[rescripting]

To speak to your point about the Q10, the lack of affordances for moving between apps was a deliberate design choice. It creates a small learning curve when you first get the device, which is supposed to be ramped up through a short tutorial after unboxing (I'll admit the effectiveness of this is problematic and there needs to be more effort spent here). The gesture for moving between apps is consistent everywhere so user interface and hardware design can be drastically simplified. It allows for a focus on content and not 'administrative' UI or hardware buttons, and speeds things up drastically.

I think that kind of UX contributes to the divisive nature of BlackBerries; people either love them or hate them. The ones who love them are all well past the initial speed bump of learning the gestures and the ones who hate them pick it up in the store, get in to an app, get stuck and throw it down in frustration; the same people who stumble on to Vim would (and no doubt do every day).

The difference between iOS7 and BB10 is that the lack of consistency and affordances in iOS7 seems to result from inconsistent design choices, while in the Q10 it's a deliberate design choice designed to speed users up.

[Pxtl]

I get what they're going for, but doing a completely non-discoverable interface is ballsy to say the least.