Feeling overloaded with BlackBerry news and rumors? We know the feeling. We hear new things almost every day, and it can be tough to keep up with it all. that’s why we’re bringing you BlackBerry News from the Wire every Thursday. We’ll catch you up on everything ‘Berry that happened over the course of the week. Not only that, but we’ll rank ‘em by importance, so you can more easily skim the items and read the ones of most significance. If you only have time to read one article, for instance, you might want to head down to our 5-star section. It’s All the BlackBerry News Fit to Geek. 
BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac leaked
I wanted to make sure this went on top, even though PC users might not consider it a five-star link. There are plenty of Mac users reading BBGeeks, myself included, so it’s to our delight that Desktop Manager for Mac was leaked. Here’s the Rapidshare download link. It took me a little over a minute on a cable connection to get everything. It’s in beta still, of course, version 1.0.0, so you might encounter a bug or two. I’ll see if I can find any as I explore it today. Expect a post expounding on this tomorrow.
Storm 2 to hit October 14th?
We’ve long speculated on the release date of the BlackBerry Storm 2 — and by “we” I mean the entire BlackBerry community. There have been various indicators, but perhaps none more concrete than Verizon marketing material depicting an October 14 release. Of course, the actual images have since been removed — it seems everything Storm-related goes up and then comes down within a few hours. I can assure you that they were there, though, and did in fact say October 14. Again, this is probably the ideal release date, barring any setbacks. I’m still banking on November, but October is looking more and more likely.
BlackBerry 9700 coming to T-Mobile in November?
In addition to release information on the Storm 2 this week, we also learned a bit about the BlackBerry 9700, which is set to be the first 3G BlackBerry for T-Mobile. According to TmoNews.com, we could see this hit shelves the first week in November. Again, this makes plenty of sense. It’s going to be a hot device — not only the first 3G Berry on T-Mobile, but it’s also essentially the Bold, just smaller, and with an optical trackpad. November always makes sense, because that puts it in line with the holidays. With T-Mobile rolling out more 3G markets recently, this could be a perfect match.
RIM already working on a second Tour?
The BlackBerry Tour just hit shelves in July, but it looks like RIM could already have a follow-up in the works. The BlackBerry Essex will be the next version, and will feature an optical trackpad and WiFi. What it looks like, from an outside perspective, is that RIM was already so far along with the Tour when they 1) developed the trackpad an 2) Verizon announced it would allow WiFi on devices. So they released the Tour, but this is the device that it should have been. There’s not much else known about it, so we could get a number of new features by the time it hits market. If you’re having trouble keeping up with all of these potential new devices, check out BBCool’s writeup.
Verizon cuts Storm price to $50
Unsurprisingly, Verizon is preparing for the release of the Storm 2, as we noted above. One measure they’re taking is further reducing the price of the original Storm. They dropped it from $199 to $149 a few months ago, and now it’s down to just $49.99. So if the Storm 2 is going to be a bit rich for your blood, you can can lock down an original on the cheap.
RIM improves BIS spam filtering
I wasn’t aware of this, but apparently there was a problem with spam emails to BIS email users. RIM fixed the issue, and recently let us in on the trick. Apparently they’re using software to evaluate the emails based on IP address. That means that the emails aren’t even getting to your BlackBerry. Which brings up the question of false positives. On another website we had to block a whole IP range from commenting, and we wondered how many false positives that would turn up. Same question applies here.
Who wins, girlfriend or BlackBerry?
Okay, so if you’re here you probably hold your BlackBerry in high favor. However, it can sometimes go too far. Such is the case of Molly Schoemann’s boyfriend. At least Molly is taking it in stride, composing a humorous piece on her battles with her boyfriend’s BlackBerry. It’s a short, light-hearted read, and especially apt if your significant other is particularly addicted to the Berry. Me? I choose women every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
BlackBerry on the police force?
Here’s an idea that might catch on: the Baltimore Police Department is buying all its patrol officers. No, it won’t be mainly an email thing. Instead, the devices will be used to “allow officers to run warrants, check vehicle registrations, and pull up criminal histories and suspect photos.” Sounds like a productive use to me. I hope we get some follow-up stories on this one.
Stolen BlackBerry? BlackBerry ER will help you recover it — as long as you have a GSM model, and the criminal falls into common patterns. Adding extensions to BlackBerry contact numbers. Because what good is a Berry if you can’t add in an extension? A walk-through of TwiXtreme. Yet another BlackBerry Twitter client, and yet another one I enjoyed very much. Facebook 1.7 headed to BlackBerry soon. Here’s a quick but sparse preview of the new BlackBerry Facebook app. Freedom Mobile Slim Keypad for BlackBerry review. Cooper checks out this full keyboard for your BlackBerry. Simplify your RSS with Arr! SS. There are plenty of BlackBerry RSS readers, but this one is nice because it doesn’t hog memory.
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Thanks for following me James. Cindy D in Tennessee. (Cdintennessee)