The Hardware
The Body
It's surprisingly heavy. Like, heavier than RIM's manly slab of smartphone, the Bold, at 5.47 oz to the Bold's 4.7 oz. It feels thick, too, thicker than it actually is, because of its squarish shape. It looks good, it feels okay in your hand. It's just kind of clunky at the same time. On the other hand though, all this substance also makes the Storm feel really robust. You'll never feel like you're going to break it.

That Button Screen
When you push the screen and it clicks, it's a genuinely satisfying tactile sensation that, as I said in my hands on, is clearly a finely tuned experience. You won't accidentally press it when you don't mean to, but you don't have to drop a sledgehammer on it, either. Like the rest of the body, it's a sturdy piece of hardware that seems like it will hold up over the many, many thousands of clicks it will endure in its life time. The only concern is that it seems like the chasm between the screen and rest of the body is a lint nest waiting to happen. But the gap is large enough you should be able to clean your pocket gunk out with the edge of a toothpick.

The Other Buttons
For a touchscreen phone, the Storm has a lot of damn buttons. Nine, to be exact: The four standard BlackBerry buttons, one side button, a volume rocker, and dedicated lock and mute keys. I wouldn't get rid of any of them. The BlackBerry button is still your best friend, since you'll still need to bring up the menu in practically every situation.

Screen
The Storm has the biggest, highest resolution screen RIM has ever produced with a 480x360 res. It's bright and beautiful, though not quite as stunning as the Bold's since it has a lower pixel density. Still, the OS and video look fantastic on it, with plenty of pop. The capacitive touchscreen is fairly responsive—on par with the T-Mobile G1—though sometimes the OS lags behind you.

Battery
We haven't fully tested the battery life on the Storm yet, but it seems to be respectable. The battery isn't quite as beefy as the beast powering the Bold, but you shouldn't have a huge problem getting through the day on one charge or anything.

Network
No Wi-Fi is a bummer, even with Verizon's fantastic 3G network, 'cause not even it penetrates everywhere. That said, one of the Storm's greatest strengths is Verizon's network, with its basically unbeatable coverage, and you'll get a signal most everywhere that's not a subway, airplane or supervillian secret lair. 3G is plenty fast and more reliable than AT&T, so it's been sunshine. Any pokiness in web browsing is the software's fault. Calls sounded great to the other party, though they sounded kind of muted to me on the default volume compared to the Bold.

Camera
The camera is 3.2MP of noisy noise, like most cellphone cameras. The camera is tarted up with some basic photo editing features and a dedicated flash, but it's nothing incredible.

GPS
The GPS seems to provide a pretty accurate location with a reasonable amount of speed, though you're stuck with Verizon's VZ Navigator as the main navigation app (no BlackBerry maps). Some people really hate Verizon's program, so you might be less than stoked here.

OS and Usability
Interface
RIM's first touchscreen BlackBerry doesn't toss the old baby out with the buttons (or something like that). It's very much the familiar BlackBerry OS, just with a UI that's been optimized for your fat fingers. It's pretty, with big, easy-to-press icons, lots of fade transition as you move from screen to screen, and standard highlight motif of lighting up a Dr. Manhattan shade of blue whenever you select something. It does take a little getting used to the idea of highlighting something being distinct from actually pushing it, but it's no biggie.

The list menus—like the menu pop up when you press the BlackBerry button or lists of messages—are just spacey enough to be touchable without pressing the wrong thing very often. The accelerometer is pretty decent at keeping up with you and will rotate the screen in all four orientations, letting you choose to the have the four main buttons on the left or right in portrait mode. It got stuck in the wrong orientation less often than the iPhone does (to me anyway), which is good, since the only way to use the full QWERTY keyboard is in landscape. In portrait mode, the only keyboard is the SureType—a virtual rendition of the Pearl's funky number/letter pad.

The major issue with the interface, at least in the main menu area, is that it lags. Like, enough to be annoying. Scrolling through the main menu, for instance, it seems like part of the scroll slowdown is deliberate (I don't know why) but the sluggishness turned to choppiness more often than occasionally. The transition fades from screen to screen, besides being inconsistent (sometimes you get 'em, sometimes you don't), make the OS actually feel slower. And when it does lag, it's somehow more frustrating because it makes you distrust and pissed off at the SurePress feedback—not good for your major selling point.

