With Apple rumored to release its newest iPhone on Sept. 21, and the likes of Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and Nokia gearing up to debut new devices as well, frankly, we'd all but forgotten about BlackBerry. But a new leaked photo of the BlackBerry 10 smartphone -- or the "London" as the media seems to have nicknamed it -- promises a completely different looking BlackBerry than the world is used to.

Check out the photo here

According to the BlackBerry news site N4BB, a photo of the device, which is designed by Porsche, shows a slender touch-screen phone that is the color "gun metal." Several apps are shown in the photo, including Facebook, BBM, and DocsToGo.

Another leak posted by BlackBerryItalia.it shows a video (see below) of the smartphone with a removable 1800mAh LS1 battery.

The London is the first BlackBerry 10 and is slated to have a TI OMAP dual-core CPU running at 1.5GHz, as well as 1GB of RAM, 16GB storage, and an 8-megapixel camera. Reportedly, the device maker plans to launch this BlackBerry 10 L-Series first and will then debut the N-Series. The London is set to hit stores early next year.

This all-touch device looks very much like the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha smartphone RIM started distributing to developers last May, so this new image doesn't really reveal much, except for a closer look at the BlackBerry applications screen and some icons. The new BlackBerry 10 OS smartphone will pack a series of applications with an interface reminding of Google's Android OS and Apple's iOS, with the classic BlackBerry Messenger among them, along with Facebook, Maps, and StoryMaker, which sounds especially intriguing. Expected to be some kind of mobile video-editing app akin to iMovie, StoryMaker could potentially add a lot more weight to the BlackBerry argument, though the possibilities of the app are just a rumor at this point.

Expect an image of the BlackBerry 10 full-QWERTY "N-Series" device to be leaked in the not too distant future. That should be more interesting, because there is no developer version of that handheld and the hardware is new and different.

You may also have noticed some characters and numbers in the bottom left and right corners of the device's home screen. Those digits are used by RIM to tie early prototype devices to specific users or groups of users, and they won't appear in the final BlackBerry 10 software. But that also means RIM should be able to determine who this particular device belongs too.

The BlackBerry 10 L-Series, the new RIM gadget with touchscreen and now physical QWERTY keyboards is reportedly set to debut in 2013.

A leaked video with BlackBerry 10 OS in action provides more details about the new device, different from the Dev Alpha smartphone sent by RIM to the developers in order to help them crate the best applications for its mobile operating system.

After a year crowded with new OS launches, from Android 4.1 Jelly Bean to iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8, I am eager to see whether the Canada-based company will be able to increase its dropping popularity with the new BlackBerry 10 OS.

Some analysts are predicting that RIM will either die by the end of 2013 or will be taken over by a bigger company, with the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook being among the favorites to get their hands on RIM's patents portfolio.

It is expected that more details will emerge about the "London" and other devices at RIM's Jam Americas conference held in San Jose, California from Sept. 25 to 27.

From BlackBerry Italia: