Originally posted by: pm
Originally posted by: gorcorps
Then you haven't been looking at it much. The screen click interface is a first of its kind. Blackberry has been around much longer than the iphone, and they're keeping their own OS on the Storm, so calling it an iphone clone is just plain ignorant. It's a solid business class phone and isn't supposed to appeal to the same demographic that the iphone does.
I try not to be an iPhone fanatic, but I have to question this statement. First, of all, it seems to me that it's supposed to appeal to pretty much the same demographic as the iPhone - why would you think it's wouldn't? Because Blackberry made it? Maybe more businessmen - who like really big screens for watching movies and surfing the web, but no so much typing long emails because "ClickThrough" or not, it's still a touchscreen - would like it more than an iPhone because it's on Blackberries network and has their push capability... but it seems to me that the demographic for an iPhone and the demographic for a Storm overlap a lot.
And I question the "business class phone" part as well - I don't see how many of the business complaints of the iPhone will be solved by the Storm. I mean, Outlook sync'ing on the iPhone is a bit buggy - particularly on the calendar - and presumably the Storm will have rock-solid Outlook sync'ing. You are able to modify - not just view as you can on an iPhone - Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. But beyond that... it's still a touchscreen - in my mind if you are a business man, then messing around with a non-tactile touchscreen (ClickThrough or not, you can't feel the letters) trying to edit documents is likely to be a frustrating affair.
I'm not dissing the Storm - it honestly looks awesome - but I think it is solidly aimed at the iPhone and I don't think it will have a lot of appeal to true businessmen who will probably stick with their Bolds and Curves.
That said, saying that it doesn't bring anything new to the table is plain wrong, in my opinion. First there's the obvious "ClickThrough", then it has Blackberry's push technology on a touchscreen - no one else can claim these. So far what I've seen of MobileMe doesn't deliver like RIM does. Compared to the iPhone specifically - it includes cut 'n paste, has a removeable battery, takes SD cards, it has a nicer screen, as mentioned it has full MS Office edit capabilities, a much nicer 3.2 autofocus camera, and supports bluetooth stereo (A2DP). While there are other smartphones with sort of feature list, if we are comparing to the iPhone, then the Storm looks very good.