THE LAWYERS WEEKLY May 29, 2009 | 25 BUSINESS CAREERS Blackberry Storm has PRIMERICA Primerica Financial Services (Canada) Ltd. is one of Canada’s largest financial service organizations. We are currently looking some kinks to work out for a General Counsel/Secretary to join our team at our head office in Mississauga. To paraphrase George Orwell: “Physical both of which make reading from a small keyboard good! Virtual keyboard bad!” screen much easier. That’s the common refrain from many On the hardware side, the Storm’s lack of The ideal candidate will be a self-starter with excellent BlackBerry devotees ever since Cupertino, Wi-Fi means web surfing always happens at communication, organizational and interpersonal skills. Minimum Calif.’s Apple Inc. announced the iPhone two glacial cellular speeds. Its display does not of 6 years working experience in mutual funds, life insurance, years ago. Now, smartphone buyers have switch orientation as quickly or smoothly regulatory compliance and general corporate matters. Able to thrive another choice: the BlackBerry Storm, the when you rotate the device, and processing in a fast-paced environment. Responsibilities include general legal first-ever touch-screen device from lags in other ways. Waterloo, Ont.-based Research in Motion Yet hardware comparisons, like the counsel and corporate secretary functions, and oversight of sales (RIM). The response to the Storm has been Storm’s better camera or availability on more force compliance and investigations. tepid so far and RIM recently networks, skirt RIM’s bigger chal- announced that a second version is HI-TECH lenge. Consider: certain web sites Please forward your resume, with salary expectations, set to be released this fall. like www.thestar.com offer easily in confi dence to: In the first version of the accessible iPhone-friendly pages but Storm, RIM did away with both not BlackBerry-friendly ones. That’s the physical keyboard and the strange, since BlackBerrys had www.careers.citigroup.com, apply to requisition #09009822 trackball. Instead, one large screen browsers years before the iPhone saw that reacts to the touch of a finger the light of day. dominates the device’s face. Swipe LUIGI Also, as Apple.com announced in text, web pages and the like to January on its iPhone page, 15,000 scroll and pan. Press the screen BENETTON legitimate applications from third- and it clicks like the buttons below party software developers are avail- Announcements the trackpad on a notebook computer. Tilt able for the iPhone via its iTunes App Store. the phone on its side and certain applica- That’s an astounding number, given Apple tions change orientation. has only permitted third-party applications For all these changes, the Storm works since July 2008. much like any other modern BlackBerry, so Admittedly, many of these applications current BlackBerry users can expect a gentle are frivolous, but the iPhone developer list learning curve. boasts names like SalesForce.com, Cisco On the phone, numbers are large, easy to (WebEx), IBM (Lotus iNotes), the American press and the features are plainly set forth. I Bar Association (ABA Journal), LinkedIn did have two surprises: once the caller’s and the New York Times. voice abruptly disappeared; another time the Is this frantic pace of third-party develop- speakerphone came on. ment the canary in RIM’s From what I can tell, I coal mine? After all, the clicked the screen each time BlackBerry is the most using my cheekbone. ‘‘ trusted phone/e-mail busi- E-mail is what one [T]he Storm works ness handheld. Other soft- expects from a BlackBerry, much like any other ware developers make with one key difference: the applications for it. Storm displays a SureType modern BlackBerry, But professional produc- keyboard (two letters on tivity means more than most keys) when held so current BlackBerry phone calls and e-mail, and upright and a full keyboard downtime means more than when held on its side. users can a game of BrickBreaker. The full keyboard expect a Updating practice manage- proved frustrating. My ment systems, performing thumbs hid the keys they gentle research and playing a great touched, and the resulting game? All three activities illumination, so accuracy learning are possible, or nearly so, on suffered. Given my pen- today’s smartphones — chant for strong passwords, curve. BlackBerry, iPhone, Win- this was mildly annoying. I dows Mobile, Palm, Sym- preferred the SureType key- bian and Google Android. board. I used it to type e-mail, web addresses And each platform, including RIM, is and less common words (like my own name) chasing Apple by juicing its developer quickly and accurately. Surprisingly, when community and building their own applica- typing passwords on mail.google.com, the tion stores. Driving these efforts is a com- SureType layout switched to an ordinary monly accepted history lesson: the com- cellphone’s number pad layout. puting platform with the most killer apps The Storm is a serviceable device, one dominates its market. RIM needs in its lineup. Having said that, the (Of course, BlackBerrys used only for Storm compares unfavourably in too many calling and e-mailing will continue to serve ways to the iPhone for RIM to leave it in its their owners just as well as WordPerfect does current incarnation for long. in a Word-dominated business computing When using the two devices side by side, world, and there’s nothing wrong with that.) it feels as though Apple rethought the Given its lead in the business market, smartphone around the touch screen while RIM can temporarily afford to market its rel- RIM was constrained by the need to make atively unpolished Storm and put up with the the Storm familiar to current customers. relative lack of public awareness of third- Little things like setting time on the Storm party BlackBerry apps. But strong competi- are less intuitive and trickier. The web tors are nipping at its heels. I, for one, expect browser does not show web pages as clearly much more innovation out of Waterloo — and its zoom tools pale in comparison to the and soon. And one day, maybe, legions of iPhone’s “automatic zoom” trick or the thumb typists will bleat: “Physical keyboard intuitive “pinch in/pinch out” zooming, good! Virtual keyboard better!”