The real story behind the Verizon BlackBerry Storm OS?
I want to preface this by saying that the following statements are my opinions and hypotheses, and have not be confirmed nor denied by any of sources of mine or official contacts at either corporation. It should serve as a nice little “conspiracy theory,” though. Here’s the deal:
- When we met with Verizon and RIM about the Storm, we asked about the software version. They confirmed it to be 4.7.0.65. We had heard otherwise, just like most of you, and didn’t understand why that OS version was so low when versions up to .90 were being talked about, and some demo units in stores showing .75 or higher.
- We believed this to be a non-final OS and was partly why we thought the OS would get better before release.
- We reported of a Storm shortage last night because of a last minute glitch.
- We think that 4.7.0.82, the version of the Storm box I got from Verizon directly was the cause of the glitch, and instead of a new version being flashed on Storms, what they were in fact doing was downgrading the OS to 4.7.0.65.
Now, why would we say that Verizon has downgraded these units? Do we know this for a fact? Absolutely not, and we said that above. None of this has been confirmed to us at all, but here’s the kicker… check on your Verizon BlackBerry Storm box where the product label is. It should say Version: 4.7.0.65, right? Well, after looking at a box from a Verizon store just now, I noticed a couple layers of stickers. I decided to peel those off, and what did I find? A product label underneath with version 4.7.0.82! So, they realized that there was possibly a huge security vulnerability they couldn’t fix in time, started flashing the units with the .65 software in order to not miss the release date, thus the cause of the shortages, the limited stock, and the direct fulfillment units not shipping until December the 5th. Go ahead, you know you want to peel back those product labels with yellow stickers! Let us know in the comments, ok? The pictures are after the break!
Wow what a fucking idiot you are! Totally kewl to express your feelings toward the equipment, companies etc. But what is it with you and the whole fag and homo deal? You must have been the guy none of the girls or guys would hit on, so your only action is your hand! I can tolerate any comment thrown around in this forum, but personal attacks such as yours comes VERY close to Gay bashing which is a serious offense! Nobody will take your comments seriously in here simply because your a complete idiot! I correct my statement above, on second thought you are the guy who gives your secret gay friends a call after a 6 pack to get your ass pounded and then make fun of the dude that waxed your ass the night before. Don’t get mad, if you dish it out, be sure you can take it closet boy!
dallas boy…the name says it all.
hahaha – you guys got the RIMjob. iPhone blows it out of the water & is a US company. Way to support the canadiens
Verizon wireless sucks because all there phones are locked, there phones r so basic. the only thing verizon is good at is having the best coverage. and today i went to verizon and played with the storm and its slow as shit it reminds me of using the razr because it takes like 5 seconds for the application to open. Right now i have the blackberry bold with att and its awsome.
all phones have bugs..storm is far better than the others once it has the latest build.
I usually hate it when people say this, but I believe that people who are negative about the storm on here didn’t give the storm enough time to actually start working.
As I said in the comments somewhere else, mine didn’t actually start working very well for 2-3 hours. I’m pretty sure verizons whole network was fubar’d for a while.
Anyway, after about noon today (pacific time), I had no issues whatsoever. occasional glitch or a few second hang entering or leaving an application, but nothing major. I’ve definitely not had any freezes where I had to remove the battery, and I’ve been doing everything including adding/removing applications, transferring mass amounts of data to my SD card, and having pretty much every application open at once.
If you’re tech-savvy, this phone wont be a problem for you. If you’re a twitchy, impatient type, then you may want to look away until there is a newer software revision.
Hardware is hard to make. Software that runs on that hardware without fault is even harder to make and test. I dont think you guys understand how it works, but I’m amazed that these phones get released working as well as they do.
That’s just plain odd. I could understand a label being added for a last-minute upgrade, but a downgrade?
Clearly something happened with the .82 firmware and Verizon being, well, Verizon, panicked and ordered all the devices downgraded. (that’s not to say I don’t like Verizon; I had them for 6 years, and switched because I wanted to try a different carrier, not because I was unhappy) Whatever it was that caused them to panic must have been big enough for them to be willing to risk both their sales and RIM’s reputation on phones with firmware that clearly was not meant to be used by the general public. Hopefully the fix has already been implemented on the vast majority of Storm stock, and that they were artificially limiting supply to make sure the publicity damage was as contained as possible.
They may still have enough time for damage control, but then again, a big chunk of the market that has been waiting for this might have already moved on.
@ ilikephonesthatwork
what device software version are you running on your Storm?
@ Heath
what device software version are you running on your Storm?
To all Storm users that have minimum problems, please post what software version you have on your phone. if it all ends up to be the same with different problems i can imagine the problems to be data conflicts with what was there from what wasnt.
some of the phones would probably be fixed if it is totally wiped and reinstalled fresh instead of flashing it. I ask because I’ve experienced things of the sort while flashing functioning storage drives in the past.
It sucks to hear people get pissy over a new phone. The i phone could not have set the bar for all phones? There is different users out there and different phones. People sound like we are back in the race for the white house. Man its a great device and its a bb. Every bb made has lived up to what it was designed for. Whatever ever I am fustrated with people. The storm Is a great phone and once people learn to think differently in how a the phone works they will be fine.
Grow up fools. You sound like all girls. Does anyone know anything about having respect for the compentition? Let it be!! As a consumer we have got the best phones of our time and believe me there is more to come.
