BlackBerry Storm2, RIM’s second bite at Apple’s multi-touch, black slab iPhone form factor, is just about ready for prime time, and as always, our sibling site CrackBerry.com has the complete Storm2 review. Kevin sums it up thusly:
The Storm2 fixes many of the BlackBerry Storm’s outstanding issues and makes a ton of incremental improvements, all of which add up to something that feels noticeably better. In a way that never quite applied to the original Storm, the Storm2 could legitimately be called the flagship BlackBerry.
Sounds fair to us! The Storm too got little-to-no love for RIM, even from RIM, but Storm 2 sounds like it fixes a lot of what went wrong the first time around. The build quality is better and that monstrous single-button screen of carpal tunnel has been replaced by a more sophisticated, and natural-typing friendly multi-press technology.
Sure, it’s still got that trusty, rusty BlackBerry J2ME OS and middling browser (for now) but with App World this time around, and Verizon’s network power (hey, it’s better than their chart-making power!) behind it, those users whose venn-diagram intersects CDMA with BlackBerry with touchscreen might finally have a usable option.
Check out the full review, then let us know if Apple has anything to worry about, berry-wise…
While TiPb is still waiting for an iPhone 3.1.1 bug-fix update, not to mention iPhone 3.2 betas to start dropping, it looks like the competition is getting their OS on this week:
Palm webOS 1.2 didn’t re-enable the iTunes hack (kudos Palm!) but did bring some nifty new features including Amazon MP3 downloads over 3G, the foundations for paid apps in the App Catalog, improved cut and paste, and much more.
Android 1.6 Donut is expected to hit now’ish as well. A new Android Market is coming with it, but not multi-touch — at least not yet.
BlackBerry OS 5.0 still doesn’t seem to be official, but is leakingoutallovertheplace (would that Apple had such porous pipes!). It’ll make your Berry more Berry, though it doesn’t seem to integrate a real browser yet, despite what the commercials say…
Windows Mobile 6.5 might be on 30 Windows Phones by 2010, though even Ballmer is finally admitting Windows Mobile 7 should have been out this year. Bottom-line, it’s a skin-job, and even though it looks hawt’er than a old style centurion, it’s still a machine on the inside.
What does that mean for the iPhone? Even if RIM looks locked in stasis, Palm and Microsoft appear to have up-hill battles re-gaining their traction, and Android is still slowly ramping up, Apple can’t afford to coast. A new OS from RIM, a Palm-style rebirth from Microsoft, and webOS and Android gaining marketshare are all possibilities. Many of these updates have interesting new features that hopefully Apple is looking at and working their own magic on.
So, let’s get on with the 3.2… and 4.0. March is only 6 months away, after all, and Apple needs something else to wow Smartphone buyers with at the next SDK event…
Sorry. Had. To. Be. Memed. But as long as we’re being so predictable, we might as well make it a contest. A caption contest, of course. So let’s set the stage:
iPhone 3GS, blockbuster selling, uber-popular, satisfaction levels off the hook, has just won the smartphone of the year award, and is about to give its heartfelt speech, in front of proud Pappa Jobs, no less, when the boldest of Kanye West-inspired BlackBerrys storms the stage, speaker on full, auto-tune set, and just has to interrupt and say…
??
What? That’s where you come in. Head on over to our TiPb iPhone Forums and let us know. Be creative, be comedic, be original, and the caption we love best will get an iTunes gift certificate!
Do you prefer the singular, solid piece of glass that is currently the iPhone screen, the big honking button/piezo electric multi-clicker that powers the BlackBerry Storm and its upcoming second edition, or do you yearn for the ability to customize haptics on your touch screen?
That’s the question our sibling site, CrackBerry.com asked yesterday and the one we’re repeating today. Since you’re reading TiPb, we expect you’re already super-elite when it comes to using the iPhone multitouch screen, so no explanation needed here.
For the first edition BlackBerry Storm, RIM floated a similar screen over a giant button that you had to press down every time you wanted to do something. It allowed separate navigation and execution, but arguably each at the expense of the other. With Storm 2 — well, nobody knows what they’re doing for sure (you can read CrackBerry Kevin’s guesses) but it appears you can click on multiple locations simultaneously, mitigating the linear process of the older model.
