So Im depressed...Storm OS Sucks!

Ive been making Storm Themes for little over a 2 months now...some of you may know me, some may not.

If you do, HEY!

If you dont, nice to meet you, Im jason, and im a Theme-a-holic.

Now, why am I depressed?

Its as simple as 4 words, and one of them is an abbreviated compound.

The. Storms. OS. SUCKS.

I've been through em all, from poorly laced .75 to the latest and "greatest" hybrid crack, and I am STILL disgusted.

YES my phone runs better than it did out of the box with the latest OS...it does, and I like it OVERALL.

But what really irks me...what gets under my fingernails more than anything, is how FU*KING horrible everything gets almost EVERY time you try to introduce a third party program/app/theme to this damn phone!

Its like it was not even MEANT to ever have additions, programs written for it, games, themes, ANYTHING!

I feel like everything I have ever used or even that I have personally created for this phone has to be so dumbed down, so FU*KING stripped and DULL that there was never a point to try and change it or add something to it in the first place.

An example

Google maps, although useful, is a freaking JOKE, it takes SO long to render anything on that damn app that if I am in a hurry i might as well pull out a real map and compass and chart my own damn course.

And this is freaking GOOGLE we are talking about here people, a company with virtually unlimited funds and resources, a successful BUSINESS...isnt the Storm supposed to be a "business" phone? Chya...right.

Dont get me started on Themes, like I said if you know me, you know whats coming.

How come I cant freaking add more than maybe 2 or 3 animations in a theme, let alone even having more than 1 3rd party theme INSTALLED and not active on my phone, without the theme(s) making my Storm a ******* ******** piece of ****? Yes, a ******** piece of ****. How come *I*, a lone theme builder who learned how to make themes 2 months ago without any tutorials, or help from others, or even knowing where to begin, can write better SVG code than the ******* program blackberry made themselves?! How come I am so damn LIMITED in making this MY phone, making it something that is representitive of my style or attitude or WHATEVER?!

Ya, atleast I CAN make it my own, but how come I have to cut so many corners to do so? How come I have to cut off one of my arms if I want to make the other stronger?

...how come I didnt just shut up 30 minutes ago and try finding a way to get out of this two year contract so I can get rid of this thing...because the Storm is not worth it right now...in the morning, ya, ill like it again...but for right now...i just dont want to even look at it....


:(

the first logical and well seated rant i've seen about the storm.

ever.

you get a shiny gold star. what can i do to help you? my ninja talents are at your service, sir!

O P E N G L

rim really missed the boat when they included a fully capable opengl chip (allegedly) that they do not in any way shape or form implement. It's damn sad that they opted to copypasta an established BB os instead of write one specifically for the storm, which was really what was needed. Touch screen interfaces are purely graphical.

Software rendering will always always always always kick this phone in the nuts. There will always be graphic lag and nothing will ever be "smooth"


ps... xcite is donE?!?!! I'm gonna go buy it right now.

p.s. dont give up hope kd!!!! your themes are keepin a smile on my face. love it

Originally Posted by kdjayo

Ive been making Storm Themes for little over a 2 months now...some of you may know me, some may not.

If you do, HEY!

If you dont, nice to meet you, Im jason, and im a Theme-a-holic.

Now, why am I depressed?

Its as simple as 4 words, and one of them is an abbreviated compound.

The. Storms. OS. SUCKS.

I've been through em all, from poorly laced .75 to the latest and "greatest" hybrid crack, and I am STILL disgusted.

YES my phone runs better than it did out of the box with the latest OS...it does, and I like it OVERALL.

But what really irks me...what gets under my fingernails more than anything, is how FU*KING horrible everything gets almost EVERY time you try to introduce a third party program/app/theme to this damn phone!

Its like it was not even MEANT to ever have additions, programs written for it, games, themes, ANYTHING!

I feel like everything I have ever used or even that I have personally created for this phone has to be so dumbed down, so FU*KING stripped and DULL that there was never a point to try and change it or add something to it in the first place.

An example

Google maps, although useful, is a freaking JOKE, it takes SO long to render anything on that damn app that if I am in a hurry i might as well pull out a real map and compass and chart my own damn course.

