BlackBerry® Storm™

[Xandrex]

Hello !

just a little reminder. An application's performance and clutter mainly depends on the developper, and very rarely on the operating system or the hardware it works on.

the Application Memory is 128MB. it means you can install applications up to nearly 120 applications with an average installation size of 1MB.
then, you use the application. it can decide to store datas (your profile & highscore in a game, pictures, cache and so on). The BlackBerry OS gives several places where each application can do that (provided the user does not forbid that). Those places are:
the memory card (some GPS applications can store maps cache in a folder of your choice (not BlackBerry Maps or Google Maps)
the Device memory (which is of more than 900MB)
the Application memory (the place where the applications are installed)

so if a developer decides to store the application data in the Application Memory, it's the application's problem, not RIM.

On windows you have the same issue :
you install the application in \Program Files\
but the application can store its data in :
\Documents & Settings\UserName
\Documents & Settings\All
\My Documents\
\Program Files\

there is the clever places, and the stupid one ( \Program Files).

Google developers are well known to create great applications that are coded with foot fingers and are memory hogs. It's not a real problem on a recent PC, but it can be an issue on handheld device. There is a reason why GMail for iPhone is a web application and not an application to install on the iPhone

so I wouldn't be surprised if GMail or Google Calendar of Google Maps or Google Talk stored their information in the wrong place.



I'll end up saying that the size of an application is the size it occupies after installation, not before deletion.

[cdou]

I totally agree Josh...i really dont know why i have to be limited as to what programs i have...espicially when i paid over $500 for my cell phone...makes no sense to me...i cant be deleting apps when i wanna install another...i really dont know whats up and its making alot of people in my country talk badly about them...whenever i do a reboot...i have about 22MB of memory available...then a couple hours after i notice i have 400-800 kb of memory...now am wondering what possible programs i have that may use so much memory...this is rediculous and i feel so limited....

[stormissues]

128MB is not entirely available for Apps.

It is used for everything including the OS.

I hope that the Storm Engineering team

has vision to fix this for Storm2, otherwise

just like Storm, Storm2 will be doomed anyway.

Oh, did I mention crappy speed? Guess what,

Storm CPU is so powerless, can't even put

VOIP app on it, no wonder why the Storm is

slow like smail! Hope they fix that too!

Storm can't handle high quality streaming video

either! Download youtube app and see the crappy

video, you will realize that.

I mean basic things that are expected out of the

"SMART" phone are missing. Try taking a good snap

shot with the camera and you'll know.

I think all boils down to inability to use on-board memory,

slowest CPU and OS that is designed to just do the email.

Email is the only thing that this device can do better.

Go iPhone!!!

[GMAN58]

I have to agree with Xandrex. The applications usage of memory rests on the developer. I have read here many people comparing the Storm to the i phone. My take on it is this. While RIM may look at it as a competitive product for market share, Blackberry has largely always been a business tool. Whereas the i phone is not. If you feel the need to have 400 apps of which you will most likely will use 10% of, than get an an i phone.

The Storm has enough space to suffeceintly run a normal amount of apps for what it is. I as much as anyone else here would like the option to use the 8 gig card, but for practical purposes I do not find it to be as critical an issue as many people here seem to.

[jsultanik]

GMAN58 I need to disagree with you on 2 points.

1.  While Blackberry historically was a business tool, RIM is now marketing agressively toward non-business consumers.  If they are serious about that, the device should be designed to run several applications.  What's the point of App World if you have no room to install apps

2.  I disagree that the Storm has sufficient memory for a normal amount of apps.  It doesn't.  I'll grant you that a large part of the issue is to memory leaks.  But some apps are data intensive - specifically business apps.  I have very few apps on my device and even removed a few core apps.  After a battery pull my free-memory is only in the 30MB range.  that's not alot.  A few more apps and I'll drop below 10MB of free app space, at which point the device slows down.

Forget even about the 8 gig card.  How about just opening up the whole 1 Gig onboard memory to apps?  Why the limitation? 

Its a limitation in the device design that is not properly advertised, had I known when I was device shopping, i would have considered an IPhone.

[stormissues]

I have to agree with jsultanik.

Admission is first step for improvement. All I hear from BB is denial and defence.

I guess if one does not want to improve upon, no one can help them.

[GMAN58]

jsultanik, I understand your point, and it is a good one as far as the approach by RIM to compete with an app running type device. I do not however understand why in your case as many others the memory is so low most of the time.

As mentioned before here, a lot of the usage comes down to the developer and the option of storage as apps expand with data. Exmaple would be a dictionary app which stores onthe memory card vs. device memory.

I have 14 installed apps personally. From financial management to expense trackers as well as two games , for those slower times in the office. Mostly all data accumulating. While I agree battery pulling is something we all wish we could avoid, it is a reallity. I however avergage around 40mb after a pull. And it usually takes 4 days or so of usage to get down to a 20mb level.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the Storm since the OS upgrade from a few months ago, and think it's a better choice than some of the commercialized "kids type" of smart phones.

To each his orher own as they say.

[Xandrex]

Dear all, an application for a smartphone device, apart from using a lot of data like a map, has no reason to take more than 20MB. It it is the case, you can complain on a community forum (like here), but it won't help in any way. Or you can contact the application support and complain to them. If you are valuable to them, they will try and make things better. On the other hand, from RIM's perspective, since this is a hardware limitation, RIM's answer will be always the same : "please upgrade to a newer device". The Storm had 128MB available for installing applications, the Storm 2 has 256MB (double the space). That being said, RIM has provided many ways so that developers can put the application in the application memory (128MB), and all data in the device memory (1GB). It's up to the developer to use that possibility. And it's up to the consumer to pressure the developers to do so. Just a matter of being clever and willing to get things done.

[tooler82]

Not really that it's a hardware issue. Since you all keep talking about how it's like a computer, here's how they could fix it. If you run out of memory on a computer, plug up and external hard drive and there you go, or an internal for that matter. We'll stick with external for this demonstration. In the case of the Blackberry, it would be the memory stick. If you want more space for applications, why aren't we able to use the memory stick? That makes too much sense to me! Come on RIM!

[Xandrex]

the blackBerry OS is coded on C++ but relies on Java features. The applications that run on it are coded in Java, and in Java there is a huge (not tweackable) limitation that forbid to use an external memory as an internal one.