The phone is sick and offers a ton of things. It handles every part of your everyday life. Movies look like there coming through the screen, the email is bb mail, noise cancelation durning calls has gotten better. Enterprise look up and enhanced functionality. This phone is the real deal. So if your going to buy it deal with it and shut up.
you talk about verizon so much man. get over it.
528 MHz processor, not 624 MHz, neutered, matter of fact they have chosen a cheaper Cpu pxa930 instead of the powerful pxa320 (Samsung Omnia) which can be over clocked to a 806mhz (pxa320 has 256 kb l2 cache and a 768 kb 3d frame buffer)
Not VGA, only half the revolution! When they thought of the resolution, they saw the iphone as the limit, there is no creativity (… copying)
No wide screen format to play movies nicely, only square 4:3 aspect ratio, they forgot to copy that.
No infrared port
No flash support
No Bluetooth v2.1
No video acceleration
No LED, regular TFT LCD
No 16.7 millions true colors like the iphone,
No WIMAX, don’t even dream about it
No WIFI, no streaming “not allowed thru. Plans”
No high number of channels of polyphonic (32 channels only) ringtones typically 72
Pages are slow to load and render and zoom/pan operations were slow and jerky no matter what the software version is, till it becomes 5. And up.
Not really built for multi tasking only small memory even it has big Rom, not enough Ram 128MB
No 8-megapixel camera
No stereo microphone
No stereo loudspeaker
No electronic dictionary
No business card recognition
No finger print reader
I just checked the Verizon web-site and found a 4.7 update that was made available today. Anyone know if this is the .82 or higher update? I’m still waiting for my Storm to be delivered tomorrow.
wow just wow…..its not a security fix. Security is the least of the worries on this device particularly in the later builds as the core code is the same across all devices (think bold). your detective work is in the right country as opposed to ball park.
I’ve worked in the cell phone industry off and on for a good 10+ yrs (currently on) and I’ll take the Verizon network over any other carrier out there. I’ve used other services before and have dealt with customer service issues with other services, and Verizon is hands down the best from my experience.
Admittedly, the Storm does run a bit slower than anticipated, but let’s give Verizon a few weeks to fix the bugs with a new software release before we all condemn the phone and the carrier.
And I’m sorry, but an iPhone is not a BlackBerry. If you want multi-media with an inferior network, get an iPhone. If you want productivity with a strong network, stick with BlackBerry.
Just for fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84Qt1Sz7ITk
Went to Verizon store & was #14 in line.
Informed that they only had 13. Was told I could have one shipped for Sat. delivery at no charge with the rebate included. I kept calling to get Fedex track #. They said call back later. This AM still no track # & it probably will not ship until 11/25. I think that this is BS. Very poor customer service.
It certainly puts Verizon & RIM in a bad light in my opinion. I do not know why they are not upfront with the details of what is happening.
Forget the Storm Guys and Gals! I’m rockin a Bold for about a week now, and even though there are some teny tiny minor flaws, this thing ROCKS! Yea Yea, not the same exact kind of eye candy as the Storm, but u won’t cringe every time u have to send out a text or an email!
Hmmmm …. Although my Storm is a little slugish at times it is perfectly usable to me. Sure cant type as fast on it as my Curve but it’s a touch screen. I had an iPhone with ATT and the network SUCKS! Had to get a land line due to no service within 5 blocks of my house in every direction and I live in a fairly high populated area. Constant dropped calls from the POS on that POS network. Not to mention a browser that crashed more times than not and that is with the current software version.
So although the Storm is not perfect and needs some updates I’ll still take it in it’s current .65 form over my iPhone with the current software! You guys and gals sure do seem to complain a lot especially over a product that is SO new. The iPhone is on version 2(3G) with 2.2 software out, now that is sad!
I actually picked up the Storm yesterday at Best Buy. There are some glitches but no conspiricies. BGR knows that conspiricies sell.
Why not focus on giving a decent review instead??? The number one takeaway re: Storm is that the entire screen presses in during the “touch and click.” I doubt BGR every had an actual storm in his hands. Definitely pick up one and demo before you buy. I love it but you might not…
This is the just. Storm more phone than computer. iPhone more computer than phone.
Hello everybody,
Just got my Storm ( Saturday FedEx Delivery). The sticker on the side is just one layer and it is the .65 version. Hope it works well. gotta go unbox it now
Amazing how you can make a claim of conspiracies and generate a whole lot of speculation from a misprinted label. Just proves that bloggers are just fiction writers.
got my Storm yesterday morning and by afternoon it was dead
I only had it for a few hours and finally got my email running and started to play with it but I had to go out. I put in into the holster and the next time I took it out I had a dark screen with a black line across the screen about a 3rd of the way up. I tried charging it, plugging it into AC and also the USB port on my PC but I could not get it to power back on. Eventually I took the battery out for about 15 minutes and I could get it to power on. Called Verizon to have them put my service back on it as I had them switch it back to my 8830 when it first died. While on the phone to switch it back to the Storm they had me try the browser which could not connect. She told me to power it off and back on again. During the power off I saw an error flash past, too fast to read. Then the screen went black but the bottom buttons stayed lit. After that it was gone. Of course Best Buy does not have any more to replace it 
This Sucks!!
I signed up for the Storm last night, but they told me not to expect shipping until around December 5th, so delivery will be on December 6th at the earliest. I don’t understand how people are getting their Storms today already. Maybe the customer service reps were bullshitting me?