My Crackberry Storm

First the good about taking my crackberry storm on vacation to a tropical destination. Watching movies on my crackberry storm!  Yup there is nothing like watching a few movies on a 7 hour flight from the west coast to the Caribbean.  The video was crystal clear and the the sound was like watching in a dolby surround sound theater. In fact the guy next to me (yes I was stuck in the middle seat…ugh) even leaned in at one point to check it out. Between screenings he quipped “like your iphone huh?” to which I replied, nope I love my crackberry storm!

Whoooo!hooooooo!

Now the bad… The next generation hardware NEEDS WIFI! I honestly did not think it would be a problem not having wifi, but with $2/minute call surcharge and $.50 txt charge (dont get me started on data rates!) it is inconceivable to consider this a “world phone” when using the USA verizon plan. Thank makes me sad.

Ok. we will be on vacation for the coming week, so our updates will be sporadic. But be sure my crackberry storm camera will be in full use, clicking away for vacation!…

I know that apps are not too plentiful at the moment for my crackberry storm, but there are some applications out there for the storm and a whole mess of apps that, though not designed for my crackberry storm per se, still work well with it.  One app in particular that I like is the WhereRyu? app. It is a simple application that allows people that you give permission to via your contacts to access via an email response  just where in the world you are.  Just email or sms to your phone “where are you?” or “whereryu?” and the application gets location information from the built-in GPS or via cell phone tower triangulation and then sends an email back with a link to Google maps of your location.

I think this could have lots of potential, especially if you lose it. Case in point. I was out last weekend and left my phone at a friend’s house. I sms’d myself and PING! I knew where my crackberry storm was. Unbeknown to me however,  my friend (being the good egg he is) tossed my phone in his pack and set off across town to do stuff one does on a Saturday before we met up that evening for general boozing and other assorted forms of merriment. While he had my phone, I was amazed to see my crackberry storm take a trip across town until finally it was back in my hands! Whew!

I’ve been reading a few reviews of my crackberry storm and how does it stack up tot he iPhone and it is kind of funny really… Ok, I can see reading an iPhone pHanboy’s review for entertainment value, but as a serious, unbiased review of my crackberry storm?

C’mon.

Comparing the Storm to the iPhone is like comparing Red Delicious Apples to Granny Smiths. Yeah they they are both the same kinda fruit but they taste and bake very differently. Everyone that owns a storm knows of its shortcomings by now. To me the hardware is solid, the OS will take time to catch up. When the third party apps start rolling in, and the OS gets a wee bit more stable then we will see the Storm come in to its own.

Ok, so I found a really cool plugin that allows me to host a forum for my crackberry storm. I figured hey!? we are the only site that is specifically for my crackberry storm and the only one with the name mycrackberrystorm.com, so why not give it a shot!? I am really interested to see if other users out there that visit our site are as crazy about their storm as I am.

So there you have it. Check out the fourm and leave a post! Let’s get this community rolling!

(update 12/30/08. Ok I have had the update a few days now and I will say the following. Once I pulled the battery two times during the first day, everything seemed to stabilize. Before then, things were too wonky, though at no time was the ability to place a call affected. The one BIG improvement I can say about .85 is that my battery life has seemingly doubled. Not sure why, but before I needed to charge almost twice a day and now it is more like every day-and-a-half. So, if extended battery life is all that comes out of this  leak, then It is a good sign for the next official release!)
Well, Looks like Santa RIM has been working overtime to delvier a new OS for my crackberry storm. After installing it this morning and fiddling with it for a while I can say it is more stable then .83 was.  83 was a good interim and bug fix update, but the latest from RIM is now more stable while addressing more issues with my crackberry storm. (Note: .85 is not an official OS release. So, don’t install it unless you know what you are doing or are just having way to much fun this holiday season to care.) What the OS fixes after the jump!

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