We had heard last week that the refreshed BlackBerry Storm was axed, and as if to put the last nail in the coffin, a note from RIM to application developers has leaked out:
“Thank you for your hard work and diligence in preparing your application to support the upcoming hardware refresh of the BlackBerry Storm2 smartphone (model number 9570, codename R027). Regrettably, RIM has decided not to pursue this device further and has ended the program.
However, rest assured that you will have the opportunity to leverage the work you’ve put in thus far in preparing for the new OS, as BlackBerry 6 will be making its way to more Verizon products in the near future, including the BlackBerry Bold 9650 and the BlackBerry Curve 9330.”
From what little we knew about the BlackBerry 9570, it was going to be mostly the same as the Storm2, only host a mobile hotspot feature, up the memory to 512 MB, the camera to 5 megapixels, and be OS 6 ready. In the sense of a few small parts swap-outs in the same package, it was going to be very similar to the Curve 9300 and Bold 9780.
Even if the 9570 is well and truly dead, we’re still left wondering what the proper Storm 3 will bring to the table. One would hope that it inherits the mobile hotspot feature, and bumps up the screen resolution from HVGA to take advantage of the 3.7″ screen. A 5 megapixel camera and 512 MB of RAM are pretty much a given at this point, and the source of the Storm 3 leak suggested 8 GB of internal memory. What might have made the 9570 not worth the trouble is if earlier reports of LTE connectivity and a new OS in the Storm 3 (like the PlayBook’s Neutrino OS) turned out to be true. At that point, Storm2 owners could simply be placated by an OS 6 upgrade, presuming the hardware supported it.
[via BBLeaks]