It’s great news for AT&T users, as they finally got the first major BlackBerry Priv Android update yesterday.
The update, released on the 1 December 2015, was initially available only to unlocked Priv handsets bought through the official store. It was subsequently made available to phones bought from a carrier, but not to those bought from AT&T.
The update was a maintenance release, part of a security update which the company pledged to make on a monthly basis. At the time, the company also announced it would update individual apps on the 15 December (today). The updates have been live on the Google Play store since yesterday, meaning that BlackBerry made good on its promise to update the apps a day early.
BlackBerry Priv app updates: what’s new
The apps which have been updated are DTEK, keyboard, hub and camera. The company announced the updates on its official blog:
The Android experience on BlackBerry just got a whole lot better. Starting today (Dec. 14), application updates are becoming available for PRIV, including the DTEK privacy app along with BlackBerry Keyboard, Hub, Contacts and Camera. We’ve been listening to your feedback and are working to add new features and even fix your issues.
So what’s new?
Camera
As previously announced, the camera now supports 16:9 photos.
However, the update also improves the camera’s overall speed and performance and brings new pre-capture indicators for HDR and photos taken under low lighting conditions.
Keyboard
The keyboard update will make prediction and correction possible for up to three similar languages simultaneously.
There are also 20 new input languages. These are: Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Belarusian Translit, English (Ireland), Estonian, Georgian, Icelandic, Irish, Khmer, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Ukrainian, Ukrainian Translit, Uzbek and Welsh.
The update also makes improvements to fine cursor control and introduces the option to use the Shift key to toggle between numbers and symbols in password fields.
Hub and Contacts
The Hub update allows you to view new WhatsApp chat notifications directly in the Hub. There are also new keyboard shortcuts and the ability to change the order of conversations, as well as enhanced content sync for email and text messages.
How to Update
Your phone should download the updates automatically over wifi. If this doesn’t work, you can download the updates manually as follows:
- After connecting to a Wi-Fi network, open the Google Play Store.
- Tap the icon on the left side of the search bar, and select “My apps & games” from the menu that appears.
- Choose which apps to update, or simply tap “Update All.”