I’m sure somewhere in the fine print of my contract allows Verizon to push whatever the hell they want to my phone. The contract probably says that they can listen to my phone calls and read my text messages. I don’t care about that stuff; let ‘em. I lead a boring life and couldn’t care less if anyone listens in on my calls. But I don’t want any more stupid apps pushed to my phone just because Verizon is probably getting a nice financial kickback.

That’s why BlackBerrys have an app store now. If I wanted Bing Mobile, I could find it in App World and download it myself. That’s what I did with Slacker Radio. What I don’t need is more bloatware on my already slow and buggy BlackBerry Storm. The damn app doesn’t even run well on the Storm. It’s slow, unresponsive and thinks I’m in NYC. (I’m a thousand miles away, actually)

The Storm, and other Verizon BlackBerrys, didn’t come loaded with all the Verizon-branded apps that the carrier is noterious for loading on its handsets. Instead VZW is randomly pushing apps on to phones, which isn’t much better. Once again, Verizon, you’re doing it wrong. Leave our phones alone.

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Remember last year when everyone was stoked about the new touchscreen BlackBerry called the Storm? Oh man, the hype was huge. There was iPhone-ish lines, media coverage, the works. But then the first reviews came out and we all realized the truth: the phone sucked. It’s now a lot better thank to firmware updates, but the upcoming BlackBerry Storm 2 will hopefully recapture some of the original anticipation.

The BlackBerry Zone is reporting that Verizon will launch the BlackBerry Storm 2 around Black Friday in November. Also, Vodafone in the UK will release it in October which hopefully means if there are any issues, RIM will quickly work them out before launching the phone in here. WiFi and OS 5.0 is expected to be featured in the second Storm, and yes, the SurePress screen will be there too. (I like the clicky screen btw) Now, the only question left is what price point the phone will launch at: $99 or $199.

[via CrackBerry]

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A new name would make since as the Storm namesake doesn’t exactly have a good reputation and RIM has been known to switch up names before the launch. The 9630 Tour was once called the Niagara. We’ll just have to wait and see when either RIM or Verizon finally announces the phone.

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Crackberry has some hot video of the Storm 2, RIM’s follow-up to the abysmal Storm. This new model has a less clicky screen with better keyboard and it’s slightly thinner. It also has dedicated call buttons. No word on Wi-Fi, though.

via Giz

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Great news: The Blackberry Storm is finally usable. Most of our issues with the phone were resolved with the first official Verizon update for the Storm. It’s now a quality phone that’s worthy of the BlackBerry name.

As of Sunday, May 31, the update is available via either directly from the support section of VZW.com or from an OTA download. We downloaded the update over the air yesterday and it took about 2 hours for the 19MB update – the servers were probably running at full capacity. Once it finished downloading and installing, we were instantly pleased.

The phone is finally quick and responsive. The entire system feels noticeably faster. It no longer takes 5-7 seconds for the phone dialing app to load. Even the web browser seems to load pages faster. However, the auto-rotation of the screen still isn’t as quick as we would like it but it’s better than before. We still wish there was a way to disable this entirely though.

Even the camera is quicker. Now, the picture is displayed almost instantly when the shutter button is pressed verses the 5 second lag on the old firmware. Picture quality doesn’t seem upgraded though.

One of the biggest and most welcomed changes however is the new text selection mode. A little box appears around the selected text that can be easily slid one way or the other to modify the selection. Previously, it was a frustrating task to select text for deletion or copy and paste. It took a steady fingernail to select the desired text.

Overall, the update transformed the phone. It took the Storm from one of the worst phones ever made, to a quality BlackBerry. We just wish it hadn’t taken Verizon seven months to update the phone. RIM has issued leaked numerous firmware updates ever since the phone launched that greatly improved the stability, but this is the first one Verizon has picked up. Never mind that, the BlackBerry Storm is finally worth your time and money.

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Another day of WES2009, another day of BlackBerry news. This morning brings an announcement from LogMeIn, makers of the remote desktop access software of the same name. For those unfamiliar with the concept, LogMeIn allows you to control a Windows or Mac computer from another terminal across the internet. Previously, the term “terminal” here was limited to meaning any PC or system with an up-to-snuff browser. As of December, the launch of LogMeIn Ignition expanded it to include the iPhone. This morning, LogMeIn is announcing that they’ll soon be throwing the BlackBerry Storm into the mix as well.

