BlackBerryOS.com - BlackBerryOS' 2012 Year In Review

With 2013 finally under way, the BlackBerry community has a great year ahead of it. The launch of BlackBerry 10 is only 29 days away and it's sure to be amazing. Looking back, 2012 was a pretty cool year though. It was a year of transition in the BlackBerry world. At times, it was exciting, pessimistic, revealing, and pretty much any other adjective you can think of. 2012 was all about BlackBerry 10 and building up momentum towards the launch in 2013. Here are our top stories of 2012!

January

Research In Motion started off the year by announcing OS 7.1 for current BlackBerry 7 devices. OS 7.1 brought with it Mobile Hotspot, WiFi calling/UMA support, BlackBerry Tag (NFC), and FM Radio support for BlackBerry Curves.

A big shake up followed on January 22nd, when RIM co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, stepped down from their executive positions and were replaced by Thorsten Heins, who had served as COO.

February

[Mobile? Click here for the video!]

New BlackBerry "Be Bold" commercials hit the airwaves. The Martinez' brothers famous tagline at the end of their commercial would become a pretty common phrase BlackBerry lovers would repeat. "We want tools, not toys."

PlayBook OS 2.0 dropped at around 5am on February 21st as predicted. We celebrated the days leading up to it on Twitter with the hashtag #TwosDay, which became so popular, VP of Dev Relations, Alec Saunders and BlackBerry's official account used it.

March

In a huge showing of #teamBlackBerry support, BlackBerry's social media channels surpassed 25 million fