BlackBerry

Talk about bad timing for Research In Motion.

On the heels of another disappointing quarterly report, RIM is suffering from an outage that has hit its e-mail and BlackBerry Messenger services today. BlackBerry customers took to Twitter to voice their complaints. The company later acknowledged problems.

"Some Canada & LatAm customers report BBM issues. Our support teams are investigating. We apologize for any inconvenience," the company said in a tweet.

A RIM representative wasn't immediately available to provide further details on the extent of the problem to CNET.

The outage appears to be more widespread. The Huffington Post reported seeing tweets complaining about service in the U.K. and the Middle East. … Read more

Research In Motion will have to learn from the mistakes of the PlayBook tablet if it wants to see any success with its next generation of BlackBerry smartphones.

With disappointing sales and plunging profits, how could the company not feel the urgency to rush out a phone using slick its new QNX software? But that would be a bad idea. As the PlayBook has shown, rushing out a product only leads to more criticism and a poor reception.

"They got to get it right with QNX," said Mike Walkley, an analyst for Canaccord Genuity. "They're better … Read more

If you were planning to head to Sprint today to pick up the RIM BlackBerry Curve 9350, you're going to have to save that trip for later. The carrier announced on its Community page that the launch of the entry-level BlackBerry is delayed till October due to "unexpected circumstances."

Sprint said it will share the specific release date closer to launch, though a source at Phone Arena believes the launch date will be October 2.

The BlackBerry Curve 9350 will cost $79.99 with a two-year contract (business customers can get it as low as $49.99) … Read more

Verizon Wireless has announced it will start offering the BlackBerry Torch 9850 starting September 8 in its online store, and in retail stores starting September 15. It is the same phone that was released for Sprint a few weeks ago.

The Torch 9850 is BlackBerry's first full touch-screen phone after the Storm 2. It has a 3.7-inch high-resolution display, a 1.2GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, Wi-Fi, GPS, and a dual-mode CDMA/GSM chipset with 3G support for both networks. It comes with a 16GB card, but it can support up to 32GB cards.

The Torch 9850 is also one of the latest handsets to ship with OS 7, which promises improved performance thanks to a Liquid Graphics technology for better graphics, voice-enabled universal search, a speedier Web browser with HTML 5 video support, and more. You can read our review of the Torch 9850 for Sprint for more details.

Verizon Wireless has priced the Torch 9850 at $199.99, which is $50 more than the Sprint version.… Read more

Jessica's back from vacation just in time to catch a busy week of mobile news that includes nothing less than a merger under fire, a new batch of Windows phones, and a deja vu moment with a lost Apple's prototype, that CNET learned about first. Plus, it turns out that Bonnie's got a theme song full of butterflies and happiness. Stick around to see what it is.

Microsoft has dismissed critics who say that Windows Phone 7 is too little too late and that the company has missed its opportunity to be the kind of operating system powerhouse in smartphones that it has been in PCs. "Au contraire," say the Redmondians, "we are still early in the game."

At least in the U.S., the critics can point to early validation. According to NPD's Mobile Phone Track, 58 percent of the handsets sold to consumers in the second quarter of 2011 were smartphones. Android, aided by a presence on all four major U.S. carries, maintains a commanding lead in the marketplace, while iOS is now an option for Verizon customers, as well as the dominant operating system at AT&T. Windows Phone, on the other hand, continues to languish at about 2 percent of the market and hasn't moved much since its debut.

Among those looking to purchase smartphones in the next six months, Android and iOS are still the favored choices as well. According to the "Connected Operating System Survey" conducted by NPD Connected Intelligence, though, Windows Phone 7 is driving interest.

Eleven percent of those planning to purchase a smartphone said they are most interested in Windows Phone 7. If they follow through, that could result in a jump in Windows Phone 7's market share. In contrast, 8 percent said they are most interested in a BlackBerry, and 6 percent say they didn't know.

The survey also found 44 percent of those who planned to purchase a smartphone in the next six months had Windows Phone 7 in their consideration set, which is markedly larger than the 33 who say that they were considering a BlackBerry.

What can Microsoft do to close the sizeable gap between those who are considering Windows Phone 7 and those who have identified it as their leading choice? … Read more

According to new data out of Nielsen, 40 percent of U.S. mobile consumers now use smartphones, up from 30 percent just one year ago. And of those smartphones, Android takes the biggest share of 40 percent, followed by Apple's iOS at 28 percent.

Nielsen asked participants a number of questions to determine what kind of buyers they were in order to better understand their attitude toward new technologies. The company found that while iOS tends to attract most early smartphone adopters, very early adopters (aka "innovators") tend to favor Android as the platform of choice.

Though &… Read more

The lazy days of summer these are not. Just as soon we got past the Googorola news and HP's unfortunate dismissal of WebOS, we heard the bombshell that Steve Jobs was resigning his post as Apple CEO.

Though all that news does make for a few hectic days, it also means that we have a lot to discuss on Dialed In. Indeed, today's show was a lively one with not only all of the above, but also a steady stream of Android, Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry tidbits. And if that's not enough, we even get around … Read more

Sprint customers won't be the only ones to get their hands on the RIM BlackBerry Torch 9850, as U.S. Cellular revealed today that the all-touch-screen BlackBerry will be available starting August 26 for $199.99 with a purchase of a data plan and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

The Torch 9850 has a 3.7-inch, an 800x480-pixel touch screen, a 1.2GHz processor, and a 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video capture. It's also running the latest BlackBerry OS 7 software, so you'll get such enhancements as better graphics, faster Web browser, and BBM 6.

To … Read more