Stability
The Storm needed a little bit longer in the oven—I had lotsa lock-ups and crashes over the last two days with it. Lag was all over the place, which is a cardinal sin with a touch-based UI. It really needs to be more stable. I wonder how long before there's a software update, 'cause it needs one badly.

The Keyboard
The keyboard layouts themselves are roomy and perfect, with the QWERTY subtly divided into two halves. Which actually makes for a good guideline—keep your thumbs on their respective sides of the divide and you'll be a much happier camper when it comes to typing, since you have to consciously let the screen pop back up between every letter press. Having a true alternating rhythm between your thumbs makes it much easier to use, so you're not trying to press a key with your other thumb while the screen's already pushed in.

RIM makes a big deal out of the fact they've separated navigation from confirmation with their SurePress thing. That, hypothetically, is a means to an end, the end being more accurate typing than a standard, feedbackless touch keyboard. In that respect, it fails. Even after two days, with the keyboard's great layout and perfect size, I was leaning just as hard on the autocorrect on the Storm as I ever did on the iPhone. Here's why: Confirming I've pushed a key doesn't actually tell me whether I've pushed the right one. Which makes the feedback, as far as typing on a keyboard goes, basically useless. It's made worse by the fact that RIM's glowing blue highlights also are far less effective than pop up letters at indicating what key you're pushing.

I hate to say this, but I kind of came to hate typing on it. Pushing the screen in over and over requires so much more effort than simply gliding my fingers around a good touch keyboard. It was tiring. SurePress is a bit less annoying with the onscreen SureType keyboard in portrait mode though. One other gripe is that you can't get a QWERTY keyboard in portrait, even though its screen is as wide as the iPhone's.

Other Touchiness
Copy and paste! Yeah, Storm's got it. You highlight text by putting your fingers on either side of the text you want to highlight, then you've got a little menu that pops up below asking what you want to do with it. Your fingers are probably too big to do it correctly every time, but once you've learned the process of how to float the cursor with a long touch, it's easy and it works most of the time. Moving the cursor around within text isn't quite as intuitive as the iPhone's magnifying glass, but once you hover to take it into cursor mode, the whole screen acts like a trackpad, so you can move anywhere around it. It works. There are some other cool UI things here—in your inbox, hovering over an email will bring up every one in that thread.

Email and Texting
It's a BlackBerry, so yes, the Storm is everything you'd expect from one in the email department, like search, push, the works, just touched up with a touch UI. For instance, the aforementioned easy search feature, which also bring a menu when you hover over a person's name to do things like send them an MMS (take that iPhone!) or add to contacts that works really well with touch. Thankfully, I saw lag in the email app far less than anywhere else in the phone—it was always snappy, and works really with the touch UI. It's also got a few subtle aesthetic enhancements over the email client in the Bold. I'd like threaded text messaging, but it's the standard BlackBerry setup here that looks just like email.

Calling and Visual Voicemail
The phone UI is pretty dandy, with giant buttons all around and easy access to logs, contacts, and contact search. Contacts is a fairly standard list thing with search. Visual voicemail though, that is a snazzy looking app. It's kind of busy, but I think it's one place I like the UI better than the iPhone.

Browser
The first thing I asked the RIM rep was how much better the Storm's browser was than the Bold, which kind of eats it when it comes to scripts. He said it was improved "but don't expect a miracle." That's a good assessment. It's fast, faster than the Bold whenever I put them side by side, but not quite the fastest browser on the planet. It's also smarter than the Bold, rendering pages more accurately where the Bold slipped. Performance once pages loaded was good. I'll be doing some more formal benchmarks, like with our browser Battlemodo earlier today, shortly.

One thing RIM gets really right is the browser UI. You have lots of of options for getting around—two prominent zoom in and out buttons, plus you can zoom by clicking. Very easy. You've got two main navigation modes though—pan mode, where your finger swipes zoom around the page, and cursor mode, where the whole screen acts like a trackpad. I mostly stuck with pan mode. SurePress comes in handy when scrolling, because you'll never accidentally press a link again. One thing I'd like is multitouch zooming (sorry, gotta say it) and a way to quickly get to the bottom of the page, since a hard flick doesn't send you flying like on mobile Safari. Overall though, RIM delivers pretty big here.

