MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Nov 24, 08 - 12:35 pm Comment from: Demon

RIM's Storm = Microsoft's Vista/ME

I played with one for about 10 minutes on release day and was very unimpressed. I see this as another example of a phone/device that I might have been scrambling for two years ago. Now, however, it's just another example of a phone/device that falls embarrassingly short.

Having a touch sensitive panel as a button obviously has merits, the new MacBooks are obvious examples of that, but like those computer companies offering multi touch computers, RIM seem to have missed with the execution entirely. There are times when a seachange in technology is great (iPhone) but you have to execute it right, at other times you're best suited to a gradual transformation (Apple Trackpads and lack of touch screen on MacBooks). So far Apple seems to be getting it right from both ends of the innovation spectrum.

Nov 24, 08 - 12:45 pm Comment from: critic

I want to know how many returns Verizon is going to have to deal with.

Nov 24, 08 - 12:54 pm Comment from: John E

hey guys, while everyone is piling on the Storm, remember that this is Storm version 1.0. the 2007 1.0 iPhone had a lot of issues too, and it is really the 2008 2.0 iPhone that has taken off in popularity. and just like the iPhone, this original Storm's app store isn't ready at the initial launch either.

in 2009 RIM will release its 2.0 Storm. nagging problems, including the click-to-type screen, will get fixed. wifi will be added (like Apple added 3G). a decent app store will go on line.

so while the 2008 Storm won't be a great seller beyond Blackberry aficionados, the 2009 Storm might become a very good product.

this puts pressure on Apple to significantly upgrade the iPhone to 3.0 in 2009 too, matching the capabilities of the Storm it lacks, like a decent camera and bluetooth stereo earphones. and document editing at last. competition is good.

Nov 24, 08 - 01:04 pm Comment from: HMCIV

Apple must be really scared now.

Nov 24, 08 - 01:10 pm Comment from: OctoberMac

@John E

And when RIM releases Storm 2.0, the iPhone will be on 3.0. As has been talked about, they are behind the initial innovator in this product space ... Apple. You can not talk about innovation without remembering that your target is always moving forward. As Wayne Gretzky said "I skate where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." RIM and others are just skating to where AAPL was in June 2007.

What does Apple have in store for 3.0? Have there been any rumors?

where did RIM find 200 people to stand in line... Oh, wait, we are in a recession... People will do anything for money.

Nov 24, 08 - 01:17 pm Comment from: NCMacMan

Well, at least the removable battery does have a reason to be in the Storm. It's needed to reset the phone!

@JohnE
Are you really a RIM CEO in disguise on an Apple forum? Boy, are you cushy towards blackberry.
Apple will not sit still and will be years ahead...you sound like Apple now has to play catch up to what??? a camera? Do you really think that Apple, when making the iPhone software, doesn't already have landscape keyboard and cut and paste? Did they just leave it out and say we will create it later? Apple is at least a year ahead of their own releases, and years ahead of RIMM's. RIMM ceo's showed desperation in releasing this ahead of its functionality and they are paying for it bigtime. That thing is a thick brick even in their flashy moving advertisements.

Nov 24, 08 - 01:23 pm Comment from: January 24, 1984

NCMacMan: very funny!

Apple owns a high-end OS and their own SDK and iTunes delivery machine...AT&T;is making billions just clearing a path to stay completely out of Apple's way.
THAT, folks, is the difference. Verizon's pride and control COST them dearly...Apple came to them first. Pride and arrogance always lead to doom...the slow moving dumb ox AT&T;won all the way to the bank with simply an open mind and hands off policy.

I went into my local Verizon store over the weekend and had a chance to handle the Storm. First of all, in an otherwise packed store, there was no "storm" of activity around the (rather iPhone-like appearing) Storm kiosk. The Storm itself looks alright, it's not too heavy, and it feels good in the hand. In spite of pushing every external button on the device, however, and tapping the crap out of the screen, that little bugger of a phone would not go any further into its functions. I'm sure there's some simple solution to this, but as no Verizon employee was willing to help me (too busy selling other phones, you see), I never figured it out. At one point, I took out my iPhone and, in a fit of instant juxtaposition, pushed the home button. A sense of relief soon overcame me that some one cares about the customer in the design process, and that the iPhone represents that commitment.

