BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion biffed its response to last week’s massive outage and worse yet, is coming up short at this week’s BlackBerry DevCon Americas conference. With every month that passes, the smartphone pioneer loses more runway, and with it the ability to carry the BlackBerry brand forward.

Last week’s major outage did no favors for BlackBerry’s already tarnished image. The company needed a strong response to the snafu and should feel tremendous pressure to deliver something meaningful in a few key areas.

Calling its half-hearted apology for last week’s outage a “Thank You Gift from BlackBerry” was poor form. First and foremost, BlackBerry users want their devices to work. A dozen free apps worth $100 will do nothing to keep customers happy. Rather than rewarding its dwindling base of loyal users with something meaningful, RIM is offering its customers apps like SIMS 3, Texas Hold’em Poker 2, Shazam Encore and iSpeech Translator Pro. Read more

Millions of BlackBerry users spanning at least four continents are without service for a third consecutive day. An untold number of customers, not all however, are unable to send messages, emails or browse the web in parts of North and South America, Africa, Middle East and Europe.

A little more than an hour ago, Research In Motion admitted that it’s still working to resolve the “service issue that many of our BlackBerry customers are experiencing.”

The early outages occurred Monday in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, but as of this morning they have reached the Americas — and they are ongoing. Read more

iPads generate more mobile traffic than all other iOS devices combined

Mobile devices comprised 6.8% of all online traffic in August 2011. Nearly two-thirds of that traffic came from mobile phones while tablets accounted for the remainder, according to a new report from comScore.

The number of U.S. subscribers consuming mobile media grew 19% in the past year to 116 million people. While the growth is noteworthy, it also highlights the large untapped market for mobile data that still exists. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

Smartphone pioneer Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) could use some wind in its sails. Revenue is down 12% from the previous quarter, an unknown number of job cuts are planned throughout the company and its next set of BlackBerry devices are facing more delays.

After the Waterloo, Canada-based company released another round of disappointing earnings and slashed its guidance, yet again, company stock took a beating. After closing the day at $35.33 with a market cap of $18.51 billion, shares immediately dropped more than 15% in after-hours trading and stock is currently down more than 21%. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

Earlier this week, I took the plunge. Having grown impatient waiting for my carrier to release the official version of OS6 for my BlackBerry 9700, I decided to press my luck and install a leaked version of the new operating system.

Anyone who’s updated their OS on their BlackBerry, leaked version or not, knows that the task can be a little daunting and one that seemingly requires a background in computer science. I’ve taken this step a few times on my BlackBerry devices over the years and each time the experience is akin to reformatting a PC’s hard drive and starting completely over from scratch. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) has launched BlackBerry App World 2.0 three weeks after it opened the latest version up for beta testing.

The BlackBerry maker is hoping to reinvigorate its app appeal with the updated storefront, but there still some key features that are missing from RIM’s offering. Although RIM says it’s working on integrated carrier billing, it hasn’t happened yet. With PayPal, users can at least set up pre-approval so they don’t have to fill out their username and password with every purchase. Read more

**As published in digiday:DAILY**

Publisher: Research In Motion Ltd. Price: free Platform: BlackBerry
Advertising: None
Functionality: A
Fun Factor: B+
Overall: A-

For years now, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion Ltd. has been noticeably behind in the mobile entertainment space. Competitor after competitor has leapfrogged the smart phone giant with media offerings that are more in line with what consumers expect online. RIM may be systematically late to the party, but at least it doesn’t flake out entirely. Read more

**As published at digiday:DAILY**

Publisher: Rdio Price: $9.99 for unlimited web and mobile, $4.99 for unlimited web
Platform: iOS and BlackBerry
Advertising: None
Functionality: B+
Fun Factor: B
Overall: B+

Music has turned out to be a rather tough proposition on mobile. While apps like Pandora have soared in both popularity and revenue-generation capabilities, other apps like RealNetworks’ Rhapsody have garnered less favorable reviews and market penetration.

Still, there are a growing number of free and subscription-based streaming services to choose from, which makes the “music on mobile” market all the more compelling to participate in. Case in point: The Rdio app. Read more

**As published at RCR Wireless News**

Nokia Corp. continues to buckle under the increasing might and will of its competitors in the smartphone space.

In a note to investors , the company downgraded the financial outlook for its devices and services division for the second (current) quarter and full year of 2010. The company said “multiple factors are negatively impacting Nokia’s business to a greater extent than previously expected.” While that may be true, it would be difficult to conclude that most of these “factors” have come as a surprise to the world’s largest manufacturer of cellphones. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

SANTA MONICA, CALIF. – For all the momentum Google’s Android operating system is enjoying of late, there are some key areas that many executives believe Apple has it beat on with the iPhone OS. These differentiating features – billing, user interface, development ease and scale (for at least the time being) — are nothing to scoff at either.

Now, with the iPad already surpassing 1 million units sold in as many months, there’s a reinvigorated sense of interest and easy-to-understand business reasons for placing more focus and investment in Apple’s mobile flavor.

A crowded panel of eight representing big media and publishers at Digital Hollywood yesterday spent considerable time heaping praise and wonder on Apple’s latest gadget. Later on, the OS offerings from BlackBerry, Google, Microsoft and HP-Palm got their fair shake, but Apple kept cropping up as the main draw. Read more