Multimedia
The biggest improvement over the Bold, media wise, is that the Storm comes with an 8GB microSD card. Unfortunately, everywhere else, it's mostly the same. The media player UI is essentially identical, with minimal tweaks to make it touchable. On the actual playback screen, it's fine, and album art looks great. However, the list system it uses is fairly tired and straight out of the old BlackBerry playbook essentially. The bigger pain point, if you're comparing it to the iPhone's multimedia muscle, is the crappy Roxio Media Manager. New phone, same crap. Please please please get better media software, RIM—this stuff is beneath you. Video looks really great on that screen though!

Apps
Okay, so you've got Verizon's Navigator as the main navigator app. It's okay and has some solid features, but not as easy to use as Google Maps. I haven't roadtested it, but it's more responsive than on other phones I've used it on, and benefits from the Storm's big screen.

You'll probably be excited when you see an icon in the main menu for the Application Center. The Storm's App Store it is not. It's just where you can download Verizon and RIM's pre-approved apps like Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger, Flickr, Facebook and the like (there are a lot of IM clients). It's where you'll grab software updates for the phone, but don't expect to be using it frequently since updates will be few and far between. It's browser based, which is annoying. The actual app store, the one you want, won't hit until next year, and we're waiting impatiently for it. In the meantime, you can find BlackBerry apps the old fashioned way, on the internets.

Verdict
The Storm is a strong effort from RIM, but it's not quite the killer phone that they or Verizon need it to be. It's good—RIM clearly put a lot of thought into the design. But I think it fall short of what they were aiming for, and ultimately what all the hype is driving people to expect. Some of this is fixable: The damn thing needs to crash less often. But SurePress is not the end-all, be-all of touchscreen technologies—it's not really an evolutionary step forward, even. The experience may be fairly refined, but more polish is still needed. Had this Storm been left to brew a bit longer, it would've been much more powerful.

The very first time you touch the BlackBerry Storm—RIM's first all-touchscreen keyboard-free smartphone, just announced for Verizon Wireless—you will be startled. No matter how many times your fingers dance on the screen like you've been trained on every other touchscreen, nothing will happen. At least, not until you push the screen all the way down and you feel a click. Yes, the screen is a giant button, one you have to punch for basically every action, even every letter you type, completely breaking the touchscreen paradigm. Surprisingly, it works.

While the Storm's defining feature is this, what RIM ungracefully calls ClickThrough, the phone is much, much more. The term "iPhone killer" is clumsily tossed around by bloggers and journos (including us) to describe almost any phone with a touchscreen, but by trying to actually innovate rather than imitate, RIM has conjured up the phone most deserving of the title yet. It's got an innovative multi-touch UI (thanks to ClickThrough), runs on Verizon's EV-DO 3G network in the US, as well as any GSM HSPA 3G networks when abroad, so it's a true global smartphone. OK, maybe there never will be an "iPhone killer"—it's a stupid idea anyway—but based on our limited time with the BlackBerry Storm, it seems like it will definitely hold its own against every other marquee handset on the market.

Typing on that clicky touchscreen
Let's talk more about ClickThrough, since using the Storm means using it. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, who notoriously said he can't type on a piece of glass, told me that it was in development for years as they looked to evolve past the trackball while accomplishing something no touchscreen has before: Separating navigation from confirmation. So you have to push the touchscreen like a button every time you do something. Typing with it takes some getting used to, even if you can fly on an iPhone or other touchscreen device, because you have to retrain yourself to actually lift your thumb back off of the screen to let it pop back up between every single letter. Since you can't "flow" continuously in a stream but are pounding out a series of clicks, it's hard to tell in the limited time I had with it how fast you would be able to go once you're completely re-trained. It's a unique and finely tuned sensation, and I liked it, but I could definitely see people loathing it.

