Today, RIM announced a January 30 launch event for BB10

Hot off the presses, that's how we like our news at Pure Mobile. And it doesn't get much fresher than this: About an hour ago, BlackBerry maker RIM officially announced the launch event for their long-awaited new OS, BB10.

A couple of months ago, after postponing the release of BB10, RIM had simply alluded to a rescheduled launch date in early 2013. But we now know the event will go off January 30, simultaneously across several locations worldwide.

To go with the launch of BB10, RIM has also promised something many of us have been anticipating even more than the OS itself – two new BlackBerry smartphones that run on BB10.

Still from a video leaking BlackBerry's two new BB10 handsets

The devices have already significantly leaked in video and pictures, indicating that while one of the BlackBerry smartphones will have the company's signature Qwerty keypad, the other will be BlackBerry's first all-touch smartphone. Rumor aside, however, we'll actually get to see the real deal come January 30, when RIM promises "details of the smartphones and their availability will be announced."

As TechCrunch notes, because we've all had a chance to get familiar with the new smartphones' software (albeit through leaks), we can expect not only the availability for the devices but pricing as well.

By Aldo Panessidi

A recent CTO presentation I attended addressed the changing security landscape we are facing with consumerization  - what I deem to be… (choice of our own devices for corporate and personal use from our smartphones to our tablets.   This brought up the pros and cons of the various operating systems out there: iOS, Research In Motion, Android and Windows.  The graphic associated with the Apple slide was a glass biosphere that was thriving and completely self-contained – the perfectly controlled environment.

This closed environment comes at a price: consumers have little control over their OS and the possibility of customizing to their needs. Requests for changes and customer gripes are eventually addressed. iPhone users now have MMS, multitasking, copy and paste and a full list of other revisions that also make our tablets and media players better. Unfortunately, one issue they haven’t fixed is control over alerts.

Just imagine an area in settings where custom alerts could be set. Different profile modes where the choice of ring, vibrate, volume, and ringtones can be chosen. Apple could take a page out of RIM’s book; BlackBerry cell phones have long had this kind of alert controls. And, there is room for improvement that could include location-based profile alerts (example, goes to silent in movie theatre) and the like. Perhaps hanit could connect in those settings to all devices on the platform including the iPad, iPhone, iPod, etc).

No matter if you’d like your Bluetooth turned off when you walk through the door at night or have different rings and notifications based on who is calling or texting, iOS users should have a bit more flexibility with their high-end devices. Moving to an iPhone from RIM and Android was challenging and this writer is still baffled that the handset is simply either “on” or on “vibrate.”

Research In Motion certainly isn’t competing at the same level as Apple in terms of handsets, accessories and projected sales these days, but this is one area where the Canadian company trumps the iPhone capabilities.