TamsBlackBerry – the BlackBerry blog

Verizon currently is the only carrier selling the BlackBerry Storm – for them, it acts as a sort of iPhone repellent. This probably explains why Storm sales figures were mentioned in their recent financial results – ComputerWorld reports the following:

The BlackBerry Storm smart phone, put on sale Nov. 21 exclusively by Verizon in the U.S., has sold 1 million units through January, company officials said today.

From my personal point of view, this is an excellent result – after all, Nokia’s 5800 didn’t sell much worse or better…

P.S. The fact that RIM Austria officials have acknowledged the issue makes me feel that the problems reported are truly a matter of the past…the folks wouldn’t admit them otherwise…

RIM had a rather large booth at this year’s ITnT – while it looked pretty impressive, the main surprise was the talkativeness of the attendants on all things Storm.

First of all, here are two shots of the Storm. The device demoed there was a Verizon one – it ran an English OS and even had Verizon navigator on the front page:

I had huge problems with the touchscreen at first. I tapped and tapped, and nothing happened. Staff then informed me that the screen must be pressed on heavily (like a hardware button). This worked somewhat well, but required huge pressure – the images below show the switch in action:

A senior manager then stated the following regarding Storm recalls:

There was a series which had crappy software which was fuxated. However, these were US-only, which means that I cant tell you too much on them.

All I know is that the problems are fixed and that the exclusive roll-out at Austria’s governmental carrier is well on the way and will take place in 4 to 6 weeks. OTC prices for end customers will be between 400 and 500 Euros.

I recently ventured out to a smallish Vienniese phone shop who was the cheapest supplier for a phone I direly needed. Being the chatty critter I am, I asked them how they feel about the Storm – here is what they had to say:

From our point of view, the Storm is extraordinary. It is the first RIM device where people come or call asking if we have it.

Unfortunately, we have to decline. While the devices supplier-side purchase price of about 335 Euros is bearable, it is impossible to get these critters without a sim lock anywhere…and don’t ask about unbranded versions.

I would carry it immediately if I could…but cant.

I personally think that this is insane. We are looking at a small discount store (with very competent and talkative employees, which is rare) in Austria…and even there, folks ask about the box.

This leads me to the conclusion that many (if not most) of the doomsday prophecies are highly exaggerated. Of course, there are unsatisfied customers here and there (expectable due to platform switch)…but the device still seems to be very popular…

CNET’s Chris Matyszczyk recently took apart an extremely stupid bit of research on computer gamers – to cut the message short, we all are antisocial and love to smoke pot. I personally have heavy lung problems and thus am physically unable to do so…and none of my mates has ever felt like it either. So far so good.

Unfortunately, this discussion does not bring us anywhere – in fact, it supports the work of these critters. This may sound weird…but think of my now-classic article on egoshooters:

Many of the studies come from attention-seeking, unsuccessful doctors
I never believed this until I experienced it myself…this is a true story!

One day, I was at a bar programming. The DJ kept playing Rap(hey, its a LOUNGE) – and I walked up to him to ‘motivate’ him to play something else. Ok- Assemblage 23- and back to coding. Suddenly, I noted a gal slipping next to me talking to me about how Rap makes people aggressive, etc. Hmm – interesting gal, lets talk. She openly confessed that she decided to write her thesis on this topic for only one reason: to get media attention. This media attention should help her repay her student loan – mad but true!

If we continue from this story, there is only one thing we (as the analyst community) can do to stop the crap: the solution is to stop covering these idiotic bits of “research”. Whenever you get a press release about it, send them a link to this article and delete it without giving it any airtime.

It may sound weird at the first glance – but is the only thing that works. If these men of honour find their family robbed of a cheap way to get press and money, they will move onto other fields of business or will ideally get on the dole.

The first cleanses our industry from this cancer and helps us grow faster, but puts the burden on others. The second would eventually lead to less folks graduating…which means that the overall burden gets reduced over time.

Either way: the only way to handle these issues is the delete key…

What do you think?

RIM’s BlackBerry Storm has been off to a bit of a bumpy start – which has led to quite a bit of headline space on TamsBlackBerry. RIM’s top brass has now started to speak up in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: the best quotes are below:

…
RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie said the companies made the crucial Black Friday deadline “by the skin of their teeth,” after missing a planned October debut. Mr. Balsillie said such scrambles — and the subsequent software glitches that need to be fixed — are part of the “new reality” of making complex cellphones in large volumes.
…
Mr. Balsillie said RIM considers the Storm “an overwhelming success” and is making 250,000 devices a week to meet demand.
…

The full article can be had below – hit the link asap as the WSJ deletes existing articles after a few hours:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123292905716613927.html

An old English proverb states that the best way to make horse shoes is straight from the horse’s mouth – while this sounds pretty straightforward to me, finding gamers is not always that easy.

Fortunately, PocketGamer took on the job for us and collected quotes from random mobile phone users who were into gaming – their statements range from the mundane to very interesting things which should affect game design decisions.

So, don’t be left out – hit the link above and see what average gamers have to say!