Best executive decision of the decade. Give Apple the ball and get out of the way. Remember the Bulls? Yeah, Scottie did a little bit.

Nov 24, 08 - 01:46 pm Comment from: LeftCoastDude

Seriously, people were standing in line for this? I live in a puny, little, useless town in the middle of nowhere, but when AT&T;released both the iPhone and iPhone 3G, the lines were huge, the three major TV stations were out interviewing everyone.

I haven't hear squat about the Storm.

I give RIM and Blackberry all due credit for creating a huge market in the Enterprise segment. Without the BlackBerry,exactly what would have Apple launched? Or would it have even launched anything?

But the iPhone is about two generations ahead of RIM. By the time RIM catches up to iPhone 3G 2.2, we'll be at iPhone 4G 4.0. But many individuals have a BlackBerry crush, so I guess that will be good enough.

@John E

Sorry, but you are very wrong. iPhone have had issues, but did you read the reviews at the time it launched? Everyone loved it.

That's the difference between Storm and iPhone:

If you love it you put up with those small issues.

If you hate it the 'small' issues are why you get your money back.

Been a longtime BB user here, and I just don't see the value in the Storm over the Curve or Pearl units. Just seems rather gimmicky.

Clearly, a poorly-pushed response to the iPhone.

RIM is a good company that has made good products. I hope for their sake that they return to building on the strengths that made them the leader in U.S. smartphone sales. Blackberry customers are loyal to the products that are typical of RIMs peculiar take on the email-centric smartphone. A (apparently) badly done knockoff of a competitor's product is not the path to success with those customers.

Nov 24, 08 - 02:07 pm Comment from: Jubei

I saw the video on Mobileburn review. Full operation of the product on video. Its slow, clunky, thick as a brick. UI is slapped on it seems.... really bad.

I'm trying to remember what iPhone issues I had with the EDGE version. Can you tell me, specifically, JonE?

Nov 24, 08 - 02:14 pm Comment from: Gunboat Smith

After seeing and using a Storm, and reading of the many issues that people are having, I can't get to AT&T;and the iPhone fast enough. I'll have some crow with a side of humble pie.

For example, the security lockdowns and remote wiping features don't work if you can't get the device connected to the corporate BES server.

Once again the "competition is good" maggots see,
marketers want you to belive that, but it simply isn't true. Half-ass products resembling world-class products aren't competition.

Nov 24, 08 - 02:37 pm Comment from: thethirdshoe

@John E -- "nagging problems, including the click-to-type screen, will get fixed."

Sorry. That will not happen. That's what their interface is. There's a click vs tap because that allows the Drizzle to have "hover".

They would have to completely redesign and recode the interface from the ground up. What Apple designed 4 years ago...

Nov 24, 08 - 02:45 pm Comment from: Mac Daddy

"People may have lined up early this morning in eager anticipation of buying the Storm..."


Ha ha ha ha yeah, right. As for excusing BB's turd of a phone because it's v1.0, the iPhone worked very nicely the day I bought it (and yes, there was quite a line for that one).

Nov 24, 08 - 04:04 pm Comment from: John E

@Macaday - ah, how memory fades. lemee see, iPhone 1.0: just web apps, no 3G, no Exchange, no GPS, no ring tones and other various such lacking UI details, various 1.0 bugs, security issues, and oh, it cost $200 more. (i bought one anyway a few months later when the price came down, version 1.2 i think by then.) it was a breakthrough product, but sales have tripled since the 3G 2.0 came out this year. so, case closed.

@thethirdshoe - well, we'll see how RIM responds next year. i read also now the processor is underpowered, hence the sluggish performance. these hardware issues could be fixed by RIM in the next version. i would bet they will, because RIM clearly intends to try to keep up with the iPhone. so i would advise a Blackberry-loving friend not to buy the 2008 Storm and wait til next year instead.

@CD - great, i look forward to iPhone 3.0 next year too. but i am not going to replace my 2007 model until Steve J sees fit to give me a decent camera. maybe snapshots of friends aren't important for you, but my wife loves them and i need to be able to focus the thing.

I'll keep using my Bold. Everything the iPhone wants to be in the Business world, but just can't handle.

