[CopyPaste]

So after installing .99 I finally said to myself this is the official point where I am very happy with the phone. I have no issues with it, and it will provide me with two years of great service without me feeling like I'm stuck with a POS.

Nice job RIM on fixing those.

But really I think this all may be too late. Take the iPhone launch, yes that didnt go perfect, but no newspapers said "iPhone launch was terrible" When showing my phone to family and friends with no technical knowledge everyone said the same thing...ooo...i heard they had problems.

I take back what I said a while ago that it was good for business for verizon to launch this phone early but still unfinished. It wasnt. The word of mouth has completely spread and noone wants it.

If you see this phone in store, its going to be slow because people leave apps running in the background. Not to mention both my local verizons had a storm with a non-clickable busted screen. People see the demo model and have immediate impressions of "junk" My uncle went in for the storm and left with the voyager because he said the storm was just too slow for him.

RIM has supported their phone, but I think its too little to late and were not going to see the explosion of adoption I really thought this phone would have.

Like I said, i love the phone but I think its all too late to be making up for it 2.5 months later now. The reason why I'm concerned is I was hoping for the app store to really take off, but with no way to store your apps to a media card, I think this will never reach any great heights. You have a built in wall to how much people can spend, and it will come very very fast.

Whats your opinion on the subject.

[zeiroe]

I completely agree with you. My biggest concern was that the initial perception of the devices success to everyone. Not that I care what people think about the device but more for developers making software for the device. If software developers think the 9530 is junk, they wont bother wasting time making apps for it.

Hopefully with swift fixes and good publicity it can turn around.

[theswami#CB]

I am not sure how many were returned but VZW did sell a million units. That does not seem trivial to me.

If they can get the OS in reasonable shape and push it out to everyone and ask a number of the "reporters" to revisit the device maybe they can reverse the negative publicity.

[Grovesfan]

Why is this under the Beta OS thread? It should be moved to Rants/Raves.

[pjdell]

What you say is a possibility i think

but if this phone does really shine with a future OS, it could just as easily turn around... and 1 million units already is quite a few, not as good as the iphone but they also didn't have as much money to throw at advertising and such as the iphone did...

[jradaj]

I agree in that the Storm may have lost its window for true marketplace success on the scale of the iPhone. On the flip side, this seems to me to be a blessing as well. Blackberrys in general have never been a mass-market item, they're a tool. I'd rather see the Storm continue to be a niche item, rather than fall into the mainstream consumer market and get swept up in fads and gimmicks to make it look attractive to consumers and lose its effectiveness as the tool it was designed to be.

I'm fairly certain that most moderately tech-savvy users of the Storm will agree with me in saying that the Storm is an overall great device that just needs some kinks worked out, and seems like it will continue to hold its place as a niche device in the smartphone market- a device designed to achieve its goals as a communication tool first, while adding a bit of mass-market flash second, rather than the other way around.

[howardb]

They are probably willing to let this one slide. They are going to sell enough to recoup the costs. They are going to get a lot of work done and get a good solid touch screen capable OS out of this one and when the next device drops it will be relatively solid and fast out of the box.

Also don't forget that the app memory and the phone's onboard memory are in the same addressable space. They can pretty easily move that point. You'll get less storage space on the device but you can use the media card to store that stuff. With BB apps being quite small and the biggest of the big ones are rarely over 3 megs a couple hundred megs would make for a good app store experience.

[bearkat38]

I agree in that the Storm may have lost its window for true marketplace success on the scale of the iPhone. On the flip side, this seems to me to be a blessing as well. Blackberrys in general have never been a mass-market item, they're a tool. I'd rather see the Storm continue to be a niche item, rather than fall into the mainstream consumer market and get swept up in fads and gimmicks to make it look attractive to consumers and lose its effectiveness as the tool it was designed to be.

I'm fairly certain that most moderately tech-savvy users of the Storm will agree with me in saying that the Storm is an overall great device that just needs some kinks worked out, and seems like it will continue to hold its place as a niche device in the smartphone market- a device designed to achieve its goals as a communication tool first, while adding a bit of mass-market flash second, rather than the other way around.

Very well said! I agree completely!!

[ghosthound]

meh, who cares. There are a lot of people out there who only know what they read yet have no first hand experience.

I know the phone had tons of problems and suffered a terrible launch but the updates have been promising. Who cares what people read and think when you know the truth.

I havent recomended this phone to any friends because at this point its not ready for someone that isnt going to be inolved with it.

Whatever official update comes after .99 should be VERY nice and will probably be able to win people over.

[anon1239929]

But really I think this all may be too late. Take the iPhone launch, yes that didnt go perfect, but no newspapers said "iPhone launch was terrible" When showing my phone to family and friends with no technical knowledge everyone said the same thing...ooo...i heard they had problems.

The reason is: The iPhone was not expected to be a business phone. Thus, no real reason to tell the business world if a consumer product was struggling. Also, at that time, there were no other pure touchscreen phones to compare it to either. When comparing a device like the iPhone to the Storm, the iPhone (and it's 2 years on the market) is the benchmark now, where the iPhone had a virtually open spectrum.

