Some welcome good news for BlackBerry owners today after the recent outage troubles. It's been a long time coming, but BlackBerry users can finally get the superb Spotify music streaming service on their handsets.

Revealed today over on the official Spotify blog, those who favour RIM's smartphones now have a version of the Spotify app tailored to their devices.

However, as it stands it's being listed up as a "preview" release, and as such, comes with a few caveats.

Firstly an obvious one; you'll need a premium Spotify account to take your music out on the go with you.

Secondly, Spotify for BlackBerry only works with GSM phones, meaning US readers are out of luck for the time being at least. The only BlackBerry handsets tested and officially confirmed to be working with the service are the BlackBerry 9780 Bold, 9700 Bold, 9300 Curve, original 9000 Bold and 8520 Curve, while unofficial reports of the Bold 9900 BlackBerry 7 handset also running without a hitch have been made.

For now, those with Torch or Storm touchscreen BlackBerry's are out of luck it would seem.

If you fit into the above criteria however, you'll get all the usual Spotify goodies, including offline playlists, Last.fm scrobbling and all the usual search features, with the added ease of a QWERTY keyboard.

Not yet on the BlackBerry App World store, you can try the preview build by clicking here.

Following last week's major service outages across their BlackBerry handset range, manufacturers RIM are set to give more than $100 worth of free apps to their customers affected by the problems.

Premium apps such as Sims 3, N.O.V.A and Bejeweled will be offered without charge to BlackBerry owners between the 19th of October and the 31st of December, whilst BlackBerry Enterprise customers wil recieve a month's worth of free technical support too.

"Our global network supports the communications needs of more than 70 million customers" said RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis.

"We truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers. We've worked hard to earn their trust over the past 12 years, and we're committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect, today and in the future."

Considering the huge number of BlackBerry users affected by the outage, and te high price of technical support for the many enterprise customers on RIM's books, this is a generous and costly compensation package after what must have been a pricey week's worth of problems for RIM anyway.

After a slow start, RIM handled the outage remarkably well, using social media channels to keep users updated, as well as seeing Lazaridis extend a heartfelt video apology over YouTube.

The timing however, could not have been any worse. Apple mania had kicked in just days before with the launch of the iPhone 4S, and while one of BlackBerry's key USPs, BBM, was faltering, iOS 5 was introducing iMessage to the Apple-loving masses.

If things were already tough for Canadian phone giants RIM, the past week hasn't made things any easier.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for BlackBerry following this week's major service outages, CNN are now reporting that the problem has spread.

Spread to other planets that is!

CNN state that "users on almost every planet" have been affected.

Quick, someone notify the Jedi Council!

No wonder RIM have been struggling to keep up with Apple's smartphone dominance here on Earth; they've been struggling to quell the BBM riots on Astra 5 in the Nebulus system! Their intergalactic PR manager must be having a nightmare week!

Via: Craig Kannally (Twitter)

Co-CEO of RIM, Mike Lazaridis, has given a heartfelt video apology for the widespread BlackBerry outages affecting many of his customers this week.

Posted on RIM's official BlackBerry YouTube channel, Lazaridis stated that: "You expect better from us and I expect better for us."

"It is too soon to say that this issue is fully resolved but let me give you more detail on what is happening," continued the beleaguered boss.

"We are now approaching normal BlackBerry service levels in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"We continue to monitor the system closely and working hard to stabilise the system. We expect to see some instability problems as the system comes back to normal levels everywhere."

Lazaridis also noted the poor response users were given to the outage, stating that they will commit to a more thorough social media campaign following any future issues.

"We know you want to hear more from us and we are working to update you more frequently through our websites and social media channels."

"I know this is very frustrating. We are doing everything in our power to restore regular service levels and are working tirelessly to restore your trust in us."

The BlackBerry problems are now in their third day.

BlackBerry services are beginning to come back online across Europe after major outages saw many key features of RIM's handsets stop working.

For three days internet, BlackBerry Messenger and email services have been failing on the handsets, but things are finally beginning to stabalise.

"From 6AM BST today, all services across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as India, have been operating with significant improvement. We continue to monitor the situation 24/7 to ensure ongoing stability. Thank you for your patience," reads a RIM statement.

However, internet servers are still down, meaning web access isn't available for the vast majority of users. USA and RIM's own Canada are still suffering outages too.

