BlackBerry Q10 Smaller Action Bar, Keyboard Shortcuts, & Dark/Bright Themes

With the launch of the new BlackBerry 10.1 SDK we are seeing more signs of what is coming on the BlackBerry Q10. One of the things I really like is the smaller action bar on the bottom of the screen. You can already see this smaller bar on the Z10 browser where it is smaller than anywhere else. This is also coming to the Q10 but it will be everywhere. Essentially imagine the action bar without text as you see above. BlackBerry also goes on to explain the different Bright theme for the Z10 with its LED display and the darker battery saving Dark theme for the Q10 with its OLED display.

Here is how they describe it:

By default, devices with LCD and OLED screens use different visual styles (also called themes) for the controls in Cascades apps. Devices with LED screens (such as the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone) use a bright theme, while devices with OLED screens (such as the BlackBerry Q10 smartphone) use a dark theme. Certain core controls (such as labels, buttons, sliders, and so on), as well as the default app background, appear differently depending on the theme. The dark theme was chosen as the default theme for OLED screens because this type of screen consumes more power when displaying brighter images. In addition, brighter images can cause a burn-in effect on OLED screens, where pixels lose their luminosity and color properties over time.

BlackBerry also highlights how they are trying to get developers to setup their own custom keyboard shortcuts in their apps. Best of all BlackBerry is trying to school developers to use the same concepts for keyboard shortcuts as the native keyboard shortcuts that are coming on the Q10. Check out the details here.