People who are into looking at EXIF files will likely have figured out that yours truly is an Olympus (and Sony) fan – I have thus naturally been dying to hear more about the E30.

And here it comes – digitalcamerareview.com did its job and posted a very detailed review of the recently-released shooter. Their verdict is extremely positive BTW:

There were a few minor bumps in the road for the E-30, but as a rule, we’ve come away generally impressed from our time with this camera. Olympus has certainly packed in all the right features to make this model appealing to the enthusiast market.

With this in mind, I’ll admit that where I’m conflicted on the E-30 has nothing to do its performance or features, and everything to do with its price. For about $1300 at the moment, you get Olympus’s very good, very fresh advanced amateur body. Not only does this price the body-only E-30 above most of its rivals’ kit prices, but Olympus’s full-on professional model is only ringing up a few hundred dollars higher at some retailers right now.

Admittedly, the E-3 is starting to look a little long in the tooth, and certainly doesn’t have some of the cool features and brand new technologies that the E-30 offers, but in exchange you get a highly rugged pro spec camera body.

Other than the possible temptation to jump straight into the pro system, there’s very little to keep Olympus fans from coming to the E-30 in droves. Amid some stiff competition – on both features and price – from some of the best cameras we’ve reviewed in awhile in the 50D and, especially, the D90, it’s hard to tell how successful the E-30 will be in convincing users to jump ship from other manufacturers.

But on its own merits, the E-30 is a good buy for advanced shooters that, with a few operational tweaks and/or a price cut, might just be a great one. In either case, there’s enough that’s different here to make the E-30 worth checking out: after all and especially in photography, different perspectives can be a good thing.

The ISO 3200 shots are extremely impressive to say the least (for Olympus users, that is) – if you are a Four Thirds head, definitely hit the link above!

I personally loathe T-Mobile due to their extremely bad customer service and idiotic price structure – they nevertheless seem to have an excellent relationship with RIM.

The picture on the left hits us via Engadget and shows one of the first 8900’s shipped by the carrier.

I personally will wait until another carrier gets the box – but don’t complain that we didn’t tell you

So far, the content policy behind RIM’s recently-launched application store has not been clarified. However, this has just changed – the lines below come from a CNET interview:

“If somebody builds a better calendar app than the one that’s natively on the device, we don’t have a problem with that, and they are welcome to sell it through existing channels,” Kirkup said in an interview with CNET News sister site ZDNet UK. “However, we want to make sure no-one is violating any agreements, and their applications don’t use excessive network bandwidth or lewd content.”

Hit the link above for further info – it pays out!

RIM’s version of the Apple App Store has been mentioned all over the press in recent months – unfortunately, developers have not been able to submit their applications until now. However, the admissions process has now commenced:

Payments will be handled via Paypal exclusively, which I personally consider much better than the traditional check-based method. Admission seems to be free for now, but there is no guarantee that you (and your products) will be accepted…

Developers wanting to submit their apps must hit the URL below – further info can be had there:
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/application_storefront.jsp

I predict that my friend Dr. Schaffer (of FH Hagenberg fame) will be furious when he sees the pictures below – they show AT&T’s version of the BlackBerry Bold running Visual Voice Mail:

As Visual Voice Mail is patented by an obscure company called Klausner and furthermore requires huge amounts of carrier infrastructure, I am pretty sure that BlackBerry Bold devices outside of AT&T’s will not be given VVM support.

Nevertheless, it’s always interesting to see RIM copying successful concepts from other consumer companies…

P.S. These shots come courtesy of the Boy Genius.

The fine folks at BerryReporter.com’s have just posted a highly interesting piece looking at the state of mind of the average BlackBerry user – here is the core part:

…
A popular question I receive is, “Why didn’t you get an iPhone?” The answer is really quite simple. If I had a lame emo haircut then my hair covering my eyes would blind me from the POS the iphone really is. “But Geoff, look at what my iPhone can do!” I don’t care…

Congratulations, your phone is contributing to the demise of society. Is it really necessary for your phone to tell you where you should eat? If you can’t decide on your own where you’d like to eat like a normal human being then maybe you should re-evaluate your life.
…

The core message of this post is something which is of utmost importance for all developers wanting to target the RIM market: function beats form. In a way, they are completely different from the iCrowd – while the latter prefers cool-looking slow apps, the RIM crowd has abnsolutely no tolerance for that.

The secret of RIM success is short and sweet: KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. Do that and you should to fine…

So far, the Isle of Man was known for its Manx cats and lighthouses – but it looks like their government also has quite a few other tricks up their sleeve.

The extract below hits us via the NY Times:

…
The government of the Isle of Man announced plans for a system under which consumers with broadband subscriptions would be required to pay a nominal monthly license fee. They could then legally download music from any source, even peer-to-peer services that are outlawed currently.

“At the end of the day, we are not going to stop piracy, so let’s embrace it,” said Ron Berry, the inward investment manager for the Isle of Man government.
…

As of now, little more is known – stay tuned for further info as we get it!

Picture: Geograph.org.uk / Andy Stephenson

The picture below hits us via BlackBerryNews:

As of now, nothing more is known – stay tuned for further info as we get it!