It's not that difficult to see that Blackberry is having problems attracting developers to its platform, with only around 2,000 apps in its inventory since the App World opened back in April. Apparently, a 56% share of the US smartphone market just isn't enough incentive to entice, given all the potential development nightmares that RIM's varied range of devices creates.

The company sat back through most of it.  With the iPhone well ahead and Google making serious strides in attracting new developers, though, RIM is finally seeing fit to make their move.  According to the company, they are now enacting numerous changes to their platform that should attract a greater number of developers to come on board.

Speaking at RIM's second developer's conference, co-CEO Jim Balsillie announced a number of developments that they hope will steer developers into investing resources their way.  While none of the things mentioned are groundbreaking, they should put the platform on par with what both the iPhone and Android have to offer.

To ease the job for developers, the company is promising more native APIs, better access to app data and deeper integration.  In-app transactions will also be made available, along with a new Blackberry Payment System, which can be used as an alternative to the App World's Paypal-based payments.  They're also going to look to undercut third parties by enabling in-app advertising via their own Blackberry Advertising Service.  Other things that can change the tide come next year include Flash 10 (which all smartphones, except the iPhone, will also get), a richer browser and OpenGL ES support to encourage games on future Blackberry phones.

The overall plan sounds just about what they should have been doing all along, although the last one did surprise me.  3D games on the Blackberry?  Really?

[via Wired]

While the Blackberry Storm didn't exactly turn other touchscreen smartphones on their head, it wasn't all that bad.  With a series of software improvements and beefed-up hardware, though, there are high hopes for its successor, the Blackberry Storm 2.

Physically, RIM's new touchscreen device isn't a big departure from the original Storm.  It sports the exact same dimensions and similar weight, but adds a few subtle touches.  The capacitive touchscreen measures 3.2 inches with a 480 x 360 resolution.  It comes with a built-in accelerometer and a proximity sensor.  The latter feature detects when a face is close to the screen, automatically turning it off to avoid mispresses.

The biggest update here, by far, is the revamped SurePress touch interface.  Instead of a mechanical suspension system, like in the original Storm, the new handset uses electronic activators beneath the display to simulate clicks.  The result is basic multi-touch support, improved touch response, faster typing and key rollovers.  Along with some nifty UI enhancements, it makes for a touchscreen facility that can finally rival some of the best smartphones around.

As a phone, the Storm 2 manages excellent voice calls, with a rich and clear sound that's free from any background interference.  Speakerphone was similarly loud and clean-sounding.  Overall phone performance is pretty snappy, while the 3G facility makes for very good data transfer rates.   The onboard browser appears faster than on other Blackberry phones, but it could also be the increased memory assisting the speed.  Battery has a rated talk time of 5.5 hours, which makes it useful for about 2 to 3 days on normal use.

RIM thankfully decided to add Wi-Fi to the mix, making the Storm 2 one of the more interesting world phone (yes, it supports both quad-band CDMA and dual-band GSM) choices around.   It also comes preinstalled with OS 5.0, which adds numerous enhancements to the handset's various applications.  Messaging, of course, remains a major strength (it syncs with literally everything), while the browser (with Google Gears, Blackberry Widgets and streaming support) has received notable improvements.  They even threw in DataViz Documents To Go Standard Edition to supplement the attachments viewer.

The onboard 3.2 megapixel camera is pretty good, with plenty of additional niceties (image stabilization, flash, lots of settings) and decent quality.  Other features include aGPS (with Blackberry Maps), a media player with wide format support, stereo Bluetooth and microSDHC expansion.

Overall, the Blackberry Storm 2 is a serious touchscreen smartphone contender.  The world phone capabilities, wide range of connectivity options, improved OS and SurePress technology makes it an attractive device for jetsetting business users.

This phone has been a long time coming for Sprint users and it's finally here.  As with many other handsets in the line, the Blackberry Curve 8330 offers the same great messaging design, along a couple of welcome additions.

Sprint's new version of the 8330 adds a 3G chip to the mix, causing a slight added thickness when compared to the GSM version.  It's now 0.6 inches deep, which is still slim enough for comfortable handling.   Display is a 2.5-inch 320 x 240 LCD, situated right above the front-mounted QWERTY keyboard.  Overall screen performance is excellent, managing to look clear and sharp even in outdoor conditions.

For messaging, the 8330 comes with the full range of Blackberry's tried and proven capabilities.  You get all the goodies here, from the souped-up email talents (BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Internet Service), along with a larger number of IM clients (compared to Verizon's Curve releases).  The QWERTY keys are a tad too small, but travel is great, making it easy to use all the same.

