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Clarification: BlackBerry Storm2 and Curve 8530 Are the Only In-Market Devices to Take Advantage of New Open GL APIs

by Kevin Michaluk on 10 Nov 2009 06:17 PM
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Open GL on BlackBerry Smartphones

Following up on yesterday's announcement of Open GL ES support for BlackBerry Smartphones, we followed up with RIM today at the BlackBerry Developer Conference to clarify exactly which devices would be able to take advantage of the 3D graphics standard via the newly-released Open GL APIs. The original press release made note that it would be available to BlackBerry Smartphones running the OS 5.0 platform and higher, which is not totally the case. Not all in-market OS 5.0 devices will be able to run these new apps which incorporate 3D graphics.

Currently, the only devices that will be able to take advantage of the Open GL APIs are those devices running OS 5.0, the latest Qualcomm chipsets that also meet the minimum memory requirements needed to run the standard smoothly, specifically the BlackBerry Storm2 and yet-to-be released BlackBerry Curve 8530. Other existing devices, including the original Storm, and the new Bold 9700 will not be able to run apps and games that make use of the 3D standard even though they have OS 5.0 (am guessing Storm1 doesn't have the memory to do it, while the Bold's processor doesn't play friendly with it just yet). The Tour hasn't had 5.0 officially rolled out to it yet, but hopefully when it does it'll make the Open GL cut. Looking ahead, hopefully more devices (including GSM BlackBerry Smartphones that are not running on Qualcomm chips) will be able to run BlackBerry games and apps that feature Open GL 3D graphics.

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70 Comments

Posted by samuels1289 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

What the f? Fine but I want 5.0 OS on my Tour!

 
 
Posted by callmeforge Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

And what about the upcoming essex?

 
 
Posted by papped Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Considering nothing is supposedly different other than the trackpad + wifi, go figure...

 
 
Posted by Sparro Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

I thought the Storm2 was running the same qualcom chipset ast the original Storm???
Perhaps, if this isn't the case, it does indeed have the HSPA 850/1900 bands hidden inside somewhere????

 
 
Posted by oldTimePens Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Even more reason to drop the tour. What a shame. What a wasted device... ugh I guess with every good thing there must be a negative.

 
 
Posted by keithwired Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009 821 days ago

the tour will get OS 5.0 since it's already been leaked, it just has to be finalized. It has 128mb of on board memory which is double the storm so it makes the memory cut off, it will get Open GL

 
 
Posted by Lumute Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009 821 days ago

You mean the Tour has 256MB which is double what the S1 has and same as S2...

 
 
Posted by rbracht Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

god, you might figure, just got the tour like a month ago. i upgraded from the 8330.. oh well, the tour still rules!

 
 
Posted by UrbanGlowCam Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

So the Storm 2 and Curbe 8530 have superior Qualcomm chipsets than the rest? I thought the 9000/9700 had the most powerful.

I'm a Storm 2 user but It's a shame they can't take advantage of Open GL across all platforms. Hopefully this will change.

 
 
Posted by Lumute Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009 821 days ago

As the article sais, it is not the processor, it is the lack of memory... Also, as I understand it the S1 ca still use OpenGL, just for the 3D specifications as it does not has enough memory, it can probably use the 2D stuff and I beliave the OS is already using it, that's the only explanation for the performance inprovement in 5.0 on the S1.

 
 
Posted by UrbanGlowCam Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

So the Storm 2 and Curve 8530 have superior Qualcomm chipsets than the rest? I thought the 9000/9700 had the most powerful.

I'm a Storm 2 user but It's a shame they can't take advantage of Open GL across all platforms. Hopefully this will change.

 
 
Posted by Steve 3073 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

So the Storm 1 users are SOL and they won't let you upgrade early, GREAT !

 
 
Posted by papped Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Might just be me, but opengl on entry level 85xx and non-support for 96xx+97xx top end series seems counter intuitive, stupid, and leads to massive app market segmentation...

 
 
Posted by 1967LS2 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Storm 1 owners were promised a great array of apps and games for their device. We have endured everything RIM has thrown at us and now we are still SOL and wont be able to have any good openGL games our phone? This is weak sauce! The games available to us look worse than the original Nintendo system. Retarded....

 
 
Posted by tdrus1 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

RIM! Are you, pardon me, SHITTING me?! The 6 month old tour is getting left out in the Cold?

 
 
Posted by papped Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

If it makes you feel any better, the non-released 9700 (in the US) is also getting left out too.

 
 
Posted by cenloe Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

So my Tour has already been ruled obsolete?

 
 
Posted by wes901 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

very boo

 
 
Posted by bigec4000 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

GOT STORM 1. CAN'T EARLY UPGRADE TO STORM 2. AND RIM PULL THIS. THAT'S IT........... ALL THE REASON TO GO TO IPHONE. BYE RIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 
 
Posted by Antic Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

All the more reason to abandon this platform, and move to the Droid, or Jesus-phone.