Since the BlackBerry Storm 2 has no “clickability” when off, Kevin wonders if users will be able to control how much “clickability” it has when on as well, potentially allowing it to be turn on, turned down, or turned up.
Given each of these options, are you happy with the iPhone screen input method as-is, or does the Storm’s way interest you?
CrackBerry.com is reporting that RIM has acquired Torch Mobile, makers of the WebKit-powered Iris mobile browser.
Apple-backed WebKit is the open-source rendering engine behind Mac Safari and Google Chrome, which isn’t a very large segment, all told. Mobile WebKit, however, powers the portable world with the iPhone (and iPod touch) Safari, Google Android Chrome Lite, the Palm Pre/webOS browser, and some Nokia devices. Add BlackBerry to the mix and it pretty much looks like the mobile world vs. IE6 on Windows Phone — strangely inverse the desktop landscape where IE dominates and Firefox brings up the rear. (FireFox’s mobile Fennec browser is still in development).
Bla1ze over at CrackBerry.com has posted up a video by Salomondrin that shows off and explains the BlackBerry Storm 2’s new “piezo electric” screen technology. In a nutshell, when the Storm 2 is off, the screen is hard just like an iPhone. When the Storm 2 is on, however, it becomes like a sponge beneath a screen coating, so a user can “push” into it to register a click, double-click, or multi-clicks.
Looks nifty, and it will likely make the Storm 2 much more palatable than the Storm 1 to die-hard QUERTY CrackBerrians. iPhone users? Well, I like tapping, swiping, pinching, etc. so I’m not click dependent, and at the end of the day, it’s the OS behind the input method(s) that Apple’s nailed oh-so-elegantly for me.
Only time, hands-on, and perhaps this year’s Round Robin will tell!
Join Rene, James, and Chris for more iTablet, iPod touch, and iTunes 9 rumors, Apple VP Phil Schiller’s email spree, the latest competition from BlackBerry and Microsoft, and all the news. Listen in!
While the iPhone uses the mobile version of the Apple-supported WebKit rendering engine, as does Palm’s Pre, Google’s Android, and some Nokia devices, RIM has thus far been content to roll their own rendered — with JavaScript turned off by default. No word on whether RIM will turn to WebKit or stick with the custom code, but it does look like the analysts are at least saying they’ll address some of the major gripes.
Our take? If RIM is serious about becoming a world-class web experience, Apple better get just as serious about matching them on messaging.
CrackBerry.com’s Kevin got his hands (and signature green coffee table) on RIM’s next-generation touchscreen BlackBerry, the Storm 2, aka 9550, aka “Odin”. And his early thoughts?
the hardware is much nicer
the click screen is more user-friendly
the operating system is basically the same
Is 2/3 enough? Says Kevin:
In going hands-on with the 9550, it becomes clear that this next-generation Storm is really an evolution of the original Storm. Yes, it’s better in every respect, but I’m getting the impression it’s sort of like when a new model year of a car comes out – it doesn’t make the old one instantly obsolete.
TiPb was pretty tough on the original Storm, though so were many BlackBerry faithful (it was basically cast as the Vista of Smartphones, after all). Any chance the Storm 2 will turn the touchscreen form factor around for RIM? Anyone see it as a threat to the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3.0? Or is it still about RIM providing that diversity to people who want the BlackBerry experience, and would never consider another device, touchscreen or no touchscreen? And if it disappoints, will RIM still lay the blame on consumer expectations in a post-iPhone world?
RIM has officially announced that BlackBerry Desktop Manager software for MAC will be available this September. THANK YOU RIM. You can visit blackberry.com/mac to sign up for updates and learn more or visit the Inside BlackBerry blog to see a few screen captures of it in action.
Yeah. Good luck with that. Any guesses how long that lasts before Apple releases a patch to disable BlackBerry sync?
(Kidding! Joking! Don’t panic, Kev! We’re happy for you — now you’re at least half-way towards restoring your childlike sense of wonder…)