As a phone, the dual-band (CDMA 850/1900; EV-DO) handset doesn't offer the best voice calls, managing pedestrian sound with a noticeable echo.  Phone operation is fast and responsive, with only a slight lag when performing multimedia operations.  It was good for over five hours of continuous talk time, making it usable for a convenient two days or more before recharging.

On the features end, the phone comes with a decent offering.  There's a speedy onboard GPS (with Blackberry Maps preloaded and Sprint Navigation integrated for a fee), EV-DO (making for decent-speed full HTML browsing) but no Wi-Fi, a 2.0 megapixel camera (just average quality), stereo Bluetooth and excellent multimedia support.  It also comes with a good lot of onboard apps, particularly ones geared for business and productivity.

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Overall, we find Sprint's BlackBerry Curve 8330 a better option than that from Verizon, especially with the accompanying 3G access and integrated GPS in tow.  The lack of Wi-Fi is, of course, a hard-to-ignore sticking point.  If you can live with it, though, this should prove a great phone to pick up.

RIM finally put the official stamp on the much-talked-about Blackberry Curve 8520.  While it's not yet officially released, the phone now has a dedicated page on the company's website, with plenty of photos and complete details, to boot.

As usual, it will fit in Blackberry's typical messaging and productivity talents, along with a few features more attuned to modern smartphone uses.  Multimedia seems to have been given particular attention for the long-awaited handset, which comes with a robust onboard player and a set of dedicated media keys situated on top.

Details of the phone include a 2.64-inch TFT LCD with 320 x 240 resolution, a 2.0 megapixel camera module (with 5x digital zoom and video recording), 256MB default storage, microSDHC expansion (up to 32GB), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.  It fits in a 35-key backlit QWERTY keyboard and a unique optical trackpad.

RIM is promising "out of the box Mac compatibility" for this iteration of the Curve, with the BlackBerry Desktop Software to be fully-available on OS X machines.  It also supports RIM's download storefront, Blackberry App World, for those who'd like to extend their handset's functionalities, apart from shipping with a number of social media and IM tools built-in.

The Blackberry Curve 8520 is listed for availability on August 5th.  T-Mobile will be carrying it for $130 with a two-year contract.

Blackberry

We rarely get to see smartphones sporting a clamshell form factor, with the design cue typically reserved for lower-end devices with more basic features. It's that reason why a handset like the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 feels relevant - it offers something different for those whose tastes might not exactly be the norm.

Since RIM decided to keep it within a reasonable size for a flip phone, the 8230 isn't able to fit in a full-size QWERTY keyboard. Instead, it uses a SureType entry panel, which allows for semi-QWERTY typing, with two characters assigned for each key. Like we said about the Samsung SGH T349, the partial QWERTY takes a bit of getting used to, although it does allow for some pretty fast texting once you get the hang of the layout.

Physically, I find the Pearl Flip to be one of the sexier clamshell phones around. While it does come in a little bulky, the entry-level smartphone talents more than make up for it.

As a phone, it offers great voice calls, with loud volume and zero interference the whole time we tried it. Speakerphone was similarly pleasant. It fits in all basic phone features you can expect from a modern handset, along with Blackberry's signature range of messaging capabilities. Like other RIM devices, it supports SMS, MMS, IM and multiple email accounts of pretty much any configuration you can ask for.

On the features end, the phone comes with an onboard music player (great quality), a 2.0 megapixel camera (average stills, with some amount of shutter lag), aGPS and a full HTML browser. It supports 3G connectivity, although does without Wi-Fi, which is sort of Blackberry's perennial Achilles Heel.

It comes with a great set of bundled apps that include various social networking tools, Documents To Go, five IM clients and Visual Voice Mail. There's also support for the Blackberry App World, which allows it download access to more apps that are compatible with the phone. Despite the broadband capability, it doesn't seem to support music and video streaming services (at least, with Verizon).

Overall, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 is a good-looking option for first-time smartphone users. It's not the most feature-rich handset available, but it's priced very competitively and fits in, pretty much, every business talent you can find in other Blackberry phones.

Photo Credit: Into Mobile

It's a little hard to justify a high-end phone without Wi-Fi support.  That's exactly what RIM expects us to do with the top-of-the-line Blackberry Tour 9630, which offers plenty of talents to more than make up for it.

The Tour's main selling point is its world-roaming capabilities (dual-band CDMA and quad-band GSM), automatically switching between networks for seamless international use.  Doing regular travel phones better, it also supports both Verizon's EV-DO Rev. A stateside and 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA band elsewhere in the world for internet connectivity.  Overall, the handset supports voice coverage in 220 countries along with wireless data in 175, making for a phone you can practically use anywhere you end up.  You will pay for international roaming rates, though, so be sure to arm yourself with knowledge of the charges wherever you're traveling before indulging yourself.