Since all carriers are equally piss-poor in coverage here where I live, I certainly have no compelling reason to stay with Big Red.

 
 
Posted by bbtour9630 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

I thought the internals were the same from storm 1 to storm 2, except for memory and wifi. Why can't the storm 1 make the cut? The iPod touch 1G and 2G has 128mb flash so why the h can't the storm do it.

Seriously, if they won't support open GL on the storm 1, I'm off BlackBerry. Screwing me once is enough, I'm not willing to wait around for a second round.

 
 
Posted by kneeman Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Can Tour owners read? It says it will be included when the release the OS 5.0

Read people

 
 
Posted by rcocchiararo Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Unless the curve 2 and the storm 2 DO have a newer chipset, there is no reason why any of the 128mb or higher handsets, sporting the msm7600 shouldnt be able to run this things..

and well... the flagship lacking 3d chipset, is SO nokia :P

on the CDMA devices this seems like an arbitrary restriction, SO apple like.

 
 
Posted by PcolaChris Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

I was so excited that this was gonna come to my Storm now i gotta get up money to get the Storm2 yay! :(

 
 
Posted by deeablos Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

How can the BlackBerry 9700 the Flagship model does not support openGL and the 8500 series does?

Is something wrong here? Or RIM thinks we are all retards.

I have high hopes ,but I am having second thoughts to upgrade to another BlackBerry.

 
 
Posted by BrUcY Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

I think people are jumping the gun here.... I highly doubt RIM is just going to forget about the Storm1, Tour and Bold users..... lets be realistic here that would be a shot to their own head.

Anyone ever consider that Storm2 is just the first release of this OpenGL API? If I was a handset maker that's how I would do it.

Relax ;)

 
 
Posted by papped Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Kind of scary that they mention the limitations to the newest qualcomm chipset and memory limits, which leaves out GSM basically entirely...

A huge screw up of miscommunication on their part.

 
 
Posted by ChuckH0308 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Well doesn't that just suck?

 
 
Posted by Yandar Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Sooooo...no GSM support for it. I think I will have to think long and hard if i should cancel my 9700 that I have ordered and ditch BB once my contract is up. The world does not run on CDMA. What have they been drinking in Waterloo.

NOT impressed.

 
 
Posted by phillypharm Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Yeah that's pretty f-ed up that only the 8530 and 9550 get this. I just jumped ship to the droid for now. I do miss bb but the amount of available apps and overall superior performance of this phone over the storm really made the decision for me. I'll probably be back to bb in a year or so, but they really need to up the ante.

 
 
Posted by Bolo Banderas Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Say it ain't so...

 
 
Posted by jgaylejr Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

I'm confused. Exactly how did they decide to make the 8530 compatible and not the 9700??

 
 
Posted by papped Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

According to this complete lack information announcement clarification, only the latest qualcomm chipsets are compatible. GSM doesn't use qualcomm....

 
 
Posted by katiepea Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

this is disappointing, just got excited, and honestly, this is only going to be for a remotely small percentage of blackberry users. so basically all this HUGE news is for 10% of the blackberry community.... i'm totally in love with the service blackberry has, but honestly if they don't do something soon, i'm out... this open gl stuff looks fantastic, but now it just still seems like BIGGER band aids and from the podcast i'm not even too sure RIM acknowledges their weakness. i'm gonna say if blackberry doesn't just fold up and face the truth, and either get a new os or start releasing android phones, they're gonna be done, their push service is not only NOT enough to keep customers, it's not enough to get new ones. this new technology rim is dancing off as upcoming next year, is really 3 years old, if they're this far behind i'm not sure they can catch up, every word of this was hard to write.

 
 
Posted by Kaptain75329 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

We'll have to wait and see what RIM does. I can't imagine this news getting this much hype from RIM if they didn't plan to extend this technology across their entire line.

OS 5, the new JDE, forthcoming Flash integration.. a lot of this material from the BlackBerry Developer Conference looks be engaging in laying the foundation for RIM's near future direction and overall strategy.

The only thing missing thus far is the companion hardware in the pipeline. The devices being released this year look to be the result of R&D work completed prior to the developer push we're seeing today. For answers to the hardware question, I suspect we'll find out what 2010 brings and what the roadmap looks like then.

Not quite ready to write RIM off yet. We're seeing a lot of potential for the BlackBerry platform coming out of this conference; RIM appears to be genuinely (and considerably) invested addressing the weaknesses.