A failed database upgrade in Slough (where RIM manage much of the European server load) is said to be the cause of the problem, with an attempt to revert back to an older system causing the outages.

RIM have revealed what has caused the worldwide BlackBerry outages this week.

BlackBerry users across the world have reported big problems accessing their email, internet and BBM services.

"The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure," reads the RIM statement.

"Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible.

"We apologise for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed."

While some users on BlackBerry Enterprise servers are beginning to see services resume, a large number of BlackBerry owners are still having problems.

The timing of the outages couldn't have been any worse; the two-or-so days of down time comes just days before the launch of iOS 5 for iPhones, and with it the iMessage IM service. With BBM one of BlackBerry's key selling points, loyal RIM customers may be beginning to feel the grass is greener on the other side of the mobile fence these days.

New rumours are suggesting that mobile operator Vodafone may be lining up a takeover bid of BlackBerry phone makers RIM.

Neither company has commented on the speculation, but that's not stopped the stock market from doing some of the talking for them. Following the spread of the rumour, RIM shares jumped 12 per cent, while Vodafone's stock began to slide.

RIM have struggled of late, with their handsets not causing quite the stir that iOS and Android rivals have, while their PlayBook tablet was met with (at best) a lukewarm reception. It makes perfect sense for them to be a takeover target.

But with Vodafone as the buyer? Unlikely we'd say. Though the network has a business-orientated approach that suits a large part of BlackBerry's target audience well, and though they have made their own entry-level branded handsets in the past, Vodafone remain very much a network and not a mobile maker.

Even early reports from The Independent place the network as "one of the potential aggressors".

We'll keep you posted on any developments, but we wouldn't expect much more than outright denial from both parties involved.

All eyes may be on the impending iPhone 5 launch next week, but at the end of the day sales speak louder than an updated spec sheet. So what have the UK smartphone-buying public been spending their hard-earned dosh on?

Looking specifically at the last 6 months, analysts Nielsen have revealed that 44% of new smartphone sales are handsets of the Android variety, followed by RIM's BlackBerry devices with a quarter of the market. Apple's iPhones accounted for just 18%.

A couple of things worth remembering here; firstly, there are no end of Android handsets out there now, and a fair few BlackBerry options too, compared to just a single iPhone model more-or-less released each year. As if you hadn't noticed, we're still waiting for an iPhone 5 to rear its head too, which would undoubtedly push iOS a little further up the tables in the next 6 months were Nielsen still keeping tabs.

Scroll below for a nice and colourful chart displaying the results:

BlackBerry PlayBook manufacturers RIM are reportedly slowing production of their iPad-rivalling tablet device, following a poor second-qaurter earnings report.

Component and OEM trackers DigiTimes are reporting that RIM's production partners Quanta are laying off as many as 1,000 workers, which many are attributing to decreased orders of the device (at the expense of $3,420 in severance pay per worker).

RIM had asked for around 4 or 5 million PlayBooks to be built back in April, though less than 800,000 are thought to have sold at retail at this stage, suggesting the initially proposed supply greatly outweighed demand.

RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie has now confirmed that PlayBook price reductions will shortly arrive, though the apparent layoffs and production cutbacks would suggest that RIM no longer see a massive future for the PlayBook.

Via: BGR

We get hands-on with the super-slim BlackBerry Curve 9630 at today's exclusive London launch event. Can this QWERTY-packing, BlackBerry OS 7 touting handset bring RIM back from the brink?

For more info on the BlackBerry Curve 9360, and a gallery of hands-on pics, click here.

It's been a long time coming, but in the wake of leaks aplenty RIM have finally revealed the lastest BlackBerry Curve handsets. Available in three flavours (depending on international territories), you're looking at the BlackBerry Curve 9360, 9350 and 9370.

The only real differences between each model is the connectivity systems employed. The UK version packs GSM / UMTS, while there's CDMA for the 9350 and both GSM and CDMA for the 9370. We went hands-on with the BlackBerry Curve 9360 at its London launch event this morning.

Other than connectivity differences, specs-wise it's the same across the board pretty much for all three handsets, including the 9360 that we tried out. An 800 MHz processor powers a 2.44 inch display with a resolution of 480x360. Packing the BlackBerry 7 OS, it's a non-touch smartphone that instead relies on the old BlackBerry faithful; the trackpad.