And this is freaking GOOGLE we are talking about here people, a company with virtually unlimited funds and resources, a successful BUSINESS...isnt the Storm supposed to be a "business" phone? Chya...right.

Dont get me started on Themes, like I said if you know me, you know whats coming.

How come I cant freaking add more than maybe 2 or 3 animations in a theme, let alone even having more than 1 3rd party theme INSTALLED and not active on my phone, without the theme(s) making my Storm a ******* ******** piece of ****? Yes, a ******** piece of ****. How come *I*, a lone theme builder who learned how to make themes 2 months ago without any tutorials, or help from others, or even knowing where to begin, can write better SVG code than the ******* program blackberry made themselves?! How come I am so damn LIMITED in making this MY phone, making it something that is representitive of my style or attitude or WHATEVER?!

Ya, atleast I CAN make it my own, but how come I have to cut so many corners to do so? How come I have to cut off one of my arms if I want to make the other stronger?

...how come I didnt just shut up 30 minutes ago and try finding a way to get out of this two year contract so I can get rid of this thing...because the Storm is not worth it right now...in the morning, ya, ill like it again...but for right now...i just dont want to even look at it....


:(

While I don't necessarily agree with everything, I will say this is one of the rare actual rants that crop up every couple of blue moons on this forum. But I have to say that if things run well UNTIL you start adding in third party apps, that kind of points the finger pretty squarely at the third party apps.

Your example of Google Maps doesn't really work so well, because it's not like every project at Google has infinite funds. RIM can hardly impose standards on code quality for every single app released for a BB device, unless you want some authoritarian system like Apple has. Apple will likely soon be facing a bit of a developer revolt if they don't drop the attitude. But do you want RIM being the sole decider of what apps are released, and how long they remain available?

Originally Posted by kinggeoff

O P E N G L

rim really missed the boat when they included a fully capable opengl chip (allegedly) that they do not in any way shape or form implement. It's damn sad that they opted to copypasta an established BB os instead of write one specifically for the storm, which was really what was needed. Touch screen interfaces are purely graphical.

Software rendering will always always always always kick this phone in the nuts. There will always be graphic lag and nothing will ever be "smooth"

Sorry to say, but this simply isn't true. Efficient software rendering will kick the crap out of inefficient OpenGL rendering. Truth be told, OpenGL probably wouldn't provide any real noticeable benefit with most apps. It's one of the many misconceptions non-programmers have. OpenGL is just an abstraction layer that makes it so you don't have to worry about the differences between how ATI and nVidia do 3D rendering in their GPUs. It's not some magical acceleration system. Since apps would be written specifically for the Storm's CPU/GPU, there's no real need for OpenGL if the programming specs for the GPU are available. In fact, performance would actually probably be slightly BETTER without OpenGL, just because there's one less abstraction layer to contend with. Sort of like if you learn to speak German, when you go to Germany, as opposed to going through a translator.

Originally Posted by bigman2

While I don't necessarily agree with everything, I will say this is one of the rare actual rants that crop up every couple of blue moons on this forum. But I have to say that if things run well UNTIL you start adding in third party apps, that kind of points the finger pretty squarely at the third party apps.

Your example of Google Maps doesn't really work so well, because it's not like every project at Google has infinite funds. RIM can hardly impose standards on code quality for every single app released for a BB device, unless you want some authoritarian system like Apple has. Apple will likely soon be facing a bit of a developer revolt if they don't drop the attitude. But do you want RIM being the sole decider of what apps are released, and how long they remain available?



Sorry to say, but this simply isn't true. Efficient software rendering will kick the crap out of inefficient OpenGL rendering. Truth be told, OpenGL probably wouldn't provide any real noticeable benefit with most apps. It's one of the many misconceptions non-programmers have. OpenGL is just an abstraction layer that makes it so you don't have to worry about the differences between how ATI and nVidia do 3D rendering in their GPUs. It's not some magical acceleration system. Since apps would be written specifically for the Storm's CPU/GPU, there's no real need for OpenGL if the programming specs for the GPU are available. In fact, performance would actually probably be slightly BETTER without OpenGL, just because there's one less abstraction layer to contend with. Sort of like if you learn to speak German, when you go to Germany, as opposed to going through a translator.

