it is still an awesome app.

Instagram does not exist for Blackberry though.

The general lack of something as basic as a stock photo editing app has to be disconcerting for Blackberry users. While most Blackberry devices do include photo filters that can be applied to images, they’re actually not that impressive.

RIM plans to change that issue with the release of Blackberry 10.

The Blackberry 10 OS Will Have a Stock Photo Editor

According to N4BB, when Blackberry 10 finally lands, early next year, it will apparently include a stock photo editing app that has been powered and developed by Scalado. If you’re not already aware, Scalado is a software company focused on improving mobile image editing, and they’ve designed software for a number of different platforms.

The image rewind feature shown at Blackberry World 2012, which will allow users to capture the perfect shot by rewinding frames, is actually based on software designed by Scalado. Needless to say, they know what they’re doing when it comes to mobile imaging software.

What Can The Stock Editor Do?

The BB10 stock photo editing software will not only allow you to edit photos with standard settings like crop, rotate and touch-up effects, but it will also allow you to apply artistic filters just like what can be found in Instagram. Some of the artistic filters that are already included allow you to change a picture to black and white, lomo, sepia and antique colors. In addition, the new photo editing app includes image styles that can be applied to any image on top of other edits. For instance, some of the styles include smooth face, 60′s, photo grain, and cartoon effects.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a photo editing app without the standard features, and there is even an auto adjust tab that will automatically improve image quality by removing redeye and adjusting brightness and exposure levels.

As you can see from the images of the software, RIM has obviously outlined serious differences between the touchscreen only L series BB10 devices, and the N series devices which include a hardware keyboard. They recognize that, because of the smaller screen space on the N series devices, the app will need a customized user interface. Good job looking out for your consumers RIM (that’s not sarcasm either)!

The following video from Crackberry, shows a demo of the photo editing app in action, which unfortunately, is not working on the associated testing model, the Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha device. The video is still worth watching though, because it provides a basic idea of what photo editing features RIM is adding in BB10.

What Does This Mean?

The lovely surprise here is that RIM is actually developing practical native software, this is a serious improvement over previous Blackberry OS versions. Third party apps are always great, but if the phone can achieve everything you need on its own without added software installations, you’ll have a successful platform.

Of course, just the addition of a photo editing app, like this, in Blackberry 10, isn’t enough to solidify RIM’s future success, but it is clearly proof that RIM is headed in the right direction with their latest OS.

With improved features like this photo rewind app, RIM’s recently unveiled voice search functionality and a highly improved virtual keyboard, BB10 is starting to look even more like a sleeper success. It is still possible that BB10 will release next year and push RIM back into the spotlight.

It is news like this that still keeps the hope alive. Keep it up RIM!