Yeah, you read that correctly. According to BoyGeniusReport.com, RIM’s working on a device with both a touch screen like the Storm’s and a full QWERTY keyboard akin to the one found on the Bold 9000. This upcoming smartphone is expected to be unveiled next spring.

I don’t often cover “rumors” in this blog—and for good reason—but BoyBeniusReport.com, or BGR, has a purty darn impressive track record when it comes to breaking BlackBerry-related news well before the folks in Waterloo give the okay. I’ve been frequenting the BGR site for more than a year now, and though its scoops aren’t always dead on—BGR originally reported that the touch screen BlackBerry would be GSM and have Wi-Fi, for instance–the Boy Genius and his various underlings know their stuff when it comes to RIM and BlackBerrys.

That’s why I decided this “news” is fit to share. That and the fact that it only makes sense for RIM to develop a device that utilizes all of the best—and most popular—features of its existing smartphones…an uber ‘Berry, if you will.

Though the BGR report predicts a Bold/Curve/Storm hybrid in 2009, it doesn’t mention any specific title for the device. The codename Magnum comes from a related BlackBerryNews.com post.

A BlackBerry with both a touch screen and full QWERTY keyboard represents the equivalent of the Holy Grail to BlackBerry fanatics like me. Such a device certainly wouldn’t be the first smartphone with a touch screen and full keyboard—Palm’s Treo devices have had both for years—but it would be the first BlackBerry with such a form factor.

BGR says the device will be unveiled this May at RIM’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES), along with a U.S., HSDPA version of the Storm 95xx, but no details on expected release dates are available quite yet. RIM unveiled the BlackBerry Bold at WES 2008, and though it’s still not yet available in the United States, it was originally expected to hit American retail stores in the summer before software glitches and other issues marred that schedule. Assuming RIM can get its act together and avoid any similar launch fiascos, a summer/fall 2009 release date for the Magnum sounds reasonable.

For years, I’ve seen requests/wishes/demands on various BlackBerry forums and message boards regarding a Treo-like BlackBerry with both a touch display and full QWERTY—mainly from former Treo users gone BlackBerry—but until this morning, all that was the stuff of dreams. Next year, those dreams just may become reality…

Last year, I sat down with RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, and his number two tip for BlackBerry power users was to set a convenience key as the App Switcher. (Check out “BlackBerry Keyboard Shortcuts for Power Users,” for his number one suggestion.) As such, Lazaridis will probably appreciate this added feature.

I first noticed the OS tweak last winter when RIM sent me a BlackBerry Storm 9530 from Verizon Wireless for review, so it’s not exactly new. That device was running 4.7.0.65 when it arrived, and though I upgraded the Storm OS multiple times before returning the handheld, every version of OS 4.7 I used had the new Menu-as-App-Switcher feature.

And RIM appears to have wisely decided the function should be built into all new OS software–or at least most of it–because recent unofficial BlackBerry Bold 9000 OS versions now let you employ Menu as an App Switcher as well. In fact, I’m running a very early version of BlackBerry OS 5.0 on my Curve 8900 (5.0.0.90), and it too has the functionality.

To bring up the App Switcher using Menu–which is found directly to the left of your trackball, with the BlackBerry “seven-dot” logo–simply depress the key for roughly two seconds or until the App Switcher appears on screen. You can then scroll from program to program and select the desired one by highlighting it and clicking your trackball.

Note: While I’ve seen this feature in various versions of BlackBerry OS v4.6 for the Bold and Curve 8900, it doesn’t appear to be in all of them. For example, OS 4.6.1.114 for the 8900 does not have the functionality, and I believe it only started showing up in Bold software around v4.6.0.247.