Tashanna let me know that Vodafone UK has a great little 360 degree flash demo of the BlackBerry Storm. I guess I missed it yesterday. Once again nothing ground breaking but just some more mouth watering Storm goodness since I know some people are biting at the bit.
Thanks to everybody who sent these in. Engadget, Gizmodo, & PhoneScoop have scored some hands on time with the Storm. They are sharing some juicy details for those of you that are interested. Check out their impressions at:
Seems like everybody is joining the Storm party. Our friends up north at BBCool have scored the press release for the BlackBerry Storm on Telus. There are also some great signs pointing to a Bell Canada also getting the Storm. Only time will tell.
I love simulators since they let you play with a new OS before it is released. The problem with the Storm simulator is that there is no way to simulate how it will feel to have to click in the touchscreen. I guess we will have to see about that.
I did notice that along with the simulator being bundled in the JDE RIM has started providing them separately again. Kudos to you RIM! The 8220, 9000, & 9530 simulators are now available for download separately.
RIM announced over the wire that they have updated the BlackBerry JDE to version 4.6 officially. They have also released a updated beta 4.7 for the upcoming Storm.
Scaleable Vector Graphics (JSR 226) API: Use Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to create rich interactive interfaces
Location-Based Services API Enhancements: Leverage the BlackBerry® Maps platform to add Location-Based Services features to an application
Image capture via MMAPI (JSR-135) API: Embed audio and video playback in applications and capture images using the BlackBerry smartphone camera
Application Message (”message list integration”) API: Display custom information to the user directly in the message list
Time Zone Enhancements: Applications dependent on time-zone information can natively access, display, retrieve and set the BlackBerry smartphone time zone information
The BlackBerry JDE v4.60 also includes new samples showing the following:
Camera Demo
Décor Demo
Message List Demo
SVG Samples
Persistent Store Demo
Buffered Playback Demo
The new BlackBerry JDE v4.7 API includes the following enhancements:
Contains the BlackBerry® Storm smartphone simulator
Touch Screen Support — Applications designed using the MIDP User Interface or BlackBerry User Interface will have built-in support for touch screen input. Any applications with custom User Interfaces will be able to receive the input events from taps, swipes, and gestures.
Orientation and Rotation Support — Applications can react to the changes in rotation of the smartphone, based on user movement. This support enables an application to re-draw its screens or do custom processing based on a rotation event.
Accelerometer Support — The Accelerometer Support in the BlackBerry JDE v4.7 enables support for motion above and beyond simple rotation. This feature allows full support for an application to query the accelerometer sensor and get data from the x, y and z axis to enable 360-degree motion sensing
Virtual Keyboard API — The Virtual Keyboard API supports the ability of an application to show or hide the virtual keyboard on a per-screen basis. This allows applications to control when the virtual keyboard should or should not be visible.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) APIs — Applications can now install certificates on DRM protected content
Set Theme Wallpaper — The Set Theme Wallpaper feature provides the ability for an application to set the homescreen wallpaper of a BlackBerry® smartphone
Camera and Media Integration enhancements — New APIs enable the developer to take advantage of several media enhancements:
Image Targeting — When an image is taken by the user in the camera application, one of the available actions allows the user to send the image to a specific target. The new image targeting integration allows an application to register as a handler of that image for the “send to” action
Dynamic Menu Items — When a custom application is registered as a handler for a specific content type, that application will also receive a “send to:” menu item in the BlackBerry media application
Video Recording — Customer applications now have the ability to invoke the video recorder application to enable video capture
There are also new examples included with the BlackBerry JDE v4.7 Beta:
While everybody was sleeping RIM officially announced the BlackBerry Storm on Verizon and Vodafone. It was a really big secret so this is a big surprise.
Only main point of interest I found was that Vodafones is obviously a GSM device denoted by the 9500 moniker and the Verizon device is CDMA from the 9530 name.
In the U.S., the BlackBerry Storm 9530 gives Verizon Wireless customers 3G EV-DO Rev. A/CDMA technology – and (2100Mhz) UMTS/HSPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM for global use. The BlackBerry Storm 9500 from Vodafone supports (2100Mhz) UMTS/HSPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks.
Check out the press release at this link or the specific BlackBerry info sites for more information.
Nothing crazy new again but more eye candy! Thanks to RIM for putting this on their Mediaseed server.
Thanks to everybody who sent these in. Engadget, Gizmodo, & PhoneScoop have scored some hands on time with the Storm. They are sharing some juicy details for those of you that are interested. Check out their impressions at:
Thanks to secret agents B, M, B1, E, A, and N for sending this one in. OS 4.6.0.167 has been found online for the Bold 9000 device.
UPDATE: Looks like Bell will be getting the Storm
I love simulators since they let you play with a new OS before it is released. The problem with the Storm simulator is that there is no way to simulate how it will feel to have to click in the touchscreen. I guess we will have to see about that.
