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.

RIM back to crushing iPhone sales
The advantage to offering a line of devices over a single model is that you hit a larger portion of the market. This has been RIM’s strategy vs. Apple’s, and over the last two quarters we’ve seen RIM outsell Apple by a decent margin. Their financial quarters don’t exactly align, which skews the data a bit (RIM’s most recent reporting includes the holiday month of December), but the numbers are still there. RIM sold 7.8 million BlackBerry devices in their last quarter to Apple’s 3.79 million. In Apple’s Q1, which did include December, it sold 4.36 million iPhones to RIM’s 6.7 million. So while Steve Jobs was quick to note that “Apple outsold RIM” in Apple’s Q4 — and it was by only 800,000 units — no one at Apple has acknowledge that the inverse has been true the past two quarters.

BGR has the goods on OS 5.0
Where would we be without Boy Genius Report and their ninjas? They’re constantly on the up and up with leaks and pre-release information. This time they have the word on OS 5.0, which we could see the light of day at WES in May. There are upgrades to the Messages app (date always on top, photo resizing when sending), Calendar (forwarding entries, among others), Browser (AJAX and in-browser streaming), and Maps. Make sure to read the entire entry for all of the upgrades. My personal fave: “If the device is running low on memory, a message will pop up that not only informs the user of the low memory buy also recommends rarely used apps for deletion.”

How to improve BlackBerry App World
Robb at RIMarkable has a few gripes with App World. Don’t we all? He’s listed five things he’d change to make it a better platform. It’s mostly low-hanging fruit — tagging free apps, offering 99 cent downloads, desktop downloading — so one would hope RIM would get on that. One thing they are working on is introducing carrier billing options in addition to the currently exclusive PayPal platform. This would be of great service to those who don’t want a PayPal account. Also at the link, Lazaridis explains the $2.99 opening price point.

T-Mobile UK offers one-time-fee BlackBerry
Would you pay 180GBP for a BlackBerry Pearl 8110? No? What if it came with a year’s worth of email and Web browsing? That sounds a bit more enticing. It’s what T-Mobile UK is now offering customers. For the one-time fee users can get the device, plus a year of email and Web browsing. The only downside is that it includes no voice minutes or messaging, so that will be on a pay-as-you-go basis. We’ve seen a few prepaid BlackBerry solutions recently — namely Orange in the UK and MetroPCS in the U.S. They both have far different offerings, so it’s worth paying attention to T-Mobile’s situation to see how it plays out.

Viigo to release update at WES
Last year at WES we got our first look at Viigo Tango (since renamed to just Viigo). You could tell from the interface that they were onto something. Since then they’ve ramped up their efforts, rolling out a few upgrades to make the service run smoother. We should see another upgrade come WES. This one will integrate Facebook and Twitter posting — in fact, it could be “full Twitter integration,” which would surely please some among us. The best new feature, though, is streaming audio, which has been a non-functional menu item in Viigo since last year. In the meantime, you can pick up your BBgeeks co-breanded Viigo reader.

Facebook 1.5 finally official
We’ve been waiting quite a while for the newest version of the BlackBerry Facebook application. After all, we’ve had our share of complaints about it. The application finally launched this week. You can check out BGR’s preview for more info, or you can just check out the app for yourself at App World or at http://www.blackberry.com/facebook.

Screenshots of new Skyfire browser
Don’t think that the BOLT browser is the only new one making waves. We’ve learned over the past few weeks that Skyfire will give BOLT a run for its money — which is pretty awesome considering how much I enjoy BOLT. You can now check out screenshots of Skyfire. They’re pretty beautiful, and one BGR ninja described the browser as “already…the best BlackBerry browser ever.” Okay, my ears have officially perked up. Where do I sign up for this alpha testing?

49 reasons why the BlackBerry Storm is idea for international travelers
Carrier Vodafone has decided to pimp the BlackBery Storm by writing an article about the 49 reasons why it’s great for international travelers. It’s pretty straight forward: the Storm is, after all, a World Edition. Still, they make a few points about the device’s viability overseas.

Close out unused BlackBerry applications. It will make your device, and possibly your streaming audio, run a bit faster.

Gym Technik upgrades service. It’s a pretty significant update, allowing users a bit more functionality. Still wish it was an app so cell reception wouldn’t be an issue.

So you bought a BlackBerry Storm…now what? Apps, themes, and tips for your new BlackBerry Storm.

Add a second email address for contacts. And a third, too!

Use AutoText for a better BlackBerry experience. Once you know the words you do and don’t use, you can set up AutoText to streamline your typing experience.

Verizon adds My Verizon for BlackBerry. Manage your account and pay your bill with this application.

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