BlackBerry OS 5.0 Features Revealed

We've already seen video and photo overviews of RIM's upcoming BlackBerry OS update, version 5.0, but the Boy Genius Report has released perhaps the most comprehensive change guide so far.  Among the changes are on-device photo resizing (ideal for emailing images), email flagging and folder creation, together with the ability to forward calendar entries and view calendar invite attachments.More details after the cut

There's also Google Gears support in the OS 5.0 browser, plus the ability to stream video within the app rather than jumping out to an external video player.  The Maps app has seen render times roughly halved, with reduced scroll lag, and addresses sent in emails, IMs or other messages are automatically linked to Maps for easy display.  Frustratingly, the word is that this latter feature won't be offered in every country that has BlackBerry devices, at least not initially; still, the new photo geotagging support (which adds an optional GPS photo layer) is nice.

Other tweaks include a full QWERTY portrait orientation keyboard for the BlackBerry Storm, message encryption, better on-device storage management and more flexibility in choosing default folders, wallpapers and other visual aspects.  BlackBerry OS 5.0 is expected to get an announcement at WES 2009, which begins in two weeks.