Blackberry Storm - Better Late Than Buggy

Looks like plans to get the new Blackberry Storm next week have been dashed until the end of the month. GIZMODO is reporting there's a software glitch and Verizon's holding off until it's fixed. Fine by me. I'd rather wait another two or more weeks and have the new Storm work properly right out of the box. Let's hope there's no other gotchas waiting to pop out at launch time. Gizmodo is also reporting the retail price will be $200 with a two-year product. We can thank the success and price drop of the iPhone to $199 for putting pricing pressure on Blackberry. Kudos Apple. If not for the iPhone, the Storm would have likely cost $400+.

If there's one thing I've learned about creating products, it's that you never have a second chance to make a good first impression. That includes the software install process and configuration, not just the first time you launch into a new product. Microsoft's learned that lesson well from the Vista disaster, haven't they.

You can get a good handle on the quality of software pretty quickly just by checking out the basics and keeping your eyes peeled for the little details. Slow responses and load times, graphic alignments, navigating around and checking out features, and more, are all things that start to tell a story about how well  a product is ready come launch time.

No worries for me. While I wait another two weeks for the Storm's debut, I've been cruising around on my Blackberry World Edition 8830, checking out apps on my WM6.1 Samsung i760 SmartPhone, and doing UI design for an iPhone app. But all that said, I'm still very excited about getting my hands on one of the Blackberry Storm SmartPhones. Let's hope things go well and we'll see them around the end of this month.

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