BlackBerry Storm: The best touch browser?

If you think the iPhone is a multi-touch wunderkind, get ready for the real iPhone killer. The BlackBerry Storm, announced today, has a multi-touch interface that uses haptics - a touch-response technology that lets you feel the screen and push down to make selections. The only mainstream phone so far with haptics that I've tested is the Samsung Soul, and it is only on a small portion of the keypad area. As I mentioned yesterday regarding the Firefox Mobile browser, the Storm will be one of the first phones to make a Web browser more tactile and kinetic, and therefore more interactive.

According to an early preview at Gizmodo, the Storm's browser will support flip functions where you can move the screen around, click with your finger on URL links, and click a field to enter text. According to Boy Genius Report, the browser will also support cut and paste. You can place one finger at the beginning of the text you want to copy, and another finger at the end, and then copy the text to the clipboard. This would one-up the iPhone, which does not support copy and paste in the browser.

The haptic feedback (it feels like a slight buzz sensation on your fingers) is most interesting for Web control. I'm not sure if the Storm will support a feature like this, but with haptic feedback on a Web site, it could be possible for the site to provide tactile feedback: warning you about a broken link, or in an online game providing a rudimentary force feedback effect.

Both multi-touch and haptics could also make their way to the desktop, in notebooks and even with large touchscreen displays. It will be interesting to see how this level of user interaction could change Web sites: maybe they would provide an area of the screen where you can drag links to bookmark them, or touchscreen feedback for misspelled words. The freeform multi-touch control, where you can flick the screen around, zoom in, and quickly view thumbnails, would make sites easier to use and interact with.

Of course, new phones such as the G1 and the Storm may not get the Web right at all, and fall into an easy category if "failed iPhone knock-offs" that no one uses. Yet, it's clear that the iPhone competition is heating up. As everyone knows, any innovative product that doesn't keep innovating becomes a milestone and jumping off point for newer, more advanced devices. Apple, are you paying attention to all of this?