The application isn’t ready to go just yet, but they’ve got an alpha release of it on display on the WES2009 showroom floor. Pricing info has not be disclosed thus far, but I’d imagine that it’ll go for something around the same price as the iPhone release: thirty bucks.

The notable features:

• No firewall configuration necessary: This is LogMeIn’s primary strength over VNC and other widely available solutions – it’s dead simple, even for the technically useless. No router configuration is necessary, nor do you need a static IP.
• Touch Screen Navigation/Keyboard: Zoom In/Out and pan around with the touchscreen, with full onscreen keyboard support
• 256-bit SSL encryption
• “My Computers” list: No remembering IPs – just tap to log in.

We haven’t had the opportunity to check out the new Storm app yet, but I can’t say I’ve had the best of luck with the iPhone version. I run a dual monitor set up, which LogMeIn supports. Unfortunately, one of my monitors runs at a fairly high resolution. Unless I unplug that monitor first, LogMeIn Ignition curls up and starts to cry as soon as I connect, claiming limited memory as the blame. Oh well – hopefully such setups fair a bit better on the Storm.

The LogMeIn alpha is currently private, but folks interested in getting beta access can check out www.LogMeIn.com/StormPreview.

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I have been using a BlackBerry Storm for about a month now and have came to like the phone. While I don’t have an iPhone love affair going on, it’s a solid phone I wouldn’t not recommended. (understand?) It has its quarks like any phone, but the single most annoying feature could – and should – be resolved by Research in Motion.

You see the Storm auto rotates everything unlike the iPhone where only certain apps switch to landscape view. That’s fine with me for apps and such. Auto rotating the main menu/app menu doesn’t add any usability and in fact, is frustratingly annoying. Half the time the phone takes a few seconds to change orientation causing random bad thoughts to race through my head while the phone decides what to do. But mainly, there is no reason to have the home screen rotate and RIM needs to address this aggravating trademark of the Storm.

The BlackBerry Storm has square-like icons just like the iPhone and the beauty of these squarish icons is that you can tell what they are no matter how you are looking at them. The Twitter app still looks like the Twitter app when viewed on its side. The same thing goes for the Calendar, Contacts, Messages, all of them really cause they are square.

Listen, I would not have an issue with the auto-rotating thing if the Storm were fast enough to rotate. But when you pull the phone out of your pocket to make a quick call, you shouldn’t have to wait for the phone to decide which way it’s going to orientate itself and then allowing you into the phone dialing app.

This should be an easy fix by RIM. Just give users an option in the Homescreen Preferences to disable this action. Maybe some people like the feature, but a quick look at BlackBerry forum sites will turn up dozens of threads ranting about the same thing.

Other than that annoying feature and typing on a touchscreen, I have been pleasantly surprised by the Storm. The early reviews blasted the touchscreen BlackBerry, but if you’re bound to stay with VZW for some odd reason, the Storm isn’t that bad. Or you could wait for the 9630.

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Research In Motion’s founder and co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis, has cleared up some non-existent confusion about his company’s first touch screen device, the Storm — it’s a netbook.

Wait, what? Sorry, can you repeat that? I must have misheard you Mr. co-CEO.

In a recent interview, when asked “Would you consider Netbooks as your competitors?,” Mr. Lazaridis responded:

No, I think I can put Netbooks in here [referring to the BlackBerry Storm]. These are Netbooks. They are just smaller.

Unfortunately, there were no follow-ups to this confusing declaration.  Apparently, Lazaridis defines ‘netbook’ differently (netbook = smartphone?) than the rest of the us (see Wikipedia: A netbook is a light-weight, low-cost, energy-efficient, highly portable laptop…).  One could more reasonably argue that the Bold or other qwerty-equipped BlackBerry devices more directly resemble netbooks, albeit in a non-clamshell, 1/3 the size screen kinda way.

But it all makes just a tad more sense (maybe) if you consider some of Lazaridis’ earlier comments in the interview:

We must always work within the laws of physics and ergonomics of small handheld wireless devices with respect to processor speed, display and keyboard size, weight, cost, battery life, radio bandwidth, network capacity and latency.

These “limitations” are the same ones faced by netbook manufacturers.  However, it still doesn’t follow that the Storm, a tactile keyboard-less non-laptop mobile phone, would fall under the netbook umbrella.  It’s sorta like describing the Internet as a series of tubes — a sort of half-truth/lay understanding; although that claim at least has some merit to it. There are, after all, tubes involved.

