We just picked up on this over at BerryReview…
Is this the official Research in Motion BlackBerry Storm Announcement?
The upcoming BlackBerry® Storm™ is the first touch screen BlackBerry smartphone from Research In Motion and it builds upon a variety of existing BlackBerry features and capabilities to produce a truly compelling touch experience. With the BlackBerry Storm, RIM will introduce a version of software (v4.7) that delivers a new set of APIs and capabilities for third party developers including:
1) Enhancements to the existing RIM User Interface APIs to provide support for touch and gestures including proper handling of multi-touch events.
2) Support for MIDP applications that leverage touch.
3) Virtual keyboard APIs
4) Enhanced and open GPS APIs on all networksIn addition to the new API capabilities, your Browser-based applications will build upon the browser capabilities released in v4.6.0 including:
For third party developers, one of the unique features of the BlackBerry Storm is its compatibility mode which provides an operating environment for existing 3rd party applications that are not implemented to support touch. This feature will automatically convert the touch events into existing trackball events. When an application is executing in compatibility mode, a virtual keyboard will be shown at all times for text input to mimic the physical keyboard on previous devices and will only support portrait mode.
- Improved web page rendering including AJAX
- XMLHttpRequest
- JavaScript® 1.5
- CSS 2.1
- DOM L2 (including Core, HTML, Style, Events)
- HTML 4.01 (including Forms, Maps, Tables, Frames, Objects)
- Improved Native Attachment Download
- Support for downloading files via the browser
Key Features
– Screen Resolution: 480×360
– Virtual Keyboard: SureType (Portrait Mode) and Full Keyboard (Landscape Mode)
– Networking: Global network support (2G/3G)
– Memory: Embedded MemoryFor all BlackBerry Alliance partners, RIM will be providing access to developer documentation, the BlackBerry Java Development Environment (JDE) v4.7 and the BlackBerry Storm simulator in October to enable development and testing of your applications on this new and compelling smartphone.
This is the device that could very well bring me over to the BlackBerry world. I’ve successfully resisted the iPhone, having been wowed by HTC devices, but ultimately disappointed in Windows Mobile that I’ve been a proponent of for nearly a decade.
This device could change that.
4) Enhanced and open GPS APIs on all networks
i’ll believe it when i see it. you can bet vzw has been hard at work crippling the hell out of the GPS so you’ll cough up the 10 bucks a month for VZ Nav.
With you on number 4 Michael. It just isn’t the Verizon way to keep free features enabled when they can charge for a version that doesn’t work as well.
Piling on…
4) Enhanced and open GPS APIs on all networks
This would be great for RIM. Maybe they pushed VZW on this? Could there be an Android effect? Or maybe VZW will just raise the price for Blackberry service?