BlackBerry wants to make it up to you for last week's smart phone meltdown and is talking compensation. Your money back, perhaps? A chunk off your next bill? A handwritten, hand-delivered apology from the BlackBerry board inscribed on jewel-encrusted gold-leaf?
Nope -- you can have some free apps.
BlackBerry phones across the world were cut off from the Internet and popular BlackBerry Messenger service for the best part of the week, and many BlackBerry owners were quick to call for compensation. Research in Motion, the company that makes BlackBerrys, is offering a bundle of apps, including The Sims 3, Bejeweled and Shazam.
The package is a selection of 12 apps from the BlackBerry App World. There are 12 apps in the BlackBerry App World?!
Here's the current line-up, with a few more to come:
- The Sims 3
- Bejeweled
- NOVA
- Texas Hold'em Poker 2
- Bubble Bash 2
- Photo Editor Ultimate
- DriveSafe.ly Pro
- iSpeech Translator Pro
- Drive Safe.ly Enterprise
- Nobex Radio Premium
- Shazam Encore
- Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant
Wow. But hey -- there's more: if you're a business customer, you get a free month's technical support! That's right -- to say sorry for your phone breaking, if it breaks again, BlackBerry will totes fix it.
The compensation package will be available "over the coming weeks" and run until the end of the year.
In some countries, including South Africa, phone networks are also offering compensation such as free minutes and texts, or money off your next bill. UK phone networks, who remained close-mouthed about the outage, have yet to offer any compensation.
It's possible this is a starter package, and regional details will be worked out later, perhaps for money off. But we doubt it. It seems RIM is taking a leaf out of Sony's book -- when the PlayStation Network crashed for a month, Sony offered disgruntled customers a package of old games as half-hearted compensation. You'd think RIM would try a little harder, considering nearly two thirds of customers could ditch their BlackBerrys after the blackout.
Are you excited to get your hands on your free apps, or is this a lukewarm, nay, insulting gesture from BlackBerry? Tell us your thoughts down in the comments or on our Facebook page.
Finally, here's BlackBerry boss Mike Lazaridis serving up a big ol' mess of humble pie:
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Comments 23
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Jcrawl 17 October, 2011 13:06
I think BlackBerry's days are numbered, this won't be enough, it's main market of business communications is turning against it - http://www.investoo.co.uk/rbs-trials-iphone-over-blackberry-concerns/ - RBS is now trialling the iPhone in read only mode for its leadership team! A couple of free apps won't help the big concerns raised.
anonymous 17 October, 2011 14:12
Time to take a serious look at iOS and Android phones... Like many of RIM's business customers, I have lost a lot of money during the outage as I operate rapid response consultations and appointments that are reliant on the BB service being available whilst I'm away from my laptop.
The offer of free games and audio goes no way whatsoever towards recompensing business customers, and the offer of free technical support is a disgrace. I would like to know how many Blackberry customers have used technical support for anything other than flagging up a problem on RIM's side...
Disgraceful. You've just shot yourself in the foot and lost another customer.
anonymous 17 October, 2011 15:21
I personally will be joining the iphone world after this mess up, i find it pretty insulting that they offer free apps as compensation when alot of customers wont ever use these, clearly just there to clog my phone up!
anonymous 17 October, 2011 15:22
Are they serious? A bunch of unuseful games and apps.<br />
**** Blackberry! I sincerely hope they lose a lot of clients!
anonymous 17 October, 2011 17:09
Shazm Encore isn't even free! it still says £5.99!!! RIM are RUBBISH in motion!
anonymous 17 October, 2011 17:18
Could have made it at least STRIP POKER...
Elizabeth Gowland-Camilleri 17 October, 2011 18:06
Last time I checked I could not even get the app market in Malta, so that's a whole lot of nothing for me. For sure my next phone will not be blackberry! Although on the plus side I have dropped it at least 50 times and it's still going. :-)
anonymous 17 October, 2011 22:32
This is no sort of compensation a lot of their apps are us based as it is... 1st day of outage I decided to switch to andriod fed up of the rubbish service and the rubbish apps they provide for uk users of the blackberry... Would have been happier with a fiver on my bill for the inconvenience of not being able to use my blackberry for what I got it for.. RIM uve failed again!
anonymous 17 October, 2011 22:35
enough is enough i went bb because it was supposed to be reliable ...off to sony for my next thanks but no thanks but someday sony might d=crash too..so here to crossing my fingers
anonymous 17 October, 2011 22:38
i relly want to know who his pr is ..i would hire them
charlesharley 17 October, 2011 23:47
Well what can you do...
charlesharley 18 October, 2011 00:03
RIM has to come up with something pretty special to fix this
anonymous 18 October, 2011 00:20
THis won't make a dent in RIM's business, people will just get their free apps and forget about it...
anonymous 18 October, 2011 10:10
Why am I not surprised!! Appalling!! I have to say that when my contract runs out I will not be getting another Blackberry, not just because of this but the quality of service on the whole and the product in general!!! My phone has frozen twice in the past and eventually needed a new computer part, my letter keys are almost non existent, the cover at the side of the phone has warped and its been like this for over a year and I mentioned this at the time of the other repair, on return they said I had been given a new phone but when I looked they had sent the phone back with the exact same cover on it!! During the repair I was left phoneless because carphone warehouse didn't have any spare phones!!! Will be glad when my 2 years are up and might even get another phone to run the contract out on, my daughter's LG cost £40 and its much better!!!
anonymous 18 October, 2011 13:31
a whole lot of apps that i will not make use of ... i dont game on my phone, the camera is rubbish anyways so photo editting software is a joke and since the law here is to not use a mobile while driving that software is useless too!!
im up for a handset upgrade on nov 1st and was looking at another blackberry ... no any more ... im steering well clear!! anyone wanna buy a curve??
anonymous 18 October, 2011 15:30
im very dissapointed that there wont b any monitary compensaton. i am in the market for a new phone and i wont be buying a blackberry!
anonymous 18 October, 2011 19:56
A bunch of unuseful games and apps not good enough !!!
anonymous 19 October, 2011 11:23
OMG!!! ARE THEY SERIOUS,THEY LEAVE US FOR DAYS WITHOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO USE OUR BBS AND THIS IS ALL WE ARE GOING TO GET!!! FFS! I THINK ITS TIME I DASHED THIS BB IN THE BIN ONLY PLACE ITS WORTHY OF AND BUY AN IPHONE!! SOOOO ANNOYED
anonymous 19 October, 2011 11:59
Another customer that will be switching to the iphone. The Blackberry is dead.....iphone strides forward.
anonymous 19 October, 2011 12:42
How do I get this apps?
anonymous 19 October, 2011 19:54
My wife and I both have BBs that are due for upgrade in 2 and 3 months respectively and we find this offer totally insulting - it we wanted all that tosh/**** we'd have acquired it ourselves - that's our custom lost. Only decision to be made now is iPhone/Samsung/HTC/etc - but certainly not another BB!
anonymous 19 October, 2011 21:35
How do you get your free apps?
anonymous 20 October, 2011 00:46
buisness customer's wasnt effected as they are on BES u idiot if u use ur phone on a consumer contract then thats ur fault on relying on it so much.
the network goes down for the general public and u all start winging about it a demand compensation,
our country is a joke we demand this demand that !
how about we all leave RIM alone and just get on with your life . . .
remeber there was a time when we didnt have blackberry would u all like compensation for that aswell ?