I always love when small online retailers offer unreleased/unannounced devices for preorder. The latest to join the fray is MobileCityOnline which is listing the BlackBerry 9800 for $599.99 on their website for preorder. The funny part is that they are using leaked pictures for the product description…
There is no ETA for delivery at this time though they do state “Status: Rumored. Exp. release 2010, 2Q.” Hopefully we will hear more about it at the August 3rd event next week… I am excited. It has been awhile since RIM has managed to build some serious hype for a device launch.
I guess nobody ever schooled RIM in anticipating demand. They just opened up the beta program for App World 2.0 for all users in the BlackBerry Beta Zone. The problem is that the bum rush of users trying to download the app has crashed RIM’s servers or at least overloaded them. Somebody from Akamai needs to give RIM a few lessons on using their CDN to handle load bursts like they do for App World.
In case you still want to try when things are back up you can pick up the beta in the beta zone at www.blackberry.com/beta. Currently you will just get a “Proxy Error” but try back in a few minutes or hours.
As a reminder App World 2.0 adds:
Split Top 25 Themes and Top 25 Apps
BlackBerry App World Barcode Scanning for easily grabbing apps by just taking a picture
More Billing Options
Credit cards – varies by region
Carrier billing – just pay for an app on your wireless bill
BlackBerry ID – a new device independent user identification for downloading apps and easily switching devices
RIM has really had a slow rollout heading into China. It was only last month that they released the absolutely cutting EDGE BlackBerry Curve 8910 equipped with their latest technology. I kid but the device does at least have Evolved-EDGE but no Wi-Fi and a trackball instead of a trackpad.
RIM thinks that this BlackBerry Curve 8910 is such an amazing value proposition for the mainland Chinese market that they have opened up a Beijing store that they call an "experience center" for them to play with BlackBerry devices. I can imagine potential BlackBerry users lining out the door to try the latest 8910… Or even better yet they are also carrying the BlackBerry Curve 8310.
Now here is a real head scratcher. AT&T has been shipping a large monolith display box to many of their stores. Gizmodo got a picture of the display but managers and store workers have no idea what is inside the big black box. They have dubbed it the “Hero” display and Gizmodo is guessing that it is either for the BlackBerry 9800 launch or the Dell Streak.
Out of the two my money is on the BlackBerry 9800 Slider since the Streak is not much of a secret. On the other hand RIM has been trying to channel Steve Jobs with the 9800 launch and all the secrecy. The people in the stores are being threatened with termination if they even joke about looking inside the box.
ParkVu’s Music WithMe is an awesome app/service that lets you sync your iTunes collection with your BlackBerry wirelessly. We told you when the app launched in June and since then they have processed over a million iTunes songs. The cool part about the service is that it is not a subscription but rather a one time $14.99 cost after a free 30 day trial.
The new features added to Music WithMe today add some refinement that the app was missing before. They include:
I guess RIM is trying to simplify the BlackBerry’s value proposition in their latest video spotted by BBNews.pl. In this video RIM describes why businesses need to buy into the BlackBerry “Platform” instead of just a smartphone. It actually makes some good points but has some fun along the way.
Its good to see that the marketing teams at RIM get to have some fun every once in awhile. What do you think of the video? Do you think they should do one for consumer users?
The guys over at Driphter.com released a few screenshots of the BB 9780 just a few days ago and now they have a video for us. The Is running BlackBerry 6. On this video we see them demo the new Webkit browser something we have seen before on the touch screen slider but not on a non touch screen device. From the looks of it this device will replace the BB bold 9700. In the first set of images we saw I notice that this device runs on the same 3G bands that the T-Mobile 9700 runs on so most likely this will release through T-mobile later this year. I am still hoping that the current 9700 still gets some BB 6 love. If the device just gets some more memory am not likely to buy it just because of that I would much rather have the slider.
The latest news that has everybody talking is that MobileCrunch noticed that RIM picked up the domain BlackPad.com. They are speculating that it is for RIM’s upcoming tablet. PocketBerry noticed that RIM also owns BlackBerryTorch.com which they think might point to the 9800 launching as the BlackBerry Torch 9800.
It is some interesting speculation but RIM is always picking up domain names that they never use. For example, we mentioned previously how RIM picked up InsideBlackBerry.com along with AlwaysBetOnBlackBerry.com and my absolute favorite:
I always love when small online retailers offer unreleased/unannounced devices for preorder. The latest to join the fray is MobileCityOnline which is listing the BlackBerry 9800 for $599.99 on their website for preorder. The funny part is that they are using leaked pictures for the product description… 
