We’re changing things up in light of WES this week. Our morning post will be News From The Wire, and we’ll have a feature-y post headed up later. This is the heavier news from WES. During the week we covered a lot of application related stuff. Now it’s onto the juicy stuff. It’s a bit disappointing, honestly, because we didn’t get two of the more anticipated announcements.
Count on it: BlackBerry Storm 2
We’ve heard strong rumors of a new BlackBerry Storm model coming later this year. At WES, Jim Balsillie confirmed it. He didn’t say if it would be out before the end of the year, but at this point it’s surprising that he even confirmed it. Hopefully both RIM and Verizon get their acts together ahead of time and make sure it’s a bit better launch than the original Storm. Apparently RIM is good at learning its lesson, as it did not announce the 9630 this week amid palpable hype.
BlackBerry Curve top-selling smartphone in U.S.
Once again the BlackBerry Curve was named the best selling smartphone in the U.S.. It’s higher than even the iPhone, which makes sense because the Curve is available from all four major carriers. Perhaps this will be a signal to Apple to start dealing with Verizon, which they’ve been rumored to be doing. Also in the top five were the Storm at three and the Pearl at four. Just another quarter at the office for RIM.
Curve 8900 headed to AT&T
We’ve known this for a while, but it’s official now. AT&T will launch the BlackBerry Curve 8900 in May. I still don’t get it. AT&T has the Bold, which is a similar device plus 3G speeds. In addition, AT&T is moving its prime real estate to 3G, leaving 2G users (read: Curve 8900) in the dark. So why are they picking up this handset?
Live shots of the Gemini 8520
RIM’s low-cost line, the BlackBerry Gemini, has been pictured. As you can tell, I’m not too excited about this one. It’s an extension of the Curve family, with the only real upgrade being the optical trackball — which admittedly is pretty cool. It also has dedicated media buttons in the bottom of the device. There’s not much to go on with this, so we’ll just leave it at that.
App World gets positive reaction from developers
BGR takes a look at BlackBerry App World one month later to see how the RIM store fares. After looking through any upgrades and talking to developers, the conclusion is positive. It’s not perfect yet by any means, but App World has nowhere to go but up — and it looks like it’ll get there.
Balsillie wants to buy NHL team
The Phoenix Coyotes are hard up for cash. Jim Balsillie wants to buy them and move them to Canada. That doesn’t sound like a bad plan for a failing franchise. There’s still some hoopla to settle before the NHL even considers it. The Coyotes filed for Chapter 11 on Tuesday, but the league is skeptical of its nature. They’ll have to figure that out before they can even talk with Balsillie about his plan.
WES Stuff Part 1 and WES Stuff Part 2. Plus, as an added bonus we add Part 3 about LogMeIn, an application which lets you remotely access your home computer.
Tethering your BlackBerry vs. mobile broadband. How you can determine which type of mobile Internet is best for you.
Free app giveaway. This is for Whippoh. Read the post for more contest details.
Theme Review Wednesdays. Check out the latest themes in our bi-weekly feature.