Whether its BlackBerry OS 7 or the 800MHz processor, it's the zippiest Curve we've had the pleasure of using, jumping from built-in Facebook and Twitter apps to the browser in the blink of an eye. The screen is sharp too; 480x360 is a relatively dense pixel rate for a screen this size, but we still find the lack of touch on BlackBerry OS 7 a pain; we felt ourselves yearning to tap at a link to activate it on web pages, but alas, no dice.

Still, the handset impresses most in one area in particular; its size. This is the slimmest Curve handset yet, measuring up as a whole at 109x60mm with a thickness of 11mm. The plastic-heavy build still doesn't scream chic, but it's lightweight and comfortable in the hand. Though no pricing has been revealed yet, we got the impression that this is going to be a more affordable handset from RIM, and in this regard its form will likely match its price point.

A QWERTY keyboard is the standard for the Curve series, and in this respect the 9360 doesn't look to dissapoint. Despite the slimmer frame, the hard plastic keys still have a comfortable amount of "click" behind them, and BlackBerry users will feel right at home tapping out emails and the like.

512MB of onboard memory can be supplemented by a 32GB microSD card, and you'll be able to fill that up with snaps taken from the 5MP camera on the rear. It's a fixed focus EDoF with LED flash and VGA video shooting. Nothing crazy, but again good for what we expect from a low cost handset.

NFC tech and a smallish 1000mAh battery round out the specs. Here's what Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion, had to say about the launch:

"These new models will build on the incredible success of the BlackBerry Curve line and further expand the largest global launch of BlackBerry smartphones in our history.

"The new BlackBerry Curve smartphones are absolutely stunning and offer a significant performance upgrade with an unmatched mobile social experience for the millions of feature phone users in the market as well as our existing Curve customers."

If the handset launches in the budget-friendly bracket we assume it will, it's the first real-contender RIM have offered the masses in a little while. It has all the popular trappings of the Curve series in a far more sleek chassis. However, as only an incremental update elsewhere, it's still unlikely too woo the iPhone or Android faithful.

So what do you think? Enough to bring RIM back from the brink? We'll have more details once we get some extended time with the handset, but for now check out the 9360 in some more shots below.

BlackBerry Messenger has had its name sullied a bit recently in light of the recent UK riots that were, in part at least, fuelled by the free, private communications service. But it's not only looting targets that you'll be able to share via the service; a new rumour suggests that you'll be able to share songs too.

According to CNET, RIM are in talks with four of the major record labels to add a music sharing service to BlackBerry Messenger's box of tricks.

A subscription based service, users will be able to pick 50 tracks at any one time which they'll be able to share with their friends via BlackBerry Messenger and listen to on the go. The BlackBerry Bold is touted as the first phone to get the new features.

As BlackBerry's leading USP, upping the amount of features found in BBM makes perfect sense, but is this the right way to go about it? If the service was free perhaps it'd sound more appealing, but when you think of the unlimited freedom and massive catalogue offered by rival services like Spotify, this rumoured music service sounds like it is hamstrung from the start.

We're heading down to a BlackBerry media event next Tuesday, so we'll keep you posted on any developments we hear of on the day.

RIM have confirmed that they will not be switching off the BlackBerry Messenger service tonight in London, despite the possibility of further violence in the capital tonight and the belief that much of this week's trouble was orchestrated using the smartphone instant messaging system.

Earlier a message began to spread on the service that RIM would be closing down BBM tonight, but that has now been debunked as a hoax.

"We feel for those impacted by this weekend's riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can," Patrick Spence, managing director, global sales and regional marketing said in a statement to Tech Radar yesterday.

"As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we cooperate with local telecommunications operators, law enforcement and regulatory officials.

"Similar to other technology providers in the UK we comply with The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully with the Home Office and UK police forces."

BlackBerry handsets are the smartphone of choice for the majority (37%) of British teenagers, according to a report from Ofcom released last week. This is largely due to the popularity of BBM, which allows users to send one-to-many messages to their network of BBM pals, connected by BBM numeric PINs. As the service is free, instant and has the potential to reach many people at once, it has become the preferred alternative to SMS texts for those who own BlackBerrys.

Many of the pockets of organised violence that spread across London last night were thought to have been conducted through the spread of inciting messages across the BlackBerry Messenger service.

