New Delhi, Oct. 17: Research in Motion (RIM) is trying to mollify enraged BlackBerry customers with the offer of free mobile applications, or apps, worth $100 (about Rs 5,000) after a three-day global blackout.
The Canadian firm will also offer corporate clients one month of free technical support as it tries to retain customers and head off lawsuits after one of the worst BlackBerry service disruptions.
The offer is being made “as an expression of appreciation for their patience during the recent service disruptions”, RIM said.
Initially, customers are being offered 12 applications. RIM has confirmed that more would be added to the list. The current list has five games and seven applications.
Three of the five games are from Gameloft: Texas Hold ’em Poker 2, a variant of standard Poker; a highly addictive Java game called Bubble Bash 2, and N.OV.A., a first-person shooter game where you fight for mankind’s survival against aliens known as Judges.
The other two games are from Electronic Arts: a strategy game called SIMS 3 and a puzzle called Bejeweled.
The user applications include Vlingo Plus, a virtual assistant based on voice recognition technology that helps you get directions, find a restaurant, get a specific phone number or update your social network site.
Other apps include iSpeech Translator Pro that converts emails and text messages into multiple languages. This app supports 18 languages, including English but doesn’t cover any Indian languages yet.
Two other apps are DriveSafe.ly Pro and DriveSafe.ly Enterprise, which are basically hands-free apps for drivers. They can read out text messages and e-mails and help one chat with friends by converting speech into text responses.
Music lovers will appreciate two apps — Shazam Encore and Nobex Radio Premium. Shazam helps one get songs and lyrics, watch music videos, post tags on Facebook and Twitter, and see which songs are hot and popular in a particular area. Nobex tunes into 16,000 radio stations in 100 countries.
It is also offering the Photo Editor Ultimate from Ice Cold Apps that helps users edit images, add cliparts and text, and overlay a second image — and share the result with friends.
There’s a caveat here: sources say Nobex Radio will be available only on the BlackBerry Playbook, the tablet that RIM launched in India in June. It is not immediately clear whether the other apps will work on all BlackBerry handsets. Sources say the handset will show the list of apps that it can use.
The free apps will become available from October 19 and can be downloaded till December 31, 2011.
Business customers who already have a support contract will be offered a month of BlackBerry’s enhanced support service.
Many BlackBerry service providers globally have started either issuing service credits or offering free calls and messages. Indian mobile operators are still weighing options on the vexed issue of subscriber compensation.
