Industry coverage, news, original feature articles, how to guides, videos, podcasts and reviews of BlackBerry service providers, software, accessories, hosted exchange providers and more

Feeling overloaded with BlackBerry news and rumors? We know the feeling. We hear new things almost every day, and it can be tough to keep up with it all. that’s why we’re bringing you BlackBerry News from the Wire every Thursday.

We’ll catch you up on everything ‘Berry that happened over the course of the week. Not only that, but we’ll rank ‘em by importance, so you can more easily skim the items and read the ones of most significance. If you only have time to read one article, for instance, you might want to head down to our 5-star section. It’s All the BlackBerry News Fit to Geek.

BGR raves about the BlackBerry 9530
Leading off, as usual, with some device news, Boy Genius Report has extensively reviewed the BlackBerry 9630. You might remember that we featured Kevin from CrackBerry’s review in this space last week. If it’s possible, BGR is more geeked about this. They run through an extensive review, noting most significant hardware and software features. Their conclusion, in a sentence: “Smash those Storms, donate them to charity, sell them on eBay or give them to your significant others you want to slowly and cruelly torture.” TheStreet.cm speculated that we could see a May release from Verizon, but BGR seems to think the device is three to four months out. Hopefully RIM has learned its lesson from the Bold and Storm and will make sure this device is 100 percent ready before rolling it out.

RIM launches BIS 2.6
We’ve known this was coming for a while, but this week marked the release of BlackBerry Internet Service version 2.6. Most of the major upgrades were discussed in News From The Wire a few weeks ago. One thing I failed to mention (read: neglected) in the original post was that BIS 2.6 allows for the display of password characters. This is significant because it allows you to see the passwords you’re entering, which is of particular help to SureType users. Otherwise, you can now change your email signature right from your handset and easily sync up your Gmail with IMAP.

Everything you wanted to know about the BlackBerry Application Suite
The BlackBerry Application Suite is software which allows you to run the BlackBerry OS, or a virtualization thereof, on Windows Mobile (and Symbian) phones. We’ve discussed this in the past, but Ronen at BerryReview has some serious documents about BAS which provide much of what you need to know. As an example, you can check out the architecture of BAS. So head on over there if you’re interested and see one of the cooler BlackBerry software developments.

Showing off BlackBerry Desktop Manager 5.0
We saw some screen caps of BlackBerry Desktop Manager 5.0 this week. What does that mean? Well, that it’s coming soon. What does it offer over BDM 4.7? Compatibility with OS 5.0 devices. In fact, you can’t run an OS 5.0 device without BDM 5.0. So we’ll make a loose connection here and say that OS 5.0 could be coming soon. How soon, though, we have no idea. More eager people can speculate on that. Perhaps, though, we’re in line for a WES announcement. The timing seems right.

What does BES 5.0 offer?
It seems that this was the week of BlackBerry software upgrades. Last up is BES, which is soon to see version 5.0. So what does this offer over previous BES versions? Thankfully, there’s a neat-o chart comparing BES 5.0 to all previous versions back to 1.6. You know, just so you’re sure that BES 5.0 is significantly better than its predecessors — even the distant ones.

Outsider review of the BlackBerry Storm
Most of the reviews we read of BlackBerry products from from a Berry-centric source: CrackBerry, BerryReview, BGR, etc. However, sometimes it’s better to get the outsider’s perspective. That can go awry sometimes, as Berry fanatics lashed out at NY Times tech guru David Pogue’s uninspiring review. For the most part, though, I like to hear the opinions of non-BlackBerry users. This one comes from Gil at Mobility Site. He borrowed the Storm from a friend for the night, and came away decently impressed. He sees how it’s a tool for businesses, but how it clearly won’t kill the iPhone. Hm, I wonder who said that the Storm might serve better as a business device than a consumer device?

Hackers paid to work magic on BlackBerry
Hacking cell phones is one of the geekiest activities in all the land, so it gives us pleasure to point to a contest of such. Attendees of the CanSecWest conference were offered $10,000 to hack the BlackBerry, among other smartphone platforms (Android, iPhone, Nokia/Symbian, WinMo). I haven’t seen if anyone has been successful…doess the lack of updates on this matter signal that it hasn’t been done?

Rogers not singling out BlackBerry with price increases
To close out the news, we follow up on a report from last week that Rogers is raising BlackBerry prices to cover a $30 million budget deficit in acquisitions. It appears that those increases are across the board. It’s so, so sad that it has come to this. Yet with a new batch of cellular operators set to launch in the country, thanks to the Canadian spectrum auction, those prices might fall soon enough.

TwitterBerry gets an upgrade. It’s the official Twitter app of BBGeeks. It’s now in version 0.9 Beta 1. Official release soon?

Blocking calls on your BlackBerry. There are a few ways to do this, some efficient but a bit costly, some inefficient but free. Still worth it if you’re getting bugged by telemarketers/exes.

12 Ways to Become A Better BlackBerry Geek, Part 2. We wrap up our series with things like guitar lessons on your Berry.

Keep an eye on your text message numbers. You don’t want your company overcharging you, so make sure you have your own record of text messages sent and received.

How to load music on your BlackBerry. This is a quick walk-through of adding songs to your BlackBerry media card. Speaking of which, BlackBerry Media Sync got an upgrade to 2.0 yesterday.

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