BlackBerry makers RIM were expected to show today the new handsets that they hope will turn around the company's flagging fortunes. However, it seems a spy has beaten them to it, with what appear to be final press shots for the BlackBerry Torch 2 and Monza/Touch/Volt 9860 appearing online.

Here's what we know about the two phones so far, both of which are expected to be BlackBerry OS 7 handsets.

The Torch 2, despite not having been officially revealed, has been covered already so extensively that you'd be forgiven for thinking its already in the shops. A 1.2GHz processor backed by 768MB of RAM sits under the chassis of the QWERTY sliding handset. Size-wise it's pretty much identical to its predecessor, with the same VGA screen and 5MP camera, do video capturing specs do jump up to 720p.

Next up is the Monza/Touch/Volt 9860, whose moniker has yet to be pinned down. A touch only device, it too has a 1.2GHz processor and 768MB of RAM, with 4GB of internal storage space. It measures 120 x 62 x 11.5mm.

The leak suggests an August launch for the handsets.

While top notch BlackBerry phones, the spec sheets here are hardly crying out "cutting edge" in comparison to the latest Android phones on the market.. BlackBerry OS 7 will not necessarily need dual-core chops to make it sing, but a similar bit of processing grunt could have been the headline-grabbing addition that RIM's smartphone line-up needs.

Via: PocketNow

Yodal, the new digital dictation service from specialists V7 Technology, has launched for BlackBerry users.

A time and money saving idea for those who use dictation services as an integral part of their businesses, Yodal allows users to dictate documents in real-time, having them streamed to the company's cloud servers ready to be transcribed remotely. Using minimal mobile data, recordings can be instantly sent via email, while local caching ensures that all recordings are safe even if a mobile or Wi-Fi network outage occurs.

V7 Managing Director Simon Westcott takes pride in the way Yodal ensures the secure wireless transfer of recordings.

"It's very secure; the servers that we have are backed up doubly," he said.

"We have a local fail-over within the same hosted environement that the main servers are on. There is a second geo-replicated fail-over in a different network altogether, and so the users will get 100% uptime, all the time. Certainly we havent had an outage that's affected us yet. It's highly reliable and resilient."

Part of the magic of Yodal is in its user interface. The simple main control screen, with its 7 recording and playback controls, belies a complexity to rival high-end hardware dictaphones. All the options for making inserts, overwrites and appendages to your voice notes are available, making it a more flexible and fully featured voice recording program than default voice apps on smartphones or even the likes of Evernote.

Though BlackBerry is the first platform of choice (due to its leading security features, which has resulted in Yodal being adopted by a leading City law firm), Westcott has not ruled out the service hitting other operating systems like Android or iOS. Likewise, a PlayBook version is also being considered.

Just as BlackBerrys are the smartphones of choice for business users, so is Yodal very much a corporate/enterprise aimed service. At £50 a year per user license, it sounds a steep price, but early adopters legal aid firm EBR Attridge already see Yodal saving them an estimated £10,000 in software and hardware costs over three years.

That's not to say other rates aren't under consideration; we mentioned Yodal's potential as a tool for students sitting through lengthy lectures, which Westcott seemed very keen on:

"We'd have to think about the mechanisms for students to prove their status, but its certainly something we'd consider in the future."

For more information on Yodal, head over to www.yodal.com. A ten day free trial of the service is also available.

Bing is to become the new preferred search engine on RIM's BlackBerry devices, the company revealed at their annual BlackBerry World conference today.

The move furthers the existing enterprise-focussed partnership between RIM and Microsoft, who will now work together to bring BlackBerry handsets to market that will feature deep Bing integration into the OS of the new smartphones.

"This goes way beyond a search box," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the event's special guest. "Bing will be integrated into the BlackBerry experience starting this coming holiday season. Bing will be deeply integrated at the operating system level, going way beyond the application experience that is available today."

"It really highlights how the mobile landscape is changing; the convergence of search, commerce, social and location-centric services, where Bing will provide intelligence and the organising layer in the cloud."

"We're focused on doing this in a way that protects users' privacy," added Ballmer in a thinly veiled stab at the recent location tracking debacle surrounding Apple's iPhone and iOS operating system.

BlackBerry could miss out on one of the fastest-growing mobile markets in the world after missing a data sharing deadline set by the Indian government.