Apart from the multi-country support, the Tour offers a good deal of niceties for smartphone users of all shapes and sizes.  Design borrows on the best features of both the Bold and the Curve 8900, turning out a good-looking and very pocketable phone.

It features a relatively small 2.4-inch LCD that offers a very good 480 x 360 resolution.  Display is very crisp and clear, with bright colors.  Keyboard is a 35-key QWERTY that's similar to the one found on the Bold, which means it's a spacious and ample-sized panel that responds very well to regular use.

As a phone, the Tour offers pristine calls with very loud volume and a natural-sounding tone.  Messaging, of course, is a high-point, offering Blackberry's typical suite of features that include SMS, MMS, visual voice mail (extra costs), multiple emails (pretty much every service you can imagine) and IM.  The email, by the way, comes with an attachment viewer that offers support for a wide range of file formats.

While the lack of Wi-Fi is definitely a disappointment (essentially forcing you to pay for data access every time you use it), it does get plenty of other capabilities.  For instance, it supports tethering as a wireless modem for your computer, although that option requires a separate data plan purchase as well.

Other specs include a full HTML browser, stereo Bluetooth, aGPS, a considerably versatile media player and a 3.2 megapixel camera (with image stabilization).  Implementation for the aforementioned features is pretty impressive, definitely pitting it as a worthy competitor among handsets with similar offerings.  By the way, Verizon will also offer a camera-less version, which will probably be a tad cheaper, if you don't have much use for in-camera optics (I personally don't and would appreciate that option for all phones, actually).

If you are frequently on-the-go and are in search of a single phone to carry around, the Blackberry Tour 9630 is a great option, working in pretty much every country in the civilized world.  Of course, the lack of Wi-Fi support may be a deal-breaker, especially if you like to avoid expensive data costs when traveling.  Still, there are very few phones that can match its balance of roaming compatibilities and professional feature set that make it a compelling choice for any serious traveler.

The Blackberry Curve 8520 (also known as the Blackberry Gemini) is RIM's version of an entry-level device. While it doesn't pack the same high-end sensibilities of the company's more advanced phones, it does make room for a very attractive design, a good set of features and that famous Blackberry keypad.

Being an entry-level device, you can think of the 8520 as a whittled-down version of other Curve handsets. Despite the stature, it brings the same level of messaging talents Blackberry phones have been widely known for. Users get standards, such as SMS and MMS, along with support for multiple email accounts, Blackberry PIN messaging and a number of preloaded IM clients (AIM, GTalk, ICQ, Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger). Email is as easy to set up as it is on other Blackberry handsets, requiring no more than an email and a password to get started.

The obvious trade-off is 3G, with data access only available over EDGE and Wi-Fi. Still, data speed is not bad on 2G, especially considering that you'll be using it mostly for messaging, instead of heavy HTML pages. For browsing, it uses an older Blackberry web browser but features some updates that should lead to a better experience. Rendering is, as expected, a bit sluggish even over Wi-Fi.

Physically, the phone sports a very attractive design that's right in line with typical Blackberry aesthetics. It comes with a surprisingly large 3.4-inch LCD, although it features a rather limited 320 x 240 resolution. Size is smaller than the Curve, which makes it a very handy phone to carry.

Keyboard, of course, is very easy to use, although the choice of a new optical trackpad in place of a trackball is a bit puzzling. It works much like the trackball and, once you get familiar with it, should be as easy to use, though. The phone uses the same Blackberry OS 4.6 (not 5.0, as earlier rumored) as with a few newer handsets, so UI should not be a problem.

Calls are pretty decent, although there is some noticeable background static. Not sure if it is a problem with the phone or the reception, though it's likely the former. Other features on the 8520 include a 2.0 megapixel camera (no flash and average photos), a pretty good media player with a wide range of supported formats (video playback, by the way, is gorgeous on the 3.4-inch screen) and a number of productivity apps in tow.

Overall, the Blackberry Curve 8520 is a wonderful effort for an entry-level phone. Of course, it's likely not going to be as cheap as an entry-level device from other manufacturers. If you want all of a Blackberry's messaging conveniences but could do without the 3G and GPS, this just might be the perfect choice.

While it's been around since earlier this year under T-Mobile, the Blackberry Curve 8900 recently became available to AT&T users. Beuing among the best and most stylish handsets under RIM's banner, it's a unit to seriously consider for those  who are after a business-minded smartphone.

There's one glaring item in the Curve 8900 that any mobile user is bound to notice immediately. The phone, for all its nifty capabilities, doesn't offer 3G. If that isn't a deal-breaker (high-speed data access is actually unnecessary for some business users I know), the handset more than makes up for it with good looks and a great set of features.

