Verizon Pushes Firmware Update for BlackBerry Storm

"I love how early adopter complain about instable software on RIMs first EVER touch device. You made your bed, now sleep in it."

So it's ok for a phone to be a sloppy effort just because it's new? You must have low standards. There's a difference between a glitches (esoteric things that escaped through the QC process) and fairly obvious "It just wasn't done yet" issues.

I don't care if it's RIM's first touchscreen phone. If they couldn't do it right then they shouldn't have done it. Period. If it wasn't done then they shouldn't have released it until it was. When you are releasing a software update 2 weeks after the device's debut just to fix "lag" (a fairly obvious problem that takes practically no testing to discover), you a...
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Dont talk to me about my standards.

Im a loyal RIM/Blackberry user for over a year now and the main reason why i switched was due to the stability of their devices.

The device wasnt perfect, but neither was the iphone at first, nor the bold for that matter. These are complicated devices and sometimes you need to be patient. Rim and verizon will continue to improve the device and get it where it needs to be over the next 1-2 months

"Im a loyal RIM/Blackberry user for over a year now and the main reason why i switched was due to the stability of their devices."

And therefore, you would be fairly upset if, when it came time to replace your Blackberry your new Blackberry was barely functional, glitchy, poorly designed and implemented in response to another phone on the market?

We're not talking about "Oh, there's a glitch here and there." Well, we are, but the overall device experience ranges from "barely passable" to "this wasn't very well thought out" to "this isn't even usable." (in that order, we'll do system-wide scrolling, autocorrect, and the on screen keyboard/click screen.)

Yes, the Bold had issues as well. That was also pretty inexcusable- the Curve an...
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Which problems with the Bold are you talking about? I must have missed this...

Thats exactly what Im asking. I must have missed something too. Can some please explain?

when the bold first released on both Rogers and overseas there were a myriad of problems. Terrible battery life, trouble switching from 3G to Edge, OS crashes. Several known issues.

Orange in the UK even stopped selling the device due to these issues. Att was supposed to release the bold in Aug, but delayed it due to software revisions (hence the more positive reviews on this site and others.

Do your homework and maybe you would have read or heard of some of these issues.

Ouch! And what did AT&T get for delaying its release of the Bold? A whole bunch of whining. They knew it wasn't ready. Just as Verizon knew the Storm wasn't ready. But had Verizon delayed the Storm until March, what would have happened? You already know. Can't win...

Do you post on crackberry? Your name looked familiar..

And I dont think a march release was needed, but certainly Mid to late december would have helped them iron out the kinks and maybe release the phone with .75 instead of .65 software.

LOL I agree with you. This device was not ready and should not have been released merely to take advantage of the retail shopping season. Even with this new software, I doubt the device will be up to the standards of a Blackberry. The whole thing is funny to me because I have seen this before... Motorola V710, Motorola Q... Yes, this is the first time that RIM has dropped the ball in such a huge fashion, but I bet it wasn't their idea to push the phone out ahead of time. I expect many more upgrades to come. I don't think I want a touchscreen Blackberry. The first time that I handled this device I was like "Yuck!" When the trainer was making excuses about it I already knew. Do not get this phone. I will wait until the CDMA Bold dr...
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Are you an idiot?! The Bold had problems? Read the reviews on ANY site out there and you'll see the Bold gets 5 out of 5 stars every single time. Think about what you are saying before you spew out crap you have no idea about!!

haley72 said:
Are you an idiot?! The Bold had problems? Read the reviews on ANY site out there and you'll see the Bold gets 5 out of 5 stars every single time. Think about what you are saying before you spew out crap you have no idea about!!

yikes! A phone with no problems? One doesn't exist.

😳 😳 5 out of 5 stars? pure spewed crap. Cnet below has 4 out of 5
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/rim-blackberry-b ... »

PC world gave it an 82...hardly 5 out of 5 🤣
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/43074/review/ ... »

This guy thinks it's so so from usnews:
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/daves-download/2008/11/0 ... »
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1) Go to Google

2) Type in "Orange Blackberry Bold."

The Bold is a fine phone now, but a launch like that is more appropriate of Motorola, not RIM.

cwcanty said:
Dont talk to me about my standards.

Im a loyal RIM/Blackberry user for over a year now and the main reason why i switched was due to the stability of their devices.

The device wasnt perfect, but neither was the iphone at first, nor the bold for that matter. These are complicated devices and sometimes you need to be patient. Rim and verizon will continue to improve the device and get it where it needs to be over the next 1-2 months

Thats not the point. No one expects any device to be perfect out of the box. We know that phones will have updates to fix issues. But there is a certain line where cellular phone manufacturers shouldnt release a product untill it's damn near ready to be rele...
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Ummm....Motorola Q? Though this was right up there.

blackberry has revolutionized business communication as we know it. name one wireless device that wasn't flawed upon first release. better yet, name one revolutionary device ie. touchscreen, new os, network or otherwise that hasn't had glitches. i have to give props to blackberry for their attempt to bring something revolutionary to the table...my bad you didn't like it...maybe you shouldn't believe everything you read, or be like every other tech lemming out there and do your own homework, on the company, user reviews, past products whatever...and if anything isn't up to snuff...DON'T BUY IT!!! i work in a call center and i can't tell you how many people buy cell phones based on how cute the phone is, or how many of their friends have o...
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" i have to give props to blackberry for their attempt to bring something revolutionary to the table...."

Uh, the Storm isn't revolutionary. It's a touch-screen phone that's a response to the iPhone. That part is pretty obvious. The only innovative part is the click screen. It really wasn't done right.

There's nothing revolutionary about the UI- it's basically a re-hashed version of what you get in the Bold, only they've tried to make it finger friendly. It isn't. It is optimized for a trackball, and one handed operation is inconsistent and difficult- even after a good acclimation period.

The UI is slow (probably will be fixed) , the accelerometer is glitchy (probably will be fixed) and applications launch at random times (probabl...
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bluecoyote said:
"I love how early adopter complain about instable software on RIMs first EVER touch device. You made your bed, now sleep in it."

So it's ok for a phone to be a sloppy effort just because it's new? You must have low standards. There's a difference between a glitches (esoteric things that escaped through the QC process) and fairly obvious "It just wasn't done yet" issues.

I don't care if it's RIM's first touchscreen phone. If they couldn't do it right then they shouldn't have done it. Period. If it wasn't done then they shouldn't have released it until it was. When you are releasing a software update 2 weeks after the device's debut just to fix "lag" (a fairly obvious problem that takes practi

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Vista never should have been released, period. It's every bit as much of a horrible, shoddy effort as

The iPhone and G1 came out with flaws, but from the day they hit retail shelves they were, for most user, usable, functional products. (Maybe less so the G1, but I'm cutting it slack as it's an entirely new platform and most of its flaws are esoteric by comparison to the Storm.) Key word functional, usable products. Let me re-emphasize that... functional, usable products.

The Storm is not a functional, usable product. relative to its competition. Let me make that absolutely clear- only someone who thinks such gems as the HTC Apache or Motorola Q are stellar devices would find the Storm's performance accept...
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bluecoyote said:
Vista never should have been released, period. It's every bit as much of a horrible, shoddy effort as

The iPhone and G1 came out with flaws, but from the day they hit retail shelves they were, for most user, usable, functional products. (Maybe less so the G1, but I'm cutting it slack as it's an entirely new platform and most of its flaws are esoteric by comparison to the Storm.) Key word functional, usable products. Let me re-emphasize that... functional, usable products.

The Storm is not a functional, usable product. relative to its competition. Let me make that absolutely clear- only someone who thinks such gems as the HTC Apache or Motorola Q are stellar devices woul

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I expect initial bugs and quirks, but "we haven't quite figured out how to make it work quite right yet, but we're gonna ship it anyway... that's good enough" was the mantra here. Totally unacceptable.

And actually, compare Vista to OSX. Vista was a rushed effort (even with its delays) and had absolutely horrible problems- to the point where it's near unusable on many "Vista capable" machines. (There's actually a lawsuit regarding that now.) OSX Leopard (which still had its share of bugs) was delayed for 3 months and was a far more polished and usable product when it was released.

bluecoyote said:
And actually, compare Vista to OSX. Vista was a rushed effort (even with its delays) and had absolutely horrible problems- to the point where it's near unusable on many "Vista capable" machines. (There's actually a lawsuit regarding that now.) OSX Leopard (which still had its share of bugs) was delayed for 3 months and was a far more polished and usable product when it was released.

The switch from OS9 to OSX a few years back was horrible...i bought it first month, installed and took it off and left it off for a long time. they had to ship Macs with both OS's for several years after.

It absolutely was horrible. But also remember the context as to which it was released- at the time many of its features were groundbreaking and its was a clean slate for the Mac OS. It's more analogous to the iPhone or Android.

Vista is a closer parallel to the Blackberry Storm. Unlike Android or the iPhone, it's simply a re-hashing of the existing Blackberry platform as a touch-screen device- It doesn't work because the Blackberry platform works a very specific way, and compared to devices that were built from the ground up for a touchscreen UI, it's unusable. What people (and I) were hoping for was a touch screen device with RIM's famous level of execution and stability. What we got was a Blackberry trying to be an iPhone, and failing a...
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I would have liked to seen an OS that was built from the ground up for the Storm but I am on the fence as to if it really would have been a good idea or not.

Reason: This is my first personal Blackberry so I did have to learn a new OS anyway, BUT many upgrading from other models that are used to Blackberry operating systems probably would have been angry with an unfamiliar OS.

I gave the Storm to my friend that uses curves and 8830s for work and he had no problem using the OS. The touch interface was what he had to get used to.

4.7 is complex enough to where it needs a complete rethink to simplify things. I hope we will see this in the future 😁

Here's the very heart of the problem- the OS is familiar but it's not optimized. Yes a Blackberry user (myself included) will pick it up right away, but from that point on they'll become increasingly frustrated that the trackball-optimized UI now has to be navigated with a poorly thought out touchscreen.

Essentially, it's like having all of the worst parts of the Blackberry OS (the repetitive menus, excessive scrolling) with none of the positives (easy one handed operation.)

No the mantra was:

We have two choices: Ship a well-functioning device with several glaring security flaws or roll back the programming to an earlier (glitchy but secure) version of the software so we can stop the people complaining that they want their new toy NOW and will go to the iphone if they don't get it before december. We'll even be nice and tell people that the version is behind and push to get the updated software as soon as possible."

But that mythical software update (.82) never existed. It was just a typo. This software update is something entirely different.

LOL The funniest people are those with the 8830 who make up excuses or out and out lie about their 8830 having an issue and demand an "upgrade" (for free) to the Storm. LOL Be careful what you wish for.

haha!

i wonder why AT&T is looseing more people then Verizon?

maybe because AT&T went to crap after Cingular.

75% of the people will say it did.

And it's spelled 'losing.' Was Verizon the only provider who didn't require a credit deposit with you or what?

you must be thinking of sprint or boost mobile. VZW actually has pretty stingy credit reqs.

MidnightDT said:
VZW actually has pretty stingy credit reqs.

Curious...For a finacially challenged potential subscriber, What is the current mortgage rate holding at Verizon for aquiring a phone through them? Is it still a years salary? Just asking. A year and a half ago My Sister was Quoted 1200 bucks! She understood a deposit. But really now...

I have sold Verizon since 2001. We used to have $1000 deposits, along with 400 and 125..well and ZERO. We just punch in the info and credit reviews it or its mostly done automatically. If your sister was told $1200 she was either being lied to or that was with the phone cost. Verizon no longer has $1000 deposits and we actually, shockingly have become less stringent on credit requirements.

We have had multiple people that come up $500 deposits with ATT and come over to us and get Zero deposit. Mainly this comes up on fresh credit 18 and 19 year olds just starting out.

Thanks for your clarification.

LOL $1,200? It's never been $1,200. Back in the old days it was a $1,000 but now $400. Was she tryibg to get three lines? It would be $400 pr line.

whats not good enough about it? the storm is awesome. the only issue with it was the lag and guess what? this new OS virtually eliminates it.

No, there are LOTS of issues with the Storm. The touch UI is poorly implemented. Anyone who has come from a real Blackberry will find it evident that it takes 2-3 times as long to navigate.

The click screen is poorly engineered and text input is atrocious. The landscape keyboard is all but unusable after a couple presses.

Things like the web browser fall well behind the iPhone/G1 and are crude in their operation. Everything is crude in its operation save for some 'dissolve' transitions.

Opinions.

Having owned the Storm and used the Storm extensively- AND its competition, it's a pretty cut and dry case. I can go into lengthy details how the blue "glow" around the keys is not nearly as helpful as the iPhone's method of confirming a keypress, and how when typing quickly the screen's movement caused frequent errors, and even after hundreds of messages and hours upon hours of typing it never worked consistently.

Then I can talk about more objective things- like the numerous lockups in the web browser, or the glitchy camera application. But that's kind of beating a dead horse at this point- or rather, a cellphone with crap engineering.

YOU might be locked into Verizon and are stuck with this piece of trash. Fortunately, I am not, an...
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Opinions. shh

bluecoyote said:
No, there are LOTS of issues with the Storm. The touch UI is poorly implemented. Anyone who has come from a real Blackberry will find it evident that it takes 2-3 times as long to navigate.

The click screen is poorly engineered and text input is atrocious. The landscape keyboard is all but unusable after a couple presses.

Things like the web browser fall well behind the iPhone/G1 and are crude in their operation. Everything is crude in its operation save for some 'dissolve' transitions.

Opinons

Any new device will take longer to navigate because you have to get used to it first
The hardware (including the clickscreen) is top notch from materials to workmanship

Sound like you ...
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I spent 10 days with my Storm- I'm familiar with Blackberries (having owned four) and I'm familiar with touchscreens (iPhone.) After 10 days of constant usage I became very familiar with the UI, and I know the difference between a learning curve and bad design. The Storm is a heap of the later.

And the phone itself is fairly solid, but the clickscreen on my unit wiggled (so did the VZW display unit when I bought/returned it). It's not acceptable as it's enough of a variable to cause you to miss a key when typing fast.

bluecoyote said:
My opinion means little here? iPhone fanboy? Let's talk about fanboy...

1) You told the PS community that the Storm had a software update to fix its problems that never existed. https://www.phonescoop.com/articles/discuss.p hp?fm=m&ff=238&fi=1935775 . THAT is a Fanboy.

2) The Storm is a horrible phone with horrible text input (both the physical 'clickscreen' and the lousy autocorrect), horrible execution (sluggish, glitchy software,) and a horrible interface (I like the BB interface when used with a trackball, but if you think it works well with your fingers you're not telling the truth.)

3) The fact you continue to justify such a piece of shoddy engineering which has somehow gotten unani

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It's difficult to assess a standard as to which text input is measured, but the only time it's possible to punch out a reasonably accurate message is when the phone is in Suretype (which I'm pretty good at.)

The autocorrect is horrible as it's the same implementation of the trackballball/clickwheel Blackberries which requires scrolling/clicking to select.. only it's near impossible because the touch screen isn't that accurate. Landscape text entry is nowhere close to the iPhone's for two reasons (beyond RIM's botched autocorrect implementation)...

1) It's near impossible to see what letter you're actually pressing

2) The screen is wobbly, especially along the bottom row, so most of the time it'll register as a keypress in the row ab...
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all im seeing from you is opinions. because Myself and most people I know with the storm do not share your sentiments.

You dont like the phone, some reviewers have not liked the phone, thats fine tho, No phone is going to be for everyone. If you do not like the storm there are countless other great phones out there from the Omnia, to the Touch Pro, to the Curve and Bold, and the iPhone. etc.

I will 100% agree with you on the rushing it out to market for the holidays, that was a blunder and a half. this phone would of been much better served to wait for v .75 or even .80 to come and fix up the issues before its released with all the hype. But at the same time there are as many of more people who love the phone then dont, and thats with...
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My hatred of this phone comes directly from my disappointment in RIM. Phones like this are going to kill one of the best smartphone manufacturers with a rock-solid reputation. I'm not saying it's a bad idea for RIM to branch out or even try to build a better iPhone, but this task was obviously well outside of their competency and they simply did not put the engineering resources behind building a groundbreaking phone. Or even a good phone. Maybe someday it'll be known as a decent phone. But decent doesn't cut it. They should have realized this and killed the project or fixed it. Whatever they gain short term from Storm sales is going to cost them and their reputation.

I came from a Palm to a Storm and know full well where Palm messed up.

Palm gave up support for there own OS, they failed to keep up with the market in any way, shape or form. They had to adopt Windows mobile in order to survive. Even that adoptation was a miserable experience. Ask anyone that owned a Treo 700W. Their phones were overweight and bulky, they spent a ton of money getting sidetracked trying to produce notebook devices for their phones and then pulled the plug on those at the last minute.

Meanwhile, they were passed by everything out there.

RIM is in no such position. If the Storm turns out to be the most miserable failure on earth with no hope, RIM still has introduced and is continuing to introduce insane products at a...
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The problem I see is that this is strike 3 in a series of misses. The why-did-they-even-bother Flip, the delayed-then-buggy-but-now-ok Bold, and then the frustrating Storm, which is without a doubt the worst Blackberry ever released in terms of execution and quality control. At no point in RIM's history have they botched things so badly, and it's getting worse.

RIM, like Palm is losing their focus. My love of their products came from how refreshing it was to use something that felt fully baked instead of relying on novelty (see anything HTC has ever made running WinMo.) Unfortunately, that's exactly what the Storm is. The entire point of marketing a touchscreen Blackberry is for people who felt the iPhone wasn't 'professional' enough- so ...
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bluecoyote said:
The problem I see is that this is strike 3 in a series of misses. The why-did-they-even-bother Flip, the delayed-then-buggy-but-now-ok Bold, and then the frustrating Storm, which is without a doubt the worst Blackberry ever released in terms of execution and quality control. At no point in RIM's history have they botched things so badly, and it's getting worse.

RIM, like Palm is losing their focus. My love of their products came from how refreshing it was to use something that felt fully baked instead of relying on novelty (see anything HTC has ever made running WinMo.) Unfortunately, that's exactly what the Storm is. The entire point of marketing a touchscreen Blackberry is for people who felt the iPh

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wow Blue you really hate RIM huh? Like a personal vendetta you have going on. I love my Curve..love love love 😁

I like the Curve! It was probably the last Blackberry RIM made successfully.

I don't hate RIM, I hate where they're going- they're sacrificing grotesque amounts of quality in the name of trying to match the flavor-of-the-day and it's completely unacceptable.

I've defended Blackberries on Phonescoop and have written rave reviews for many of their products that deserved it that I have owned.

Here, here! The Curve is awesome! Hopefully the CDMA Bold will be even better once it hits the market!

I'm not chastising RIM for branching out, I'm chastising them for branching out while losing focus of their core strengths. The Bold has morphed into a fine phone, but its problems were paltry to the Storm's in comparison. The Flip is a joke- c'mon, you held the thing? It's awkward and the form factor is terrible.

The Storm isn't a good phone for anyone. A touch screen blackberry is a good idea, but the Storm's execution offers neither the flexibility of an iPhone, reliability of a Blackberry, or even reliability of an iPhone.

Here's the best Litmus test- what does the Storm do better or as well than the Bold? What does it do better or as well as the iPhone? The fact that in practice, absolutely nothing ...
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The flip is a joke to you and I would never get one either, but it obviously has a market. It's one of the few BB products that gives you the ability to dial a phone number without a magnifying glass...what the heck It's somebodys dreamphone

Your litmus test is flawed and here is why:
RIM and Apple approached their touch screen phones coming from opposite ends of the spectrum and both in some repects have tried to appeal to the same users.
-An iphone has awesome multimedia capabilities, an intuitive OS design that users can pick up on quickly. Its a great all around phone and multimedia player, but its ok and not the greatest at what business users would need in a device. Many companies and IT departments wont support them.
-Blackberry...
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You got that right! The flip is SOMEBODY'S dream phone. Look at all the PT Cruisers on the highway. Somebody thinks it looks like a classic car. I am sure that if we ask around, we will find someone who defends that (8220 is it) to their last breath.

Everything in your message field is legitimate, but seriously...RIM will not be where Palm is in three years. Palm will be extinct/defunct whatever. There are millions of loyal RIM customers who will NEVER purchase a Storm. Hopefully, this will be RIMs first and only attempt at a touchscreen and they will continue with the reliability we have all come to expect from them.

Palms primary focus was in PDAs that basically have become extinct now that phones do the same things. The very thing they were best at vanished.

No way will RIM vanish anytime soon 😁

Sorry. The Storm is a lousy Blackberry. No doubt about it. I have a Curve (and a 6900) with Verizon Wireless. I would warn any existing Blackberry user with an 8330 or an 8830 to think long and hard before switching to a Storm. I think someone coming from a regular handset who is patient may be a better target cusomer for the Storm.