Steve Jobs claims 3G phones don't have great battery lives, yet this Bold lasts a full week without a recharge, the iPhones we took out of service were lucky to get 8 hours without needing a recharge. Oh and the Bold has a full QWERTY keyboard, cut & paste and all those features the iPhone is constantly dinged on in the corporate world.

Nov 24, 08 - 04:51 pm Comment from: ken1w

@ John E

> hey guys, while everyone is piling on the Storm, remember that this is Storm version 1.0. the 2007 1.0 iPhone had a lot of issues too

No... The hardware design of the iPhone was sound. Apple corrected any issues and added new features in software (and continues to do so with each update). The Storm has flawed design that can never be corrected in software.

The clicking screen is the major hardware design flaw. If you have to click the entire screen down to type a letter on the screen, that's not going to work well. Not only is it "tiresome" to push the entire screen to type a letter, the screen does not have enough time to spring back up before the user tries to type the next letter. You can't correct that in software.

A similar design works well on the new MacBook touchpads, because you are using one finger to click down and the fastest you will execute two consecutive clicks is for a double-click (with one finger), just like a double-click on a separate button. It works, even if you are using your index finger to move the cursor around and your thumb to click down.

RIM would have been better off designing the device without the gimmicky clicking screen. That probably would have reduced the thickness by a few millimeters and allowed more thorough testing time for the rest of the device.

Nov 24, 08 - 04:52 pm Comment from: Crazylegs

What propaganda! ALL the reviews of this device are using the wrong the OS. They made a mistake and had to downgrade the software last minute to a less stable, buggy, laggy OS. But the truth never matters here. This was stupid on RIM's part and VZ's part. In the next week or so, they will update the software OTA and then we should circle back. MDN has a hard-on for the Storm it seems.

I bought the v1 iPhone on the day it was released. I don't remember any issues with the phone or software, certainly nothing that caused consistently failure of the iphone functionality or complete restarts of the machine. I am happily still using the phone, waiting for the 32Gb version to get released.

JohnE is just making sh*t up.

Well ... I feel like a total fool. I've been waiting for months for the Storm to get released as I'm a long time BB user. All my friends have had iPhones for over a year. I told them, "Just wait until the Storm is released, we'll see who's laughing then". Unfortunately, it's still my buddies who are laughing. I have used their iPhones a lot as I was really intrigued with all the functionality so I was expecting something similar or better from RIM since they've been building smart phones a long time. Let me sum up this way: They should call it the RIM POS.

I tried to like it for 3 days and finally admitted this thing ain't iphone killer. More like an iphone seller. I'm headed to the apple store in the morning.

To me, it seems the SurePress clickable screen is a solution looking for a problem. According to the people I've talked to who didn't like the iPhone for typing and preferred a physical keyboard, it wasn't so much they wanted to click something as it is they like to feel the keys. The clickable screen does nothing to address that.

If you read MDN, there is no second opinion about Storm. Reviews and articles MDN kindly provides links to mention occasional bright spots in Storm blackberry design and features, yet final conclusion is always the same: not the best blackberry, not the best touchscreen smartphone and sure not iPhone.

One can choose to ignore but can't deny that Verizon sold out of Storms first day, Friday before noon in most stores. It then sold out of their warehouse inventory they promised to ship by 12/5. Verizon now takes money for devices which will arrive at 12/15. May be.

Imagine that, people who give Verizon their hard earned money today credit Verizon for 20 days. RIM can put all they got to build more Storms - they are sure sells. RIM can plan load of their factories for month ahead with guaranteed product.

Person who buys Storm either pays full price so they are not locked with contract and getting full price for Storm will make both RIM and Verizon happy, or signs for 2-3 years contract and that would mean one less iPhone user for next 2-3 years.
Win-win for RIM.

Who RIM should thank for success of such unimpressive by all MDN accounts device? They should thank Apple: if there was Verizon iPhone yesterday, there may not have been Verizon Storm success (as in sales of available units) today.

Nov 25, 08 - 04:05 am Comment from: John E

@Alex - nah, ain't so. the Storm early buyers are guys that already own a Blackberry and wanted badly to upgrade to its new iPhone-like features. like My Bad two comments above yours. just like the Bold buyers are guys that love their crackberrys with keyboard and wanted to upgrade to its better media features too.

(apparently their is also a Storm supply problem right now, for reasons that are not clear yet, hence some stores selling out.)

That still is good for RIM yes. it will enable them to hold their own against the iPhone and maybe take some marketshare from Win Mobile phones. RIM has a large established installed base, and so it is going to sell millions of new Bolds and Storms to those existing Blackberry users when they upgrade. that is to their credit. but outside of their core enterprise market, they just don't stack up well - not yet anyway - against the iPhone for the overall consumer market.

and the enterprise market is going to be shrinking next year, by the way.

The Storm is like the Zune for the smartphones, let's face it. You would be better off getting phones of your choice.

@John E: I didn't go and buy myself Storm, I am using some other smartphone I am comfortable with. Yet, from reports of people who went to Verizon stores on Friday, Verizon strongly encouraged new activations.
It is correct ot assume that very many of new Storm users are new blackberry users. They could have bought iPhone but, well, they were left behind by Apple.

One of analysts estimated sales in between 250,000 and 400,000 Storms on Friday. This is how many iPhone users Apple lost. They will lose even more when RIM brings more devices to cover backlog of orders.

Nov 26, 08 - 12:21 am Comment from: John E

@Alex - no, that logic doesn't work. you are forgetting that various older models of Blackberry phones work on ALL the telcos, not just Verizon. so those new accounts could as easily be existing RIM customers switching from ATT or T1, because right now the Bold is a Verizon exclusive (meanwhile the Bold is an ATT exclusive).

and you are also forgetting that US customers committed for whatever reason to NOT using ATT - determined to stay instead with Verizon or T1 due to their family plan or whatever - won't buy an iPhone anyway. so those aren't sales taken away from iPhone. rather that is a market iPhone can't sell to (but they might buy a Touch instead). if those sales don't go to RIM, they'll go to Android or WinMobile phones of whatever brand.

Apple knew at the beginning that by going exclusive with ATT it would limit its market that way.

the stats to watch are the total number of RIM accounts, no matter what telco, and their overall net gain in accounts thanks presumably to the new Bold and Storm, plus their overall smartphone market share. to compare of course with iPhone sales. we'll be getting fourth quarter reports in January (Jobs always announces the latest stats at MacWorld), and then we won't have to speculate like this anymore.

Nov 26, 08 - 12:23 am Comment from: John E

Typo: please correct the first "Bold" to Storm in that first paragraph.

Everyone has forgotten to mention the best thing about the Blackberry Storm: It doesn't use AT&T;. One can actually make a call without fear of dropping the call, or have to deal with worthless customer support.

Unfortunately, the worst thing about the Blackberry Storm: it's not Apple. I was hoping that my until was the exception after having it delivered the Monday after it launched. What a turd. Certainly they knew the processor could not handle the UI - and decided to go with it anyway. The above report is right: the accelerometer is lousy, and what's with the click? What was sold as a brilliant PR push, did anyone at RIM actually TRY the Storm themselves? Not just a few letters - but actually TXT'ing someone or white a few sentences? My guess these people used the "Hunt and Peck" method on a real keyboard, and don't type more than 3 words a minute to begin with. But anyone trying to respond to a message quickly (which Blackberry users are known for to begin with), this is a sad excuse for a communication device. And speaking of communicating: choosing someone to dial is a 4 of 5 step process. This is a phone first, right??

One the positive side, I did love the camera, the screen was nice (although so is the iPhone's), and the "Clock" app was well thought through (as silly as that sounds).

Finally, if you re-read John Es comments - what he says is correct (iPhone did have issues in the beginning, it does continue to put pressure on Apple to correct some lame mistakes to the iPhone - namely non-stereo bluetooth and sub-par camera). Then everyone jumped on him. What's with that? Acknowledge and move on. No big deal. Hurray. iPhone is great (and I mean that - I do love it). But it's AT&T;. I respect my time too much to deal with their crap too. So it's back to the 8830 World Edition for me and I wait to see if Storm 2.0 is any improvement, or by some miracle the iPhone comes to Verizon. I'm not holding my breath for either.