It was reported several years ago that BlackBerry (they were known as RIM at that time) was planning on competing with the likes of Apple not on smartphones, but in terms of living room entertainment.
The rumors suggested that BlackBerry were working on a media box similar to the Apple TV codenamed “Cyclone”. However given that we’re now in 2014 without any news of the device, it’s safe to say that the project has since been pulled. Now thanks to recently leaked photos, we now know what the device and its UI could have looked like.
We should warn you that there is no way of verifying that these images are real. After all the device never made it to the market so for all we know, these photos could simply be the result of a photoshop job or a concept by a fan. That being said it does make for an interesting point of discussion, but treat it with a fair amount of skepticism for now.
As you can see in the image above, the device itself appears to be pretty small and nondescript with a huge BlackBerry logo embedded into it. The UI of the device also shows that it will be able to access and playback music and videos and would have been able to stream content from CNN and YouTube.
There also appears to be a remote control whose design is pretty simple and also appears to sport a trackpad which reminds us of the trackpad used on BlackBerry devices. The remote control allows users to perform search, go back, and we can only assume the BlackBerry button is for it to return “home”.
Once again we’d like to express our skepticism since it’s been 3 years since we last heard about the Cyclone, but in the meantime what do you guys think?
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