New BlackBerry, Android upgrade play catch-up with Apple

By Larry Magid

Daily News columnist
Posted: 08/03/2010 06:04:27 PM PDT
Updated: 08/03/2010 06:06:46 PM PDT

A few weeks ago, the big news in the smartphone world was that Apple set the world right by agreeing to give away free cases to iPhone 4 users to prevent them from touching a crack in the phone's antenna which could lower call quality. This week, we're hearing from the other camps.

Research in Motion, the Canadian company that makes the BlackBerry on Tuesday announced a new model designed to compete with the iPhone and phones running Google's Android operating system. The BlackBerry Torch is RIM's first phone with a true touch-screen interface, similar to iPhone and Android phones. As the first phone to use the new BlackBerry 6 operating system, it even comes with a web browser that lets you use two fingers to "pinch" the screen to zoom in and out.

The Torch has a new media player, enhanced media synchronization and "universal search" which means that a single search tool can be used to find anything on your phone or on the web including contacts, apps, personal data and websites.

The phone also comes configured with BlackBerry's "App World," which is RIM's answer to the Apple App store and Google's Android Marketplace.

More: http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_15670471?nclick_check=1