Getting around
More on navigation. One annoyance when typing is that it highlights letters in blue rather than doing a magnified pop-up like the iPhone or LG Vu, so letters will probably be obscured if you have fat fingers. One of the weird inconsistencies (there are a few) with needing to clickthrough for an action actually occurs with copy and paste, which took a few seconds to get down since it involved a long hold and drag when it was demoed for me—they oddly didn't show me the multitouch method shown in the leaked user guide, though RIM later confirmed it would be there. Also worth noting is that it has an accelerometer (which seemed to be a hair more sensitive than the iPhone's), so it detects whether it's in landscape or portrait orientation, using the QWERTY keyboard for text entry in the former and SureType for the latter.

While the BlackBerry OS has been optimized for grubby fingers, all of the standard BlackBerry navigation paradigms are in play, so there's plenty of pushing the four buttons along the bottom of the screen: menu, back, send and end like you would on a regular BlackBerry to get around.

Browsing and network
The browser improves upon the one in the Bold and is even more competent at rendering HTML. You have a couple different ways to navigate around a page, though the most unique makes use of the whole screen as a trackpad, so that once you have the cursor pop up, you can put your finger anywhere on the screen to move it around, just like on a notebook. It's context sensitive, so it'll do what it's supposed to when you hit a link or whatnot. It had some trouble with a text entry field in the browser, as well as some other jitters, but then it obviously wasn't a final version. RIM's concern with the user experience is very apparent, so I expect it to be cleaned up when the final version ships in November, though I'm not holding my breath for flash support.

Overall, it was a solid browsing experience, though one thing to take note of that is per Verizon standards, you'll be doing it over EV-DO, not Wi-Fi, since it doesn't have the latter. Lack of Wi-Fi is one of the biggest knocks on the phone, no matter how damn good Verizon's network might be. The fact that it packs both EV-DO and HSPA into a single phone is a truly impressive feat worth marveling over, but why couldn't they cram Wi-Fi in there too?

Screen, multimedia and consumer features
The screen is gorgeous. I haven't seen the HTC Touch HD in person, but barring that, the 480x360 184-pixel-per-inch stunner could be the best screen on the market. It's bright, contrasty, the colors are beautiful and the viewing angle is ridiculous. I think I could watch the whole of Iron Man on it. Media navigation isn't as intuitive as the iPhone, basically re-using the usual BlackBerry UI, but it's not difficult to get around by any means. Still, RIM clearly intends to take the fight seriously, since the Storm supports a bunch of audio and video formats, will come with an 8GB microSD card and supports stereo Bluetooth. It'll also have Verizon's V CAST, naturally.

The Storm is RIM's most consumer-oriented device yet, but it's also still a BlackBerry heart, with all of the standard enterprise features like Office document editing, full email search, Exchange support—everything a BlackBerry user expects. Not to mention littler touches like BlackBerry Maps (it'll have Verizon's VZ Navigator too), BrickBreaker and Facebook pre-installed.

The outlook
You've already seen the app store in leaks, and RIM told me that there will be an SDK for the phone in short order. The weird explosion of consumer-oriented BlackBerry apps a little while ago was not a coincidence—RIM seems fully aware that a strong developer community and killer apps are more critical than ever in the consumer smartphone market.

This will be the most important phone in Verizon's lineup, and from the looks of it, the best. Some people will hate ClickThrough—it's not a perfect solution, but it's genuinely innovative and really damn good. Some people will hate that it's not the iPhone (or the G1, since it's another tightly integrated hardware/software package). But for BlackBerry users looking for a touchscreen phone, or Verizon customers who don't want to do without the carrier's superior coverage area, this is the best there is.

If you've got questions, leave them in the comments, I'll answer them.

BlackBerry Takes the World by Storm on the Most Reliable Networks in Europe and the U.S.

Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and RIM Deliver the Power of a Smartphone with the World’s First Tactile Touch Display on a BlackBerry

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., NEWBURY, England, and WATERLOO, Ontario – Verizon Wireless, Vodafone Group (NYSE:VOD)(LSE:VOD) and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced that the BlackBerry(R) Storm(TM) will be available later this fall, exclusively to Verizon Wireless customers in the U.S. and Vodafone customers in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Designed to satisfy the needs of both consumers and business customers, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone combines the powerful communications features, global connectivity and personal productivity advantages of the BlackBerry(R) platform with a revolutionary touch-screen technology that dramatically enhances the touch interface and enables easy and precise typing. The world's first "clickable" touch-screen responds much like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation.

