Just figured I'd create this, as there has been an interest in the lack of information surrounding these OS versions here lately. Feel free to add to the list.

Released:
OS 4.3.0 - 8110, 8120, 8130 (Pearl 2 family)

Beta - Carrier Certification:
OS 4.3.1 / OS 4.5.0 (rebrand) - 8000 series (including 8700 family)
OS 4.3.2 / OS 4.6.0 (rebrand) - 8000 series (excluding 8700 family), 9000

Unreleased:
OS 5.0.0 - 8000 series (excluding 8700 family), 9000

Carrier certification for OS 4.3.1 / OS 4.5.0 has been underway since October, so you'd think that we'd have seen a release by now. With that said, February was the target date, to my knowledge, to coincide with BES 4.1 SP5. The new service pack has been given a release date of March 4 (partner availability) / March 11 (general availibilty), so the OS should follow shortly thereafter. I personally think carriers will be 'green-lighted' for release of OS 4.5.0 in the next couple weeks, but look for major carriers with decent quality control departments to hold out for a few more post-release bug fixes (likely a one to two month delay, in the March to May timeframe).

*EDIT: Due to the number of enhancements being added to the RIM OS, OS 4.3.1 was renamed to OS 4.5.0 for marketing purposes.

*EDIT: In the same rebranding fashion of OS 4.3.1, it's successor, OS 4.3.2, has also been rebranded as OS 4.6.0. This will make it's debut with the BlackBerry 9000, which I have predicted for a May announcement (at WES) and June release date (on Rogers, Vodafone, and AT&T, possibly others).

So, the 8700 will "supposedly" get 4.3.1, get skipped in 4.3.2, get 4.5.0 and then that's the end of life for upgrades for the 8700?

The 8707 got 4.2.2....I'd still like to know what happened to some of those for the 8100 and 8800's, etc.

I just hope that RIM puts out some good solid releases of these OS's. It's time to not have such big bugs in the OS's.

C'mon, RIM!! We're pullin' for ya!

Please sticky this thread

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry 8100: BlackBerry8100/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

Thanks for this info.

Thanks for the update Jibi!

edited the original post with some new info... very good news!

Jibi

always on top of the game!

thanks for the news

sweet... 4.5 sounds like such a fun leap foward. I can see why they (possibly) renamed it.

nice work jibi, thanks for putting it all together in one post

Thank you for the clarification, Jibi. Should the 8300 series go alongside the 8800 series in the lineups?

jeremy

Edit: I just realized they say "8000" and not "8800" so nevermind!

Good stuff-thanks, jibi!

The other question which we will not know until the OS upgrades come out is how much this upgrade will slow down the exisiting BBs. More features equals larger programs in a very limited memory space. Larger programs with wysiwyg
may tax the existing hardware. I guess we will have to wait and see.

As someone who recently came over from the Windows mobile 700w and 700wx world to the 8830, I do not want to go back to the sluggish, wait a moment and crash world! I trust they will only roll out those features which will work WELL with the existing hardware platforms.

I'm glad to hear about all of the new software upgrades. But what seems to be holding up Sprint on their 8703e? At present they are only offering version 4.1.0.384. They still haven't released version 4.2 when virtually all of the other U.S. national carriers have for the 8700 series devices.

Use the other carrier's OS for your 8703, it will work fine on yours.

any links to beta versions?

Nice work Jibi, great info!

None that I'm aware of yet.

a sticky rumor; sounds kinky ... I like it though.

The devil's always in the details, but did anyone else notice some oddities in the fine print, such as the fact that Excel compatibility will not be available until a later release of both the client and BES software, but Word and Presentation support will be in the initial release? Also, no mention of support of SDHC beyond 4gb. Does this mean we're just trying to migrate the herd to the 9000 platform?

When will these new OS be coming out? If anyone knows.

no one knows for sure, but there is some info in the first post of this thread.

STOP fishzle, and scroll up to the first post in this thread and please read it, in full.