Despite slow sales growth over the past three months, the iPhone is still fresh in the minds of most smartphone users. So fresh that a lot of them wish they owned Apple’s handset instead of their own. A new study from market research firm Crowd Science shows that 40 percent of Blackberry users will be switching to an iPhone when their current plans are up.

It’s not just the iPhone. Some 32 percent of Blackberry users said they would switch out for a Nexus One when the time came. The real trouble, it seems, is RIM’s platform. While Android and Apple’s iPhone OS have matured into serious entertainment platforms, RIM has tried to rally a stalwart defense of its corporate clientele. Oddly enough, that defense has looked like offering more of the same that made the Blackberry a success in a pre-iPhone world.

It’s already too late for RIM to turn this ship around. The company needs a new operating system and a completely different pitch, neither of which are likely to happen in the next six months. By then the defectors will really start to hurt. Don’t bet on Android or iPhone users heading RIM’s direction, either. Some 90 percent of those users plan to stick with their current platform.

Amazon is starting to see the writing on the wall, it seems. There isn’t a compelling reason for people to buy a Kindle anymore. Other ereaders offer the same price on books with more features and the latest wave of tablet PCs make the hardware look obsolete. So what does Bezos do? He releases a Kindle app for yet another piece of hardware: the Blackberry.

Amazon recently opened the floodgates with Kindle support for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Windows machines. Today we get Blackberry support and the company says it’s headed for Macs and iPads next. If that doesn’t sound like admitted defeat, I don’t know what does. It’s funny too, considering the publisher problems Amazon has had since the iPad announcement.

“Since the launch of our popular Kindle for iPhone app last year, customers have been asking us to bring a similar experience to the BlackBerry, and we are thrilled to make it available today,” said Amazon’s Kindle VP, Ian Freed. There is at least one difference between the two; the Blackberry version doesn’t support creating annotations from within the app.

Official Site

I’m fairly certain that my first reaction on seeing my wife suddenly go into serious labor would be panic. And the furthest thing from my mind would be, “oh, I’ll just deliver this little guy.” That’s not happening. For Leroy Smith, though, there wasn’t a second thought. He fired up Google on the old Blackberry and delivered his fourth child while the family’s midwife was en route.

Upon arrival, all the midwife had to do was clamp and cut the umbilical cord. The newest Smith was born without incident. According to the UK’s Sun:

Leroy said before the birth of Mahalia on December 1, his wife disapproved of his BlackBerry because he was always playing with it but now she has “changed her tune”.

Smith says he’s told the story over and over, and that his other children are proud. They should be. Delivering a baby is no easy task, let alone doing it without a single hang-up.

Source: Sun

Starting tomorrow, Walmart’s offering a pretty nice deal for new Blackberry owners. When you purchase a new Blackberry, either in the store or online, you’ll get a $100 gift, which you’ll likely then blow on chargers and other accessories. It’s a great deal, and it runs through the end of next week.

The deal works like a rebate for online purchases, so you’re waiting 4-6 weeks for your card, but in-store purchases get the gift card instantly. And yes, this is for two-year contracts only.

As for the phones you can get, Walmart carries the following Blackberry devices:

– AT&T Curve 8310
– AT&T Bold 9000
– Sprint Curve 8330
– T-Mobile 8520
– T-Mobile Pearl 8120
– Verizon Storm
– Verizon Storm II

Again, deal runs from the 14th to the 21st.

Verizon made a quiet little announcement yesterday – the Blackberry Storm 2 will be out tomorrow, October 28th. The news follows a year of leaks, so it’s not much of a surprise. It’s odd, though, that Big Red is so nonchalant about the release. The original Storm wasn’t quite the hit it was supposed to be, but the Storm 2 is supposed to have fixed most of the original problems.

Part of the Storm 2’s problem is that it’s been almost universally panned. The GPS is supposedly awful and the Blackberry OS 5.0 has a tendency to reset spontaneously on the 9550. There’s also the fact that the Blackberry OS continues to age while systems like the iPhone OS and Android are doing a better job of growing alongside the devices they support.

As for positive additions, the Storm 2 finally adds WiFi and makes a big improvement on the original’s touchscreen. The Storm 2 will run $179.99 on contract after a $100 mail-in rebate.