In the U.S., Verizon Wireless customers will benefit from the nation's most reliable wireless voice network and the pervasiveness of Verizon Wireless' reliable high-speed 3G Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) network for rich Internet browsing and multimedia applications. In Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand, Vodafone will support customers with its high-speed 3G mobile broadband networks and the power and reach of the world's leading international mobile communications group.

"We are proud to introduce the first touch-screen based BlackBerry smartphone together with Verizon Wireless and Vodafone," said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer at RIM. "The BlackBerry Storm is a revolutionary touch-screen smartphone that meets both the communications and multimedia needs of customers and solves the longstanding problem associated with typing on traditional touch-screens. Consumers and business customers alike will appreciate this unique combination of a large and vibrant screen with a truly tactile touch interface."

"The BlackBerry Storm offers our customers more ways to stay connected to both their personal and professional lives - whether in their communities or around the globe," said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless. "The BlackBerry Storm combines the reliability of our 3G network with the dependability and network efficiency of the BlackBerry platform to deliver our customers the ultimate wireless experience - all in one of the coolest smartphones available on the market today."

"We are delighted to bring the power of the purpose built BlackBerry Storm, directly into the hands of consumer and business customers," said Frank H. Rovekamp, global chief marketing officer, Vodafone Group. "With its unique clickable touch-screen, giving access to all the desirable multi-media features and services such as browsing, music and video, turn-by-turn satellite navigation, messaging and social networking, and BlackBerry's mobile heritage and strong business reputation, the BlackBerry Storm is being brought by Vodafone into the consumer world. With Vodafone's ultra high-speed, reliable mobile network and this exclusive and exciting new smartphone, there has never been a better time to be with Vodafone."

Touch and Feel
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone comes with an innovative touch-screen that actually depresses ever so slightly when the screen is pressed. The user distinctly feels the screen being pressed and released with a gentle "click", similar to the feeling of a key on a physical keyboard or a button on a mouse. The "clickable" touch-screen gives the user positive confirmation that they have made a selection and the result is a dramatically enhanced touch interface and a highly-intuitive typing experience.

In addition to the familiar navigation keys ("phone," "menu" and "escape") that are common to other BlackBerry smartphones, the new BlackBerry Storm adds support for multi-touches, taps, slides and other touch-screen gestures, so customers can easily highlight, scroll, pan and zoom for smooth navigation.

The BlackBerry Storm smartphone also features a built-in accelerometer, allowing its touch-screen to automatically switch between landscape mode and portrait mode as the user rotates the handset - RIM's SureType(R) keyboard layout is available in portrait mode and a full QWERTY(1) keyboard layout is available in landscape mode. Other relevant features, such as cut and paste, are only a touch away for the ultimate smartphone experience.

World Class Smartphone
The BlackBerry Storm is a top-of-the-line 3G mobile phone with premium features and global connectivity. In the U.S., the BlackBerry Storm 9530 gives Verizon Wireless customers 3G EV-DO Rev. A/CDMA technology - and (2100Mhz) UMTS/HSPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM for global use. The BlackBerry Storm 9500 from Vodafone supports (2100Mhz) UMTS/HSPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks.

Browsing is Fast and Easy
Customers will enjoy a full HTML high-performance browser that works in either portrait or landscape orientation. Navigating Web sites is fast and easy with the touch-screen interface that lets users double tap to zoom in and slide their fingers to scroll and pan.

Icons along the bottom of the display allow for quickly accessing Web sites, switching between "Page View" and "Column View" as well as the ability to toggle between "Pan" mode and "Cursor" mode. The enhanced browser supports file downloading, streaming audio and video (RTSP), and with its built-in RSS support, new content from supported Web sites can be automatically pushed to the user.

Staying Connected
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone brings the full power of the industry's leading mobile e-mail and messaging solution without compromise. It supports personal and corporate e-mail and text (SMS), picture (MMS) and instant (IM) messaging on the most prevalent consumer and enterprise platforms, as well as easy access to popular social networking sites.

