April 07, 2009, 2:56 PM — BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) is prepping a new version of its only touchscreen phone, the BlackBerry Storm, as soon as this September, according to reports. The new phone is set to bring improvements over the current offering, especially with the addition of WiFi.
SlashGear is citing an unnamed source (claiming it's the bee's knees), as giving them "their assurances that the BlackBerry Storm 2 would have WiFi, and would be an even better pro-consumer device than the first Storm." There's no wonder the biggest drawback of the BlackBerry Storm was the lack of WiFi, of course, after the clickable touch screen and the sluggish software.
Besides the September launch date and extra WiFi (which was quite obvious) not much detail was passed on. But if RIM does launch a new BlackBerry Storm this September, that will leave the current devices (10 months old in September) obsolete. That's not even a year since the original product launch in November 2008 (even Apple leaves one year between product cycles).
The addition of WiFi is in no way a surprise, as technically its lack made the BlackBerry Storm inferior to its main rival, Apple's iPhone 3G. Meanwhile, there's still a debate whether Verizon deliberately pulled WiFi to make BlackBerry Storm users dependent on the paid carrier services, but nevertheless the (yet again obvious) wireless connectivity addition is welcome.
Also, The Boy Genius site reports that two of its "independent sources" say a new type of screen will come with the BlackBerry Storm 2, improving the screen "enormously" and making typing "really pleasurable". The screen technology they say, won't be called SurePress anymore but TruePress. Just to add to the rumors, Boy Genius also dropped in a 5-megapixel camera on the BlackBerry Storm 2.
At the beginning of this month, RIM also launched the BlackBerry AppWorld - in response to the growing popularity of Apple's App Store for iPhone (and something that the BlackBerry Storm et all were short of). However, the BlackBerry AppWorld pricing scheme is more expensive than Apple or Google's counterparts.
