Two of our corporate Verizon buddies are giving us heads up about the BlackBerry Tour 2 aka Bold 9650 official launch date.  There is no specific date set yet, but of course we all know it’s not going to be first quarter anymore (obviously).  Our sources suggest that it will be coming sometime during second quarter (the middle most likely) with no launch date and confirmation in regard to the new name change to the Bold 9650.  Personally, I hope this gets scrapped and they just keep a Tour to avoid all confusion.  We already have an alleged Bold 9700a slider with touch screen, so to add another  device to the Bold family is just way too much for us humans to bare.

Keep in mind these are all rumors we are passing on to you folks as they have to us the same way.  As we get closer to launch dates, we’ll have more information.

-by Mac Jadalhack

As Bing locks itself on Verizon BlackBerry smartphones, AT&T conveniently has Google, and T-Mobile will be joining the team soon according to rumors.  So Yahoo will be getting dropped as the default search, and Google will gladly take its place, conveniencing T-Mobile BlackBerry users everywhere.  T-Mobile BlackBerry users can already opt out of Yahoo and change it to Google manually where Verizon BlackBerry users are not allowed to at all.  Some might not find the info to be useful, but in my personal opinion, I prefer it locked and loaded on Google for a nice fresh search at any time.  According to Network World, this will be occurring soon, but no date is officially set yet.  Stay tuned for more as we get more about this rumor.

-by Otoniel Bruno

Based on the indepth explanation by Kevin over at at CrackBerry, the BlackBerry Slider is not the new Storm 3.  You can certainly check out his article on it as it’s very interesting but we do agree with it not being a Storm.  Let’s face it.  The BlackBerry Storm didn’t do so well or get that great of feedback since its first one launched.  Adding a slider BlackBerry to that family wouldn’t be so bright and definitely wouldn’t attract many folks.

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We heard leaked details on a BlackBerry slider device some time ago, and assumed it would be of the Storm series.  So what do we know so far? From what we understood, it would have a sliding keyboard in portrait mode, keeping very “BlackBerry-like” and not so HTC-ish.  Boy Genius talks about these rumors for the device:

• It’s a portrait-oriented slider. While most people assume a device with slideout keyboard would end up being something like HTC’s devices, we’ve been told this particular handset is more like the Palm Pre in terms of layout.
• The phone will run BlackBerry OS 6.0
• The rumored device will 100% support Wi-Fi 802.11n
• The resolution unfortunately has not improved, it is still 360×480.
• No word on if this will have a touch screen, but we’d assume so, and our source alluded to this possibly being what the rumored BlackBerry Magnum/Dakota evolved into. Not saying there won’t be a Bold-like device with touchscreen, optical trackpad, and physical keyboard, but this might be released first.
• If it does have a touch screen, this could in fact be the mythical BlackBerry Storm slider — picture a Storm 9520 with a slide up Bold-esque keyboard.
• The phone will not be a Verizon exclusive — it’s supposed to be a GSM/HSPA device.

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Yesterday we heard all the nonsense of the Tour 2 9650 rumor of it getting renamed as the Bold.  Not the best news to hear nowadays, especially with RIM’s model numbers all over the place confusing its user friendly customers. This came from a service and repair tech from Sprint letting us know of some delays they may be having themselves with the launch of of the BlackBerry Tour 2 aka Bold 9650.  For now we’re just going to call it the BlackBerry 9650, since this whole name situation is so confusing.  So any way, our source says that the 9650 is having OS issues and folks that were beta testing it at the moment have started to send them back in.  Aside from the OS, the trackpad was mentioned to have some sort of malfunction as well, but it’s still uncertain as to what the issue is with that.

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It’s no surprise to me as AT&T had the BlackBerry Bold 9000 and Verizon had the Tour 9630 which seemed to be similar devices, kind of, but not really.  Now we have the Bold 9700 with AT&T and T-Mobile which resembles the Tour a bit more, but smaller in size.  So here’s to add to all the model confusions once again.  According to rumors (via CIO), the Tour 2 9650 is being renamed as the Bold.  We’ve had the Curve series jump in numbers all over the place including 83xx, 89xx, and 85xx.  Atleast RIM is keeping it a bit consistent in starting the Bold and Tour with a 9, putting you on the right track somewhat.  But then we have the Storm which does too.

-by Mac Jadalhack

Source: CIO

One of my Verizon buddies let me hear a voicemail message from the regional manager asking all store reps to push Palm devices over BlackBerry right now.  I wish we were allowed to post the voicemail, but did not get permission as it would result in people losing jobs and such.  So back to the voicemail, the Palm seems to be getting not enough exposure, attention, and purchases.  They don’t want the BlackBerry pushed more so “they don’t have the higher hand in negotiation,” said the regional manager.  So what’s the point of all this? If you are looking to switch to Verizon or even upgrade your existing phone with them, do your research remotely and walk into the store knowing what you want, hopefully a BlackBerry.

These new tips to Verizon reps may or may not be going on in your area, but the confirmed parts are regions in the NJ/NY area.

-by Otoniel Bruno

I have no problem seeing free applications out there monetizing.  Even if that means having advertisements within their application such as UberTwitter.  The whole world complained once it got advertisements which was ridiculous as a premium $4.99 version was available ad-free.  Developers need and deserve to make their money somehow.  Pop-up ads wouldn’t be so savvy, as that’s how it looks to be in the sketch above. As PC gets spyware and Macs stay safe (for the most part), is RIM going to be the new PC? I sure hope not.  That’s one way to look at it if you look too much into the sketches.  This can’t be totally bad and can actually have a positive influence on BlackBerry and its users.

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According to this advertisement that Kyle from BlackBerry Cool came across, the BlackBerry Storm2 is making its way to Rogers Canada.  Or maybe not.  As Kyle suggests, the advertisement agency might have gotten lazy and replaced the word “Verizon” with “Rogers” instead, causing all sorts of misunderstandings now.  Let’s hope this is for Rogers, but why so late? Yes T-Mobile UK is getting the Storm2, but you would think Rogers was always on top of their game with all their other early device releases.

-by Mac Jadalhack

It looks like the long celebrated BlackBerry Bold 9000 is coming to an end.  Not exactly. BG got a hat tip about the BlackBerry Bold 9000 coming out in a non-camera version, which we heard of and saw on AT&T’s Twitter in the past.  The rumor has it that carriers are going to stop carrying the camera version of the Bold 9000, in order to push folks to the Bold 9700 instead and keep business users at the Bold 9000 with no camera.  Does mean goodbye to the 88xx series?  The Bold 9000 is definitely a great alternative with its similar size to the 88xx series, but the issue here is that it’s currently only being offered by AT&T in the US.  Replacing the previous 88xx series across the board would require carriers such as T-Mobile and Verizon to rock the 9000 as well.  How do you folks feel about a camera-less Bold 9000?

-by Mac Jadalhack