BlackBerry Storm update landing tomorrow, bringing lots of good stuff (update: now with changelog!)

Hey, you -- yeah you, the BlackBerry Storm owner over there. You listening? Good. That mythical software update we heard about just last week is obviously the real deal, and a screen grab from Verizon's internal systems has shown up to prove it. We're told that it should go live tomorrow (that's October 25th for those in strange, potentially illegitimate time zones) at 6PM. On the whole, it'll make your Storm act a lot more like the forthcoming Storm2, but specifically you can expect a "faster, more accurate and more natural text input experience, word completion, a virtual QWERTY keyboard in portrait view and enhanced sensitivity when editing, copying and pasting." You'll also get the ability to "enable Auto Correction as opposed to Word Completion in landscape view." The full changelog should be coming soon, so hang tight! Oh, and cancel those plans for tomorrow night, okay?

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Update: Check out the full (purported) changelog after the break!

BlackBerry Storm - MR3 (5.0) Software Release
OEM: RIM
Model: 9530
Software Version: 5.0.0 Release 508(OS 4.2.0.128 / Applications 5.0.0.328)
Approval Date: 10/22/09
Available through the following methods:
Over The Air Software Loading (OTASL): NOT AVAILABLE for this upgrade.
Desktop Manager Software Loading: Customers will have access any time after
10/25 10PM Eastern time.
Web Based Software Loading (WebSL): Customers will have access any time
after 10/25 10PM Eastern time.
A software update to help enhance the performance on your BlackBerry ®
StormTM smartphone is now available. From your computer go to
www.verizonwireless.com/storm, select "Software Download" and follow the
on-screen instructions. Thank you, Verizon Wireless

New software has been approved for the RIM Blackberry Storm (9530), and will
be available effective 10/25/2009 at 7 PM PST for customers. Communication
will be provided to customers via a "Pin Message" to their device stating:

Symptoms Resolved:

* Significant improvements in rotation detection and screen painting have been introduced in this software.
* Device displayed a white bar at the bottom of the screen after a rotation event.
* When setting a custom SMS tone for a single contact, this tone may playback unexpectedly for SMS' received from other contacts.
* When swiping down the virtual keyboard in an MMS message the send and save draft icons did not appear as expected.
* When viewing an SMS there was no simple way to call the current user. Now the user can select the number from the Callback Number field or from the message body and call that number from the pop up menu.
* The delete prior function has the unwanted side-effect of triggering the compose email screen.
* The user cannot configure their profile settings to increase the number of alerts when being notified of an event such as incoming SMS or email.
* Previous software versions did not allow the user to increase the count of notifications (i.e. Beep 5 times when when I get an email and beep 3 times when I get an sms). In this software, this is now allowed with counts from 1-10.
* When trying to set a home screen background of a certain resolution (more specifically a resolution matching either the width or the height of the native resolution of the LCD) it may have appeared as a black screen.
* When trying to edit/create a folder, the virtual keyboard did not render to allow the user to enter the names of said folders.
* Intermittently, when streaming a video while doing a handover to 2G on a 3G network the video would stop playing.
* If you paused a video recording and then resumed, the icon state may not have reflected the current recording state.
* After recoding a video of a certain size (7M) the saved video may be corrupted and unplayable.
* During manual network selection, the radio buttons associated with the networks did not render as expected.
* When moving out of coverage your device display for no coverage may have been inconsistent.
* During voice calls, your device may have reset on a rare occasion.
* After viewing and accepting the End User Licensing Agreement of the App World application the application doesn't startup (fixes introduced in the latest version of App World).
* On some rare occasions, the device may reset on its own during a voice call or while idle.
* During an MTP side load of 16GB of music, the device would leak memory and stop the transfer at ~75%.
* During device full boot-up, the progress bar skips from 0% complete to ~66% complete instead of showing a gradual progression (Note: from 66% to 100% it does show a gradual progression).

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 24th 2009 10:04PM]

Nice to see the random reset bug is being fixed. As that bug really annoyed CNET when they reviewed it.

[MrSpontaneous Posted Oct 24th 2009 10:46PM]

The 5.0 updates make this phone really fun to use. That being said, my experience with the Storm's glacial pace has left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I bought it because I wanted to stick with VZW, and stuck with it because the phone was usable most of the time for me.

That being said, I've become painfully aware how much RIM doesn't care about the UX on its touchscreen devices. That, coupled with the openness and rate of progress of other competing mobile OS's has me jumping to an Android device next March (when I hit 1y).

[crichton007 Posted Oct 25th 2009 10:41AM]

Any idea when an update will be available for the Tour? That's what I'm waiting for!

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 25th 2009 10:40PM]

It's Live !!!!!!

[DIGGDEEP Posted Oct 27th 2009 1:09AM]

I updated and everything is smooth except now...I got the "landscape mode automatic dim" bug.
I updated before and this never happened.

Looking like I will be going with the new droid or a storm 2 this week.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 27th 2009 11:47AM]

REALLY enjoy the new STORM OS 5 upgrade. Feels like a brand new phone. Very responsive camera, touchpad, and picture viewer. The addition of the inertia scrolling (flick scrolling) is definitely a huge upgrade from the previous OS. The Storm is definitely one of the best phones out there now with regarding communication and media integration (music, video, camera, etc). I was up in the mountains this past weekend and got 4 bars on verizon storm. Nice Job RIM. The early reviews of the Storm would have been much different had they started with this new OS

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 27th 2009 10:04PM]

junk junk junk DO NOT DO this update. I just did it today and I have had 15 crashes in the last 4 hours!!! NOT HAPPY!!! I'm hopefully reverting back to .151...

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 27th 2009 10:07PM]

Just finished revert to 4.7.0.151... life is grand again... good luck to the rest of you...

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 7th 2009 4:09PM]

After I updated my BB Storm to the new version all of my contacts were gone : ( Now after I'm playing with it for a while I realized that my games were gone as well. What did I do wrong??? Friends tell me their updates went well with none of my mishaps. I love the new updates they make the phone more enjoyable but now I'm pissed!

If anyone knows how I can get my contacts back please let me know.