Designed to satisfy the needs of both consumers and business customers, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone combines the powerful communications features, global connectivity and personal productivity advantages of the BlackBerry® platform with a revolutionary touch-screen technology that dramatically enhances the touch interface and enables easy and precise typing. The world’s first “clickable” touch-screen responds much like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation.
In the U.S., Verizon Wireless customers will benefit from the nation’s most reliable wireless voice network and the pervasiveness of Verizon Wireless’ reliable high-speed 3G Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) network for rich Internet browsing and multimedia applications. In Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand, Vodafone will support customers with its high-speed 3G mobile broadband networks and the power and reach of the world’s leading international mobile communications group.
“We are proud to introduce the first touch-screen based BlackBerry smartphone together with Verizon Wireless and Vodafone,” said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer at RIM. “The BlackBerry Storm is a revolutionary touch-screen smartphone that meets both the communications and multimedia needs of customers and solves the longstanding problem associated with typing on traditional touch-screens. Consumers and business customers alike will appreciate this unique combination of a large and vibrant screen with a truly tactile touch interface.”
“The BlackBerry Storm offers our customers more ways to stay connected to both their personal and professional lives – whether in their communities or around the globe,” said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless. “The BlackBerry Storm combines the reliability of our 3G network with the dependability and network efficiency of the BlackBerry platform to deliver our customers the ultimate wireless experience – all in one of the coolest smartphones available on the market today.”
“We are delighted to bring the power of the purpose built BlackBerry Storm, directly into the hands of consumer and business customers,” said Frank H. Rovekamp, global chief marketing officer, Vodafone Group. “With its unique clickable touch-screen, giving access to all the desirable multimedia features and services such as browsing, music and video, turn-by-turn satellite navigation, messaging and social networking, and BlackBerry’s mobile heritage and strong business reputation, the BlackBerry Storm is being brought by Vodafone into the consumer world. With Vodafone’s ultra high-speed, reliable mobile network and this exclusive and exciting new smartphone, there has never been a better time to be with Vodafone.”
Touch and Feel
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone comes with an innovative touch-screen that actually depresses ever so slightly when the screen is pressed. The user distinctly feels the screen being pressed and released with a gentle “click,” similar to the feeling of a key on a physical keyboard or a button on a mouse. The “clickable” touch-screen gives the user positive confirmation that they have made a selection and the result is a dramatically enhanced touch interface and a highly-intuitive typing experience.
In addition to the familiar navigation keys (“phone,” “menu” and “escape”) that are common to other BlackBerry smartphones, the new BlackBerry Storm adds support for multi-touches, taps, slides and other touch-screen gestures, so customers can easily highlight, scroll, pan and zoom for smooth navigation.
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone also features a built-in accelerometer, allowing its touch-screen to automatically switch between landscape mode and portrait mode as the user rotates the handset – RIM’s SureType® keyboard layout is available in portrait mode and a full QWERTY* keyboard layout is available in landscape mode. Other relevant features, such as cut and paste, are only a touch away for the ultimate smartphone experience.
QuickTime is nice but since Apple yanked the full-screen out of the free version some time ago, it has little value other than playing QT Movies. With so many other viewers available for the Mac, QuickTime Pro just isn’t a smart buy at $29.99 for mere full-screen viewing. Now, if you wish to convert movies to the iPod format or need 24 channels of surround sound, then sure, grab it if you want it. I’m looking just for some full-screen action and a bit of a better way of playing my QT movies. Thanks to MacZot, I found it for $12.
Many Tricks, which we told you about its awesome app switcher Witch last week, brings to your screen, your full-screen, yFlicks. With yFlicks, you are now able to watch any file QuickTime can play as well as manage all of your files. With the now very common iTunes-like interface, Many Tricks lets you manage all your files in folders (Groups) or dynamically via Smart Groups. yFlicks also allows you to use your Apple Remote so you can sit back and enjoy your library of movies from the comfort of your couch. Add in the ability to download and view videos (and save them locally to your hard drive) right off such sites as YouTube, Google Video, DailyMotion, CollegeHumor, MyVideo, SevenLoad, and ClipFish, the standard $20 price even sounds good. But for today only at MacZot, you can save over $8 and grab it for $11.95!
I’ve already bought it and I’m enjoying the ability to watch every Get a Mac ad released all in a row without having to double click the next file in Finder. My kids are enjoying it, too. 
We’ve all seen the “leaked” photos of the full-screen iPod for months now. This picture is one of the earliest and has been pretty much discounted as a hoax. However, the notion that a widescreen video iPod is coming keeps fueling the rumor fire and thus many believe not if but when. So indeed, when? When Apple gets more movies to slap onto it. That’s when.
CEO Steve Jobs has had a tough time convincing Hollywood to listen to some computer guy tell it how to run the music and movie business. Understandably, what’s a geek know about movies? Nothing, but he knows how to get it to everyone who wants to buy one; that’s what he knows. Jobs also knows that no one, relatively, is going to buy an expensive iPod that plays widescreen movies if there is really no widescreen movies to be had. All one has to do is look at the new HD DVD players that have been out for almost a month now. ‘What HD DVD players?’ Exactly. Good luck trying to find any kind of selection of titles on the new high def format. Jobs doesn’t want that problem when the next true video iPod hits the streets.
SvenOnTech believes that Jobs has had Apple engineers working on the next level iPod for some time. Just like he had OS X engineers running that operating system on Intel chips since day one. Jobs needed a dog for show-and-tell down there in Hollywood and that may be the what we’re seeing on the Internet with most of these leaked photos. We also believe that Jobs needed to get the ball rolling on content and thus had to give reason for a video iPod, hence the 5G iPod. Enlarging the screen on that iPod took little effort on Apple’s part and would allow the Cupertino-based computer company to have reason to start selling video at the iTunes Music Store.
Now that this is all in place, it’s time to bring real movies to iTMS. A little of that is happening and rumors have it that the next version of OS X, code named Leopard, will have a BitTorrent built-in. With no other reason for BitTorrent than to assist in huge downloads, this seems to add more weight to the fact a full-screen iPod is coming soon. That coupled with the fact that Jobs took a powerful role at Disney instead of cash for the Pixar buy out should really point to movies are coming.
Jobs understands many things and he understands the chicken and the egg problem. Once a good foundation of movies are available on iTunes Music Store (by this Christmas?), you’ll see the next iPod in all of it’s full-screen glory in the hands of a smiling Steve Jobs. Trust us, we nailed the MacBook Pro was coming, so we think we’re on a roll with these predictions.