Nevermind that the iPhone 3G couldn't effectively make calls for over 3 months until a software update fixed it, it had games and bullsh*t apps like virtual lightsabers and beer drinking, yo!

[1magine]

I have to agree with the OP.

Just look; Adobe is now busting their butts to make a flash version specific to and just for the i-phone. With tens of millions of java based BB's and other devices out there, Adobe has kneeled down before the i-phone. Soon the 'real' internet - you know the one with billions of pages of flash content - will be available only to WM and i-phone users. Further segregating the BB community. My highest hope for the BB community was wide spread adoption of a BB with hardware to support a true MM experience. Giving those of us who must as part of our corporate or government lives utilize the BB, a more rounded multimedia experience.

[mike240se]

unfortunately, i have a feeling that as many as half of those million units were returned.

especially since they were probably counting all the new in box replacements sent out to users with problems. and there were alot of those.

[dandrewk]

The iPhone was at least as buggy. You didn't hear too much complaining in the press because Apple is the media darling. They can do no wrong, no matter how much the f*&$ over their users with outrageous prices and obsoleting their current products.

RIM has no such press relations. Watch out Palm - if your PRE so much as hiccups the press will cry Armageddon.

[dandrewk]

unfortunately, i have a feeling that as many as half of those million units were returned.

Please stop perpetuating this myth.

[polska9]

The iPhone was at least as buggy. You didn't hear too much complaining in the press because Apple is the media darling. They can do no wrong, no matter how much the f*&$ over their users with outrageous prices and obsoleting their current products.

RIM has no such press relations. Watch out Palm - if your PRE so much as hiccups the press will cry Armageddon.

ya agreed! all my buddies with iphones still take jabs at my phone every chance they get and they fail to realize that their phone was way worse when it was 2 months old

[GpCaptMandrake]

VZW moved a million (and counting) units. .99 is a solid and fast build. I love it.

[Danieljbrown32]

i agree. i have stood at the verizon near my house paying my bill and watched countless people pick up the demo storm and play with it and they have no clue what they are doing. they dont realize that a blackberry isnt like any other 'dumb' phone and when you hit the red "end" button that it doesnt close out of what you are doing and simply return you to the home screen and this is why so many people who only play with the storm for the few minutes that they are in the sstore have the assumption that hthe phone is slow is no fun. and the reps at verizon never do battery pulls or check and close apps that are runnin in the background. i checked out the demo storm one night and it had 11 apps running in the background. and people were complaining about the phone being slow. ignorance will do this world over one day and will be our armegadden. i beleive if the employees at verizon or bestbuy or wherever the storm or any other blackberry is on display would simply check to make sure all the apps were closed ever hour the phone would have a higher sale rate.

[BzB]

i agree rushing the release of the storm (when it wasn't ready) to capitalize on holiday sales has been damaging. probably more so for rim than vzw. vzw screwed up by not properly ramping up for demand and then being completely clueless from the customer service perspective. rim screwed up by agreeing to release a phone with a half baked os. the damage to rim may turn out to be irreparable if the next official OS isn't a slam dunk. vzw can always turn to the next best thing from another manufacturer.

in order for the storm/rim/vzw to recover from the release fiasco and the past 2 months of OS trial and error, i think they'll need to make a huge marketing push after the next official OS is released and app store opened. a complete (working) package has to be ready. they might even have to take a cake to the face and publicly admit that the well documented early issues with the phone have been resolved and pretty much beg people (including the reviewers) to give it another try.

.99 might be close, but it still needs a few more days to burn in. they absolutely have to seal the deal with the official OS and the app store cannot be a cluster kcuf. rim knows they can't stay a leader in the smart phone world from the consumer perspective or business community if they don't expand their product line. those segments are really starting to converge now. its going to be extremely difficult to hold on to market share in the smart phone wars over the next 6-9 months with all the competition.

it's not too late, but time is running out. if they let the storm fail then so begins the downfall of rim.

[donnation]

I think it is a common misconception in this forum that the iphone was extremely buggy at launch. Yes, the launch itself had some major problems but that was mostly because Apple wasn't prepared for the massive amounts of people trying to activate their phones on the launch day over itunes.

The iphone wasn't even close to having as many problems as the Storm did and still does. For one thing the Hardware is still the best of any phone out there and the screen has always been responsive and touch friendly. The biggest (and most glaring) problem the phone had was dropped calls which was corrected within a month of using the phone (which to some extent was AT&T's fault).

The storm's problems go well beyond what the iPhones problems ever were. Although I still have my Storm and am somewhat happy with it I don't think this version will ever have the market appeal that RIM was hoping for. Let's face it, they wanted an iPhone competitor and there is no way that this phone is going to be even close to being a competitor for the iPhone.

If they do ever come up with a permanent fix for the OS then I think there will be a lot of happier users out there, but it is not going to fix the glaring hardware problems that this phone has, and always will have. This is a learning experience for RIM and I think that the next TouchScreen phone they come out with will be a true winner.