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As if Thanksgiving left-overs and a bit of time off weren’t enough, Storm owners got a bit more to be thankful for over the weekend. After a somewhat shaky launch and a whole lot of complaints about some fairly rough bugs, RIM is set to release the first firmware update some time this week. Fortunately for those ready to throw their Storm out to sea, some folks at RIM (or Verizon, perhaps) decided to bring the goods a bit early for their more technologically apt crowd by leaking not one, but two firmware updates.

Anyone can nab the first leak, which comes in at version 4.7.0.75. Here’s the download link. As it doesn’t appear that any patch notes were leaked with the release, the list of fixes is all conjecture at the moment. In general, however, stability seems to be on the up-and-up.

The second and most recent leak, which bumps it up to 4.7.0.76, isn’t quite so easy to obtain. In fact, it seems that only the Boy Genius has managed to get his hands on it thus far and, for one reason or another, is holding on to it real tight. He does share a whole lot of details of what the update entails, however, and it sounds like it might be just what the Storm needs.

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With hype comes scrutiny. Build consumer interest in a device up to that which Verizon has built the BlackBerry Storm, and you’re bound to hear the complaints. The Storm has been on the shelves for less than a week, and forums around the web are already littered with word of reproach.

A list of the issues that RIM has recognized as software flaws has been passed out to Verizon employees to keep them from accepting them as reasons to exchange the customer’s device. Of course, this list made its way out almost immediately. According to the document, we can expect the first set of fixes to come in Week 1 of December.

Far more interesting than the problems themselves are the interim solutions. Key press not recognized? Solution: Press it again!

Issues to be resolved by the first OTA update (Maintenance Release 1) – December, week 1:

• If a customer receives a call while listen to music at low volume using a wired headset, the music volume may suddenly increase to the highest level (!). Interim recovery instructions: Lower the volume using the buttons on the side of the handset.
• When using voice-activated dialing, incoming audio may be muted. Interim recovery instructions: Enter the menu and select “Activate Handset or Speaker”.
• The handset may reset itself while sitting idle or while using multimedia applications. No interim recovery instructions provided.



Issues to be resolved by a subsequent Maintenance Release:

• Customers may intermittently lose email connectivity via CDMA and/or international roaming modes. Interim recovery instructions: Main menu -> Manage Connections -> Select mobile network -> Turn radio off, then Turn radio on. If this does not resolve the issue, pull the battery.
• When powering on the handset, the radio sometimes does not turn on. Interim recovery instructions: Main menu -> Manage Connections -> Select mobile network -> Turn radio on. If this does not resolve the issue, pull the battery.
• Pressing the send key while the device is in landscape mode will open the phone application in portrait mode, but the speed dial function may not work. Interim recovery instructions: Press escape until the home screen appears, then press the send key with the handset in portrait orientation.
  Sometimes entering characters on the virtual keyboard doesn’t work. Interim recovery instructions: Re-select the character.

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Here come some numbers with decimals, so get ready. BGR is speculating that batches of the BlackBerry Storm that had been shipped with OS version 4.7.0.82 may have caused some sort of glitch. And when BGR asked Verizon about the official OS version, Verizon told them it was 4.7.0.65 – that’s lower than 4.7.0.82, mind you.

Read the rest of this entry over at CrunchGear >>

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If we piece together a couple of Verizon sources, the BlackBerry Storm will launch on November 17, 2008 for $219 with a two-year contract. None of this is of course confirmed through VZW, but it seems to fit the timetable and price point.

Verizon needs to get this BlackBerry out before the holidays as some suits will want to treat themselves to a new CrackBerry as a stocking stuffer. Plus, Verizon does not have a true iPhone killer yet and while the Storm will not slay the king, it’s the closest thing on the market so the price must be close to the iP3G’s $199 entry price.

Once again, none of this is confirmed but Verizon must be close to releasing this BlackBerry. What are they waiting for?

ZDNet – Release date

HoFo via Eng – Price

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So you’ve dipped your feet into iPhone and Android development, but aren’t really feeling either platform? Got an idea you think a carrier or two would pick up for the BlackBerry Application Center? Time to get crackin’.

Now that the Storm is on its way to the starting block, RIM has released the development tools needed to get an application up and running on the handset. To make the dev process a little less tedious (and, I’d imagine, to give wary techies a bit of a trial run), they’ve also released an emulator for the device. Check out the BlackBerry Dev Program for more info.