I don't know enough to refute your claims (makes sense from my standpoint)... but what I see is that every device that makes use of hardware accelerated graphics is nice and smooth. Every device that leaves the rendering up to software that burdens the main cpu ends up laggy, choppy, and just plain terrible.

The storm seems to have an onboard chip built for opengl...so it would seem like the logical rendering agent to me.

Whichever the case, no hardware graphics acceleration = pittiful choppy rendering as we see in the current storm OS

what you said about google maps is the TRUTH. its a great app, but when it comes time to use it, your better off just, like you said, getting out a real map. it would take as much time to do so

I dabble in theme making as well....but I'm no graphics programmer so I'm limited as to what i personally can do. Basically all i do is change colors of cursors, focus icons, backgrounds, etc. But you're right kd...any theme that doesnt use the stock icons or gets bigger in size or uses animations just eats this phone up.

And i agree...this is prolly the first legit rant I've seen cuz 3rd party apps crash it. I will say, however, Google maps is no better on a Curve, as are many other 3rd party apps in my experience.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I use google maps strickly as a default search for Poynt. Poynt cranks up faster than google maps, but when using it through Poynt it is much faster then using blackberry maps for Poynt

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

So, what would be the problem with RIM icluding some decent G.A. drivers. Does this phone actualy have the hardware necessary to even need drivers?
Or is the Drivers for such a thing that could be developed 3rd party?

Originally Posted by JettaStorm97

So, what would be the problem with RIM icluding some decent G.A. drivers. Does this phone actualy have the hardware necessary to even need drivers?
Or is the Drivers for such a thing that could be developed 3rd party?

I think it was mentioned that the API released by RIM does not allow any such access to developers, so the ball is in RIM's court on this one...would have to be coded right into the OS. Unfortunately, BBs don't usually have this kind of hardware (not needed on the old school tiny-screen bb's) So the OS they yoinked and modded for use with the storm probably just doesnt have the appropriate framework...of course this is all just from what i've gleaned from posts here so take it how you will

Makes sense, but adds to my confusion about RIM. This large of a change in device hardware should have been one of the top priorities in the software.

But what do we do besides wait for it to come?

I agree wholeheartedly. At times I seem to be very content with the phone...but then when it comes to actually USING it, it becomes a pain in the ***.

I agree, there is little difference between .75 and .141, a hardware rev is required to fix this POS.

I just wished the thing worked as a phone. Almost every time I answer it it locks up. Have to reboot at least 1x/day

In fact, yesterday I put .65 on my phone since .132 has been acting up and guess what? It ran almost identical the entire day! The only difference was the slow scrolling of the icons in the menu buttons. But I didnt experience any lag in typing, nor any sudden drops in service apart from 2 dropped phone calls in the same night...which is good compared to the newer builds. I put back .132 this morning and now all my problems are back. It really really is a shame.

My work phone pages my cell, and to answer it I have to push 1. The Storm takes so long to bring up the number pad, and to register pushing the number 1, most of the time the person on the other end has hung up. It is truly is pitiful, the RIM developers should be ashamed of themselves.

No dropped calls to report.... no locking up that I've witnessed since .113

yes it really is a shame that experiences vary so widely

OP was more referring to GUI rendering i think though

Originally Posted by Danieljbrown32

what you said about google maps is the TRUTH. its a great app, but when it comes time to use it, your better off just, like you said, getting out a real map. it would take as much time to do so

QFT and a great rant!

What kills me is street view! Talk about f'n

S

L


O



W

Flies on an iPhone, however! :o

Originally Posted by Oilbrnr

QFT and a great rant!

What kills me is street view! Talk about f'n

S

L


O



W

Flies on an iPhone, however! :o

hehe so does the OS in general ;)

Its the storm they did nothing right with this device. Can't wait for the pre to come out. I know palm wouldn't screw up like this

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Originally Posted by stormsucks75

Its the storm they did nothing right with this device. Can't wait for the pre to come out. I know palm wouldn't screw up like this

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

yea?

funny because i think they did a lot right with this device. opinions are fun