RIM Working On Blackberry OS 6.0 Amidst Growing Competition

Canadian smartphone manufacturer Research in Motion is apparently already working on the sixth iteration of its software platform, Blackberry OS, as the smartphone giant attempts to catch up with rivals like Apple and Google which have been pulling out increasingly advanced features.

Mobile blog Boy Genius Report says that, like Microsoft, RIM will introduce an interim, minor update, version 5.2 to the current Blackberry OS, version 5.0. v5.2 will come later in 2010 according to BGR's source. This means that OS v6.0 shouldn't appear until next year at the earliest.

Meanwhile, a report on Thestreet.com said that the OS would be a reworked one rather than being written from scratch and that it would be more web friendly (ed: more Vista than Windows 7 then?).

This is understandable given the fact that RIM purchased Torch Mobile, the company behind Webkit, which is the foundation of the mobile browsers that can be found on the iPhone OS and Android.

There are also numerous hints pointing to the fact that RIM could be planning to overhaul its platform significantly. The recent patent activity recorded by some Blackberry blogs point to that direction.

Lastly, last week, ZDnet unearthed a new, hybrid and very intriguing new handset, the Magnum, which is a QWERTY handset with a 2.4-inch touchscreen.