 
 
Posted by mystichero06 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

just wait because no one saw the storm one getting 5.0 first and before the storm 2 release at that so anything is possible and i think the marvel chips in gsm berries dont have open gl though which sucks for them really so yeah storm 1 is more likely to have it in some shape or form i think its already there in flick scrolling and transitions plus memory being the limiting factor is weak sauce storm has 192 mb of ram which is more than enough for open gl and app memory cant be the case because most games will take more than 200 mb and no berrie has that free after the os is installed so who knows lol

 
 
Posted by katiepea Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

that was pretty much my point ...even best case scenario bold/bold2/storm/storm2/ even if they all have open gl support, these devices are so fundamentally crippled with 5 year old technology as far as app memory and access features go that it'd be useless for anything outside of the OS. you couldn't install any big games on these devices. this is why iphone users use so much more data than non iphone users, because they're downloading huge apps because the OS can handle it. i dunno, i got excited for a minute about this news, and i'm sure it IS big news in terms of OS but not community. at this point i really think RIM may be too far behind other companies, there are just devices coming out that are amazing and rim is just ...not up to par... i honestly don't think RIM is going to survive, microsoft will end up buying them and it'll die from there, nobody that doesn't have a blackberry already gives 2 craps about them, and i can't blame them. if you're not already aware of why blackberry is good you're just not going to be. rim isn't offering anything uniquely new, they're offering half assed attempts and what everybody else did 3 years ago. i mean lets be honest, the bb os isn't much better than a razr OS. the service and features offered are, but the OS is virtually the same. they've just prettied it up with nice screen resolutions and fast cpu's. eventually polishing a turd will make it fall apart. that day is not far. google is just getting started, they went after the iphone first, and with RIM's share falling daily, they'll be next. the only thing RIM has over it is push service, and don't think google won't be offering that too, they ABSOLUTELY will.

 
 
Posted by samuels1289 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Ah.. The Tour hasn't had 5.0 officially rolled out to it yet, but hopefully when it does it'll make the Open GL cut.

Okay, I am praying to God for that.

 
 
Posted by edwinc8811 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

when i bought the storm 1, i never expected it to have 3d graphics. Now when i buy the storm 2, i wont feel as bad since they are not the exact same thing.

its like buying a gameboy and getting mad because the next generation gameboy has much better graphics even though they look the same, jeez people...

 
 
Posted by bbtour9630 Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009 820 days ago

It doesn't have better graphics. It has the same as storm 1. Jeez.

Apple didn't f over the 1G iPhone people - they still got app compatibility when the app store was released in conjunction with the 2nd gen iPhone. We are rightfully pissed off.

 
 
Posted by TenOfZero Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

I think thye will have a lot of angry 9700 users (myself included) that the lowen BB's like the 8530 has support but not the brand new 9700. It's just bad PR.

 
 
Posted by johnnymac Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Happy about my Storm 2. Sorry for others. Yay me!

(ok that was mean; I'm sorry).

 
 
Posted by peytonobrien Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

wow! this is great. It can be able to run 3D games and apps.

 
 
Posted by gtg Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

9700 has 624MHz processor and 9630 has 528MHz processor, if bold 2 doesn't make cut, why would tour? This doesn't make sense.

 
 
Posted by Brnkvc Thursday, Nov 12, 2009 820 days ago

9700 uses a Marvell processor whereas Tour uses Qualcomm. Qualcomm is able to handle openGL, not Marvell. Sucks.

 
 
Posted by Jbaabmonsta Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Storm2 here I come

 
 
Posted by jetman1287 Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Bull that it doesn't work on Storm 1...

 
 
Posted by Kuttysark Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009 821 days ago

Ugh, that just pisses me off, Curve 8900 left out for now :( POO! I say POO!

 
 
Posted by Rello Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009 821 days ago

I absolutely love my 8900. Only other thing it could use is 3g and honestly thats not a big deal to me as I;ve never owned a 3g BlackBerry and edge is not bad at all to me. I was also jumping for joy earlier when i read those posts but this one just ruined my day. I really hope some explaining is done by RIM and soon. The Tour, 8900, and 9700 are all phones that seem as if they should be capable for this feature. RIM is really on thin ice with me. I really like their products, but with other companies releasing awesome phones (ie. HD2, Dragon, N900, X10), it makes me wonder how long us blackberry users will have to wait until we truly see higher end specs in our phones. We still don't have 5 megapixel cameras, front facing cameras for video calling, high resolution video recording and many other features that other phones have. Since i will obviously have to purchase another phone to have this Open GL feature, RIM has time summer time next year so I can see this new browser and produce a truly lut-worthy blackberry. If not then I'm done

 
 
Posted by Nemesis2k9 Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009 821 days ago

THe Storm1 is based on the MSM 7600 chipset and is more than capable of at pushing open GL ES!! In fact its the same damn thing powering the Storm 2! If this is true RIM, just lost another customer:( To think a few minutes ago I was jumping for joy about the announcements yesterday!!!

 
 
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