India's authorities had given Research In Motion (RIM), the owner of BlackBerry, until 31st January to grant it access to email encryption codes. RIM, which has been in talks with the Indian government since last summer, has now responded by saying it would not give access to confidential data about its business customers.

The Indian government argues it needs access to email communications to deter terrorist threats. The 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, which killed 164 people, were later proven to have been largely co-ordinated by mobile phone and internet messages.

RIM claims it is unable to comply with India's requests. 'No changes can be made to the security architecture for BlackBerry Enterprise Server [corporate email] customers since, contrary to any rumors, the security architecture is the same around the world and RIM truly has no ability to provide its customers' encryption keys," the company said in a statement.

600,000 RIM devices are expected to be sold in India this year, according to forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media, making this an important market for BlackBerry. Now at 12 millions, the Indian smartphone market is expected to reach 40 million devices by the end of 2015. BlackBerry is the mobile service of choice for a large number of international businesses, favouring its efficient email encoding system.

Commentators doubt Blackberry will be shut out from India altogether, although such moves are not without precedent. The smartphones were temporarily banned from Saudi Arabia last year, before an agreement was reached. The United Arab Emirates has threatened to ban RIM in the past, while French officials have in the past been banned from discussing certain government matters using their BlackBerrys.

It looks like the Blackberry Storm Line isn't under the axe after all. Today specs of an amped up Storm 3 were leaked. The phone which is expected to be out in September is already looking a million times better than its predecessor.

The Storm will have a 3.7-inch display with 800 x 480 resolution, which is the highest yet for any Blackberry phone. In addition to a 1.2GHz processor to match the rumored Torch 2 speed, a 5 megapixel camera capable of shooting video at 720p, and 512MB of RAM. It is also expected to be able to hotspot like the other two rumored handsets.

The Storm has typically not performed well, however if these rumors are anything to go by it looks like third times the charm. Check out the full specs below.

1.2GHz processor
3.7-inch 800 x 480 capacitive display
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
Tri-band UMTS/HSPA
5-megapixel camera with 720p video recording
8GB eMMC (storage for apps and data), 512MB of RAM
microSD slot
Magnetometer
Proximity sensor
Accelerometer
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
2.4GHz b/g/n and 5GHz a/n Wi-Fi + UMA
3G Mobile hotspot
Optical trackpad
1230 mAh battery
BlackBerry OS 6.1
OpenGL ES 2.0

Via BRG

RIM, the manufacturers behind the BlackBerry range of handsets and forthcoming PlayBook tablet have bought the Swedish design team The Astonishing Tribe (TAT).

With TAT specialising in the design of mobile interfaces, it's believed the acquistition will lead to an overhaul of the BlackBerry UI, perhaps even in time for the launch of their own iPad-rivalling tablet.

"TAT is renowned for their innovative mobile user interface (UI) designs and has a long history of working with mobile and embedded technology," said David Yach, RIM's chief technology officer, on the company's blog.

"We're excited that the TAT team will be joining RIM and bringing their talent to the BlackBerry PlayBook and smartphone platforms."

The price paid for The Astonishing Tribe remains undisclosed, but it shows RIM are still striving to match and beat Apple not only in sales, but in usability and innovation too.

Via: Reuters

Today RealNetworks, launches a new version of their crossplatform media player - RealPlayer with a heavy emphasis on mobile content.

The latest version of the media player enables users to view, manage and share video, music and for the first time, photos across a range of devices including the BlackBerry and iPhone. The new free version of RealPlayer allows users to:

• Import photos taken on an Android, BlackBerry, or digital camera to a PC with one click; then share favourite photos on Facebook.
• Sync music playlists between a mobile phone and RealPlayer.
• Share favourite videos on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
• Download favourite videos from thousands of websites with one click.
• Play more music and video file types, including H.264, 3GP, MP3, and AAC.
• Copy favourite videos to an iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and other popular devices automatically.
• Edit and trim videos to access particular parts instantly.

The media player has really made real strides in becoming a comprehensive, yet simple media management solution. As most people now have a variety of gadgets that run across a range of different platforms, no longer having to worry about conversion issues and file formats is a great time saver.

The application is available now. There is also an optional upgrade to RealPlayer Plus for £29.99 which includes accelerated video downloading and transferring features, in addition to CD and DVD burning features.