Wirelessnorth.ca

So RIMs iphone killer is landing at Telus. Or rather, safer to say for now, Telus’ Instinct-killer. Almost certainly, the storm will be more appealing than Bells touchscreen pony the Samsung Instinct.

It feels like there’s a whole cottage industry now amongst the handset makers in giving the desperate CDMA carriers to market against the iPhone. RIM’s core market is North America (the last bastion of CDMA) and it’s not the first time they’ve done something special for that standard. For a while the only 3G blackberries were on Bell/Telus’s EVDO network.

As for iPhone-killing, comparable specs are one thing, but RIM’s storm has a long way to go to match the feverish zeitgeist of the iPhone, not to mention iTunes integration, the app developer base etc. Of course we wish the Waterlooers the best of luck.

Along that line, more news/rumor from RIM is that they will also be launching an app store. The bad news is, that rather than be centrally hosted, the app store is unique to each carrier. We don’t know the full details yet, but that doesn’t sound good for developers. Rather than Apple’s slow and inscrutable app approval process, you can now look forward to something of the same with every carrier. What joy. Now little Johnny, don’t go building any app that might disrupt a Carrier business model, whether that model be present, future or imaginary…

As Alec puts it:

The appeal of the AppStore is that it goes around the carrier. As a developer, the last thing I want is to go on bended knee to 180 carriers to ask them to carry my software. Been there, done that, got the rugburn.

We shall see how Telus handles it. In the meantime, good for Telus and RIM for bringing us more fun toys to play with and a little more competition. Feel free to send one or two by the WirelessNorth.ca headquarters for closer inspection…

The storm should be out in time for Christmas (that doesn’t sound soon), we have no idea on the pricing contracts. Sometimes Christmas is a time Telus likes to throw the other carriers a curve ball when it comes to special plans and pricing. Ask Santa for that.

UPDATE: Looks like Bell is getting the storm too, so no competitive scoop for Telus. Maybe Telus and the newly privatized Bell should just merge and get it over with?…