Packed with Additional Features
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone, available from Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, also includes the following features and functions:

- BlackBerry(R) Internet Service, BlackBerry(R) Unite!, BlackBerry(R) Professional Software and BlackBerry(R) Enterprise Server support
- Preloaded DataViz(R) Documents to Go(R) allows users to edit Microsoft(R) Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset
- 3.2 megapixel camera with variable zoom, auto focus and a powerful flash that also provides continuous lighting when recording video
- Built-in GPS supports location-based applications and services, as well as geotagging of photos
- 1 GB of onboard memory storage and a microSD(TM)/SDHD memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB of additional storage
- Media player that can play movies smoothly in full screen mode, display pictures and slideshows quickly and manage an entire music collection; playlists can be created directly on the handset and there's an equalizer with 11 preset filters - including "Lounge," "Jazz" and "Hip Hop" - for customized audio ranges when using wired headphones or external speakers
- A 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, support for Bluetooth(R) stereo audio profile (A2DP/AVRCP) and dedicated volume controls
- Sleek, elegant design with contoured corners, stainless steel back and chrome accents surrounding its large (3.25") glass lens; its exceptional 480 x 360 resolution at 184 ppi is crisp and bright with eye-pleasing clarity
- An ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts backlighting for ideal screen viewing and an accelerometer that allows customers to view applications in either portrait or landscape mode by simply rotating the handset
- Removable and rechargeable 1400 mAhr battery that provides approximately six hours of talk time on 3G networks and 15 days of standby time

[RIM, Verizon]

[Crackberry, Howard Forums]

CrackBerry also reiterates the past bit that it'll be a glass multi-touch screen with dual tactile feedback—it pushes in just a bit like a giant button and has localized haptics (it vibrates where you push it). However, the BlackBerry button will still be in heavy use to navigate around the OS. No further info on the delayed/not delayed spat, or on the name. We've heard that its carrier name is actually Storm. [CrackBerry]

The UI has serious scrolling lag and blinks, there's a significant delay after every keypress and the accelerometer goes "bonkers" when you move the phone.

Apparently BGR's source says the phone "won’t be ready for at least another 4-5 months." And, most damningly, people who've got their mitts on it think "it’s a joke.” Real information, or scurrilous rumors? Impossible to say, but BlackBerrry fans may be disappointed by what sounded at first like a good device. Still, those four to five months will give RIM time to work on the firmware. [BGR]

Update: Over at Crackberry they're challenging this rumor, with details from their own insider ninjas. They say "RIM is seriously ramping up the pace of work on the Thunder, which could account for the recent rush of leaks."

They also confirm a number of details about the phone: it does have haptics (that don't work as described in the BGR article,) a full QWERTY keyboard, SureTrue text entry and a glass screen. Plus there's big news: it's got multitouch. Apparently feeling pressure from the iPhone 3G, RIM are "putting serious effort into accelerating the Thunder." Does that mean they'll have ironed out the alleged wrinkles by the time the machine hits the street? I'm betting yes.

You can use either the full QWERTY or SureType keyboard. But, SureType is for portrait mode, and QWERTY is for landscape. Supposedly you can use either one anytime, but if you only want to use QWERTY, you're going to be holding your phone sideways a lot. One thing that isn't confirmed yet is whether or it's multi-touch (we hope it is). It does use WebKit for the web browser engine (same as Safari), so if there's multi-touch, the browsing experience will be similar to the iPhone's.

We won't know whether this really adds up to the best touch keyboard ever until we put our hands on it, but it's pretty reasonable to believe this is one area RIM won't be cutting corners. [Crackberry]

[BlackBerry Sync]

Basically, the peg is that most people in Vermont can't get an iPhone, since AT&T only has roaming coverage there, and none of the carriers in the area can offer it. While it sounds like a nice, egalitarian thing the gov't could latch onto, the petition will probably fail.

As big as FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is on promoting competition, it's really only particular kinds of competition, and this doesn't really fall into the rubric. Moreover, this isn't the first time this kind of petition has been filed, and it's been smacked down every time before. Sorry, Green Mountain Staters and boondocks-dwellers, you're probably not going to get an iPhone till iPhone 4 or 5, when that AT&T exclusive finally runs out. [WSJ via Silicon Alley Insider]