Here are the apps featured on BlackBerry’s ‘Venice’ phone

This November, BlackBerry will be taking a step in a new direction. The company, which has struggled in recent years to remain competitive, is expected to release an Android-powered device known internally as Venice. The phone has leaked various times, showing that it will have a display with curved edges and BlackBerry’s signature physical keyboard. Although Android 5.0 Lollipop is going to be present, BlackBerry has the option of going with a regular version of Android with their own modifications or using a forked version (like Amazon) where everything is locked.

Now we know that BlackBerry will be using its own launcher at the very least.

Evan Blass took to Twitter on Friday morning to share a list of applications that will be featured on BlackBerry’s Venice. Most of them are self-explanatory: Calendar, BBM, Meetings, Contacts, Help, Tasks, and Notes. Two others — Launcher and Hub — could indicate that Venice will be far from a stock Android experience.

The Hub app is BlackBerry’s place for messages, emails, and notifications to be centralized. The company already uses Hub on devices using its own BlackBerry 10 operating system. The Launcher app, though, causes us to believe that BlackBerry will be doing much more than just having Hub be what makes Venice unique. BlackBerry is likely working on an all-in-one launcher similar to what HTC does with Sense Home.

Source: Evan Blass (Twitter)

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