The news for this week broke last week. RIM and AT&T announced that they’d release the BlackBerry Torch 9800 on August 12 — which is today. I moved back News From The Wire as to accommodate those who spent their mornings at an AT&T store picking up one. If you’re on the fence or are curious about the device, you can read through our official BlackBerry Torch 9800 review, which is comprehensive enough to touch on the major points while not getting too esoteric. There were a few other developments this week, so step inside as we cover them.
RIM announces Curve 9300, headed for T-Mobile
Early in the week RIM sent out a press release announcing the Curve 9300. For those who regularly read this feature, this is nothing new. We’ve known about the device for months. It is essentially an update to the 8520, with the addition of 3G being the most significant new feature. We learned shortly thereafter that T-Mobile would get the device. But that wasn’t even close to the most interesting aspect of the announcement.
While the device will ship with OS 5, RIM said, in black and white, that it is OS 6 ready. This came as a huge surprise, because we had heard that OS 6 would require 512MB of memory, while the Curve has just 256. I’m not sure if this means the Curve will get the full version of OS 6, or if it’s going to be the rumored hybrid version we heard about a couple of weeks ago. In either case, that’s a good thing for owners of older devices.
Tip of the week: Disable Twitter integration on Social Feeds. It’s an OS 6 tip, and I consider it rather essential. The more people you follow on Twitter the bigger pain this will be.
Will your carrier get the Bold 9780?
It looks like RIM is getting serious about this every-year update thing. In 2008 they released the Bold 9000, and a year later they updated that to the 9700. This year it looks like we’re getting the 9780, a device that packs 512MB of RAM, prime for OS 6. This week we got a little more information on it, again courtesy of Driphter, this time regarding which carriers will offer this one.
They’ve seen, and have posted, screen shots that show it running on all sorts of different 3G GSM bands. One of them showed 1, 4, and 8, while the other showed 1, 2, 5, and 6. We can assume, then, that this is primed for most major GSM carriers. It might not launch with all of them, but it appears that one will be available if they’d like. At this point I’m not sure what the downside is to offering as many devices as possible.
Roundup
Lots of links this week. Don’t miss ‘em.
- The new prepaid BlackBerry options are looking better and better. I can now see a reason to get one.
- Early details on BIS 3.2. The Google Calendar sync is nice, but there’s already an app for that.
- iPhone users have more sex than BlackBerry, Android users? Well, no, it was measured in number of sexual partners, so it really means that iPhone users are more promiscuous. So there.
- BlackBerry Podcasts now available in the US. So now you can listen to the BBGeekcast more easily.
- BlackBerry 9670 simulator found online. This one isn’t getting a lot of play on account of the 9800.