[Via Phonescoop]

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At long last, Verizon and Vodafone have officially acknowledged that they plan to offer the Storm in the coming weeks. Prepped to fit the needs of the enterprise user who may be tempted to sway from RIM, this much-coveted handset is the first touchscreen BlackBerry. With the 480×360 screen, 3.2 mp autofocus camera, Bluetooth 2.0, “ClickThrough” user selection for a button-like touch screen, 3.5mm headset jack, EVDO Rev. A and HSPA, 1 GB of internal memory, microSD (8 gigs included in the box), full HTML browser, both standalone and A-GPS, PDF/Word/Excel/Powerpoint support, quad-band radio (850/900/1800/1900), it’s a mighty stalwart contender against Apple’s finest (or just about anyone’s finest, for that matter).

Pricing and availability aren’t available – but if leaked Best Buy documents hold true, we’ll be seeing it by November 16th at the latest.

Full specs after the jump.

Update: According to the press release that just came down the pipes, TELUS will be a Storm-bringer for Canada.

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Anybody who is considered the “geek” amongst their less tech-minded peers best look out. The BlackBerry Storm has made its way to the moving picture box, and they decided to go all Coen Brothers with the ending. For the next week or two, you get to deal with a constant stream of “Hey! Hey! You like computers! What’s on the other side of the Storm?!” from anyone who can’t use Google.

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With there still being about a month more to wait before the BlackBerry Storm hits the shelves (be it that the early November launch rumors hold true), what can anxious soon-to-be Storm owners do to pass the time?

They could write haikus, comparing their love for the Storm’s touchscreen to a springtime breeze. They could also make a papercraft version of the BlackBerry Storm, jam their current phone inside, and try to convince people they have a prototype model. Or they could not be weird, instead using that time to dig through the 17 pages of BlackBerry Storm User Guide goodness that the Boy Genius just managed to finagle.

It covers just about all of the basics you’d need to know to tap your way around the Storm: Video recording, creating voices notes and playlists, utilizing the GPS, using the browser and calendar, etc. if you’re planning on picking one up, you might as well be prepped for launch day – plus, all your friends will think that you’re just really, really good at adapting to new phones.

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Further proving that there is at least one VZW employee out there who really likes leaking BlackBerry Storm details, CrackBerry has managed to get their hands on the BlackBerry Storm pre-launch marketing sheet.

Now, don’t get too excited when you see the words “Launch Date” next to “9/17/08″; Verizon is not going to surprise everyone and release the Storm today. Those dates are for marketing campaign launches, indicating that Verizon plans to begin waving the Storm in front of everyone’s face from today on.

Besides detailing what kind of junk the salesfolk will be pushing on you during the transaction, the only meaty morsel here is the upgrade eligibility date: November 1st, 08. It’d be pretty tough to upgrade to a handset that isn’t on the shelves yet, so as long as Verizon stays on their game we can expect to see the Storm on the first of November.

Remember those BlackBerry Storm still shots that leaked out from the internal Verizon employee announcement just a few hours ago? The entire video from which the screens were captured has now leaked online. The video quality is a bit like being 3 shots in and sitting on a tilt-a-whirl, but if you’re itchin’ for Storm information and the stills just aren’t doing it for you, this might just hit the spot. Fortunately, Verizon was nice enough to subtitle it for everyone to make up for the audio degradation.

[Via Crackberry]

Some tipster managed to sneak their camera phone out to snag some shots during today’s internal Verizon employee briefing on the BlackBerry Storm. One’s a basic product shot, while the other two show the handset’s browser in landscape and portrait orientations. Sure, the shots sort of look like they were taken from the inside of a space helmet during a snow storm, but this person likely risked their job for these – high fives to them!

Two more shots after the jump.

[Via CrackBerry]

Today’s supposed to be the big news day for the BlackBerry Storm on Verizon and, lo and behold, documents prepping Verizon employees for the news have started hitting desks. While it doesn’t mention pricing or reveal the release date, it does confirm the high-resolution touch screen (”RIM’s highest resolution screen ever”), “Quad Band connectivity”, full HTML browsing, Visual voice mail, and the 3.2 megapixel camera.

The document talks up the launch like they’re going to announce it in some way where people will suddenly rush the store in mobs demanding Storm information, so we’ll probably be hearing more about this all soon. Or they could just leak a few more documents, and probably get the same coverage on the same blogs.

[Thanks, HoFo readers]