As many of you may already know, memory has been a point of contention for BlackBerry users for quite some time. To get straight to the point, there simply isn’t enough of it. Sure, the newest devices have 16 gig media cards and 2 gigs of internal memory, but, you really only have 256 MB of application space. Once you factor in the OS you are probably only talking about a 100 MB or so from which to install and run applications and if you don’t have a BlackBerry Storm2 or better, the problem is dramatically worse.
The big hit at the BlackBerry Developer’s Conference this week was OpenGL ES which brings 3D graphics support to BlackBerry applications. Starting with the BlackBerry Storm2 and the BlackBerry Curve 8530, developers are going to deliver applications and games that rival what you see on the the iPhone. The problem for RIM, however, is that 3D graphics take up space. They take up a lot of space and the BlackBerrys antiquated way of handling memory is going to be a huge bottleneck.
BlackBerry App World’s ability to archive rarely used applications and store them on your media card allowing you to reclaim that precious application memory is great feature, but, it gets really old really quick when you have do it with apps you use regularly simply because you are out of memory.
RIM needs to fix this…
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe I am oversimplifying the problem but why not just install your apps to the micro SD?
Because you can’t. Apps can only be installed in the application free space.
I’m a staunch defender of RIM and usually take exception to the posted diatribes and prognostications of doom for the Blackberry, but the lack of persistence of Blackberry Memory is troubling, long-term. I am neither someone who insists on having 100,000 goofball apps to cycle through endlessly, but you can eat up and slow down a handheld right out of the box now.
There was a CrackBerry podcast recently with a RIM Engineer that said they know it’s a problem and that all options are on the table. If they don’t fix this next year they are in deep trouble!
The real irony of RIM’s failure to provide Storm users with more application memory is when they began to offer apps per the app- world store. Here was an opportunity for RIM to achieve greater revenues vis-a-vis the sale of apps yet at the same time they constrained the number of apps a Storm user could utilize. Its as if their technological lag was combined wiith a really stupid app marketing campaign. I think what happened is that the best cell phone messaging/texting company attemped to make the leap to a true PDA phone and stumbled badly. But you know what, these are smart people and I suuspect they will regain their mojo in the PDA space in perhaps another six months or so. Unfortunately, we Storm users will have been sacrificed on the alter of RIM’s PDA experimentation-just a bunch of beta testers with no new device tickets for having taken the beta express.
Neil
Neil,
I completely agree with you on your statement. I was wow’d by the Storm and after some light use and a few downloads had come to realize that I was suddenly at the mercy of memory leaks and poor performance due to the lack of available memory. This meant going back and removing applications that weren’t “critical” to my enjoyment or work and making sure to reboot the phone regularly.
I recall the Verizon OTA upgrade that required 22MB of storage on the phone to initiate. With a few apps installed and working with my corp. email, it took 4 reboots to eventually allow the storm to get the full 22MB download and by that time I was done with work for the day and decided to do it via cable when I got home.
Even the newer models shipping with 256MB is inadequate. No way to install additional RAM either. I deleted the non-essentials and am desperate for every byte of app space, yet I have 2GB of unused space on my media card. Ridiculous. My unit crawls, as it constantly is hashing memory. Makes me think I should have bought an iPhone.
I’ve had zero issues with memory leaks on my Storm2. That alone makes me happy enough! The Tour had some leaks though…I’m going to chalk that up to the OS difference. When 5 hits the Tour, I’ll see on my tests. As for an increase in overall memory on the BB, they need a carrot for consumers to keep buying the newer models. Small doses of device upgrades stetch out their business plan to maximize their design efforts before they cycle to a new design.