As the thinnest QWERTY-packing Blackberry in the market, it measures a mere half-inch in thickness, helping make it light and easy to handle. As both a phone and messaging device, it's very comfortable to use, with nary a complaint on either the controls, the keyboard or the accompanying interface. Calls come through with very good sound, although we found an occasional crackling (very rare). A pleasant surprise is the speakerphone, which (to my ear, at least) sounds just as good as the the regular listening panel.

On the features end, it's a business handset through and through, with plenty of personal management and business-geared applications available, both pre-loaded and through the Blackberry App World. With the exception of 3G, connectivity is implemented well on the phone, with quad-band roaming, excellent Wi-Fi (including UMA support), Bluetooth and a very useful GPS module. The full HTML browser (over Wi-Fi) provides excellent page load times, largely impeccable page renderings and support for both RSS and YouTube. It offers good EDGE speed, too, whenever you need web connectivity while on the road.

It includes a 3.2 megapixel camera module with video, autofocus, 2x zoom, and image stabilization. Images taken with the device are pretty decent, although it lacked brightness in colors. For a camera phone, it's an acceptable quality. A basic music player is also onboard, along with a 3.5mm jack. On our tests, playback of both MP3 audio and MP4 video files worked great, although YouTube streaming via the media player, as expected, wasn't the smoothest.

Overall, the Blackberry Curve 8900 is a good phone to consider. However, it should be noted that both AT&T and T-Mobile already have other business-style handsets in their rosters (e.g. Nokia E71, Samsung Jack) that may not be as proven as a Blackberry in professional settings, but does come with a bevy of corporate features and 3G support. To make matters worse, the 8900 is bit more expensive than a good number of them.

Looking forward to another Blackberry as you next handset?  If you're still not sold on the touchscreen hype, these leaked specs and photos of an upcoming QWERTY-fitted unit just might whet your appetite.

Sporting the compact profile of the Curve 8900 series, while boasting the hardware (and gorgeous keys) of the Bold, it looks like another prime offering from the top dog of business handsets.  Several sources are saying it will be the much-rumored Blackberry Onyx, although BGR insists it's more likely the Driftwood, based on the specs.

Regardless of which one it turns out to be, the details look mighty attractive.  It packs AWS 1700MHz + 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA, a 3.2 megapixel camera module, onboard GPS, Wi-Fi support and a 460x360 resolution display.  As you can glean from the photos, it's inherited the Bold's fantastic keyboard and sports an optical trackpad for navigation.  The back panel is also supposedly a carbon fiber affair.

Some folks are saying it's sexier than even the Curve 8900 and we're leaning towards agreeing with them.  Whether it's the Blackberry Onyx or the Blackberry Driftwood, it will be T-Mobile's first 3G Blackberry and is expected to receive a release date of September.   Once photos like these start leaking, an official launch is usually just around the corner, so hold your breath.

Photo Credit: Crackberry

The Blackberry Bold was RIM's first attempt at an all-in-one phone and it accomplishes the goal, all while capably retaining the brand's main strengths - classy looks, sound business features and top-of-the-line messaging.  For business users who enjoy a little multimedia action every now and then, the Bold can make a convincing case.

Blackberry's key feature has always been email and the Bold performs accordingly.  Keyboard is a joy to type in, despite being narrower than many side-sliding units.   Users can setup (if you can call the incredibly simple process of using email here a setup) up to 10 email addresses using the BlackBerry Internet Service.  SMS and MMS are similarly great, along with support for all major IM services.

Display, at 2.6 inches and 480x320 resolution, is good, despite the mediocre-sound 65,000 colors.  It's completely visible in almost every lighting condition and displays very good image quality.  Longtime Blackberry users will find themselves right at home with the Bold's interface, which uses the 4.6 OS and works without any lag whatsoever.

Camera shutter is fast.  However, picture quality leaves much to be desired.  Overall, the camera is an added feature - nothing to write home about.  The central media player, as with other OS 4.6 phones, gets the job done.  Music playback is great, with surprising sound quality.  Even when played through the onboard stereo speakers, tunes come out crisp and pleasant.  For movies, the Bold capably plays DivX and Xvid formats without hitch (as long as it doesn't exceeed 640 pixels).  Color, likewise is surprisingly vivid.

Browser offers good web experience, although the feature set pales in comparison with more popular high-end smartphones.  Page rendering is fast, most likely because they are processed first on Blackberry's end before delivery to the handset.  HMTL formatting isn't perfect, though, and allows for some bad overlaps with complicated pages.

With 1GB of internal memory, a microSDHC slot (up to 16GB) and a growing number of downloadable apps, the Blackberry Bold is a hard phone to ignore.  It looks all business (and performs likewise) yet packs enough perks to make it an entertainment handset as well.

Photo Credit: GSM Arena