[howardb]

I haven't had any glaring hardware problems. I've had the first phone that I got on Nov 21st until now and don't plan on changing it out any time soon. No dust and perfect clicking. Not much more one can ask for. I did have to loosen the screws in the back a little and then poof all has been great. Thats *NOT* a glaring hardware issue thats an extremely minor manufacturing issue. I think that many of the things people called a major hardware issue were simply minor manufacturing issues.

[TheMisses]

So after installing .99 I finally said to myself this is the official point where I am very happy with the phone. I have no issues with it, and it will provide me with two years of great service without me feeling like I'm stuck with a POS.

Nice job RIM on fixing those.

But really I think this all may be too late. Take the iPhone launch, yes that didnt go perfect, but no newspapers said "iPhone launch was terrible" When showing my phone to family and friends with no technical knowledge everyone said the same thing...ooo...i heard they had problems.

I take back what I said a while ago that it was good for business for verizon to launch this phone early but still unfinished. It wasnt. The word of mouth has completely spread and noone wants it.

If you see this phone in store, its going to be slow because people leave apps running in the background. Not to mention both my local verizons had a storm with a non-clickable busted screen. People see the demo model and have immediate impressions of "junk" My uncle went in for the storm and left with the voyager because he said the storm was just too slow for him.

RIM has supported their phone, but I think its too little to late and were not going to see the explosion of adoption I really thought this phone would have.

Like I said, i love the phone but I think its all too late to be making up for it 2.5 months later now. The reason why I'm concerned is I was hoping for the app store to really take off, but with no way to store your apps to a media card, I think this will never reach any great heights. You have a built in wall to how much people can spend, and it will come very very fast.

Whats your opinion on the subject.

I think its more than stupid to even remotely think that it would be a good thing to release an unfinished product....

[TheMisses]

unfortunately, i have a feeling that as many as half of those million units were returned.

especially since they were probably counting all the new in box replacements sent out to users with problems. and there were alot of those.

These indeed are statistics. I think its a safe bet a third or three-fifth of this is more accurate. Statistics and the people behind them usually suck...

[kasolberg]

I absolutely agree that this phone will publicly never be received the way that it should be. I do think that this has everything to do with the Iphone. However, I do not feel that it rests solely in what is wrong with the Storm versus what is wrong with the Iphone now or during its release. I think the fault lies mainly on the media. I read a post in here at one point discussing how Apple is a company that the media loves, and therefore caters to. I agree with this one hundred percent. Whatever issues that arise out of an Apple product are not given much coverage due to the fact that it is still going to sell like crazy because it is an Apple. No company will ever be, or have, what Apple is, no matter what they do.

I believe that people should start thinking about what exactly RIM is trying to accomplish with the Storm. Because of similarities, it can be seen as direct competition with the Iphone. Yet, I do not truly feel that RIM made this product with the intentions of competing with anyone. I believe they wanted to incorporate the appeal of a consumer aimed product, like the Iphone, with the latest technology, i.e. touchscreen, which is gaining popularity. This is not marketed toward teenagers, which happen to be Apple's biggest fans. This product was created to bridge the gap between business and leisure, keep the working adult, blackberry's biggest fans, connected with both work and play. In this, I believe that the Storm will be viewed as a success. Yes, there are problems with it. But, I believe this to be a combination of exploring new grounds, even if with similar methods, and the mistake of pushing the release in spite of lacking preparation.

People just need to see the Storm as an individual product, instead of constantly seeking a comparison. Because, much like the Iphone, there is no comparison to it.

[jakeh0]

i agree. i have stood at the verizon near my house paying my bill and watched countless people pick up the demo storm and play with it and they have no clue what they are doing. they dont realize that a blackberry isnt like any other 'dumb' phone and when you hit the red "end" button that it doesnt close out of what you are doing and simply return you to the home screen and this is why so many people who only play with the storm for the few minutes that they are in the sstore have the assumption that hthe phone is slow is no fun. and the reps at verizon never do battery pulls or check and close apps that are runnin in the background. i checked out the demo storm one night and it had 11 apps running in the background. and people were complaining about the phone being slow. ignorance will do this world over one day and will be our armegadden. i beleive if the employees at verizon or bestbuy or wherever the storm or any other blackberry is on display would simply check to make sure all the apps were closed ever hour the phone would have a higher sale rate.

i can't help but read this and see the image of a salesman saying "well no, mr consumer, just let me restart the phone and it will be fine!" and then watching them stand there for 5 whole minutes while it reboots and see the consumer walk and play with other phones

[wardo5757]

I don't think it's too late, but it's getting close to being too late. Dust under the screens, forced 5 minute restarts and all around not user freindly OS was a horrible way to kick off the Storm. .99 is a good start at getting things right, this OS is the first leak I have kept on my phone for more than 12 hours and I think it will be on here until the next release. I am on my second phone, the first one was sent back because of the dust under the screen, so far i haven't seen anymore so hopefully they sealed the leak.. Get it together RIM while you still have time.