The BlackBerry Priv is the company’s first attempt at working with the Android operating system. When it was announced, it sounded like a no-compromise device, as it featured very good specifications in every department, plus the company would bring its expertise towards security to this device. The phone turned out to be decent in terms of performance and build quality, but its powerful specifications suggested a better performance. Despite looking like the phone is running the stock version of Android, BlackBerry modified a few aspects to improve them. Swiping up would not only bring the shortcut for Google Now, but also for the BlackBerry Hub and BlackBerry Messenger. An even better enhancement is the possibility to access useful widgets from some app icons on the home screen, those are marked with three dots.
Since BlackBerry is committed to making this phone as secure as possible, the company has promised to update the software every month, just like Google with its Nexus devices and some other companies, in order to make it less vulnerable to future threats. The handset was released about a month ago, so the company has just announced its first security update. It will be available starting today for the unlocked variants which were purchased from BlackBerry’s own site and carrier versions will start receiving the update starting December 7th. The update weights about 475 MB, so a WiFi connection is recommended for downloading the update. The updating process is just like in any other Android device, just wait for the notification or manually check for the update in the About section of the Settings menu.
Besides the security patches for the month of December, the update includes additional enhancements such as the camera app working faster and it will take better pictures in low-light scenarios, plus, the overall performance of the device will be improved and the device will be more reliable and less prone to crashing or freezing. BlackBerry has also announced that some of their apps will get updated on December 14th from the Google Play Store, such as the Camera which will now support 16:9 photos, the Keyboard will get additional language support and emojis on the predictive typing, WhatsApp will now be integrated into the Hub and Contacts and the DTEK app will receive more notification options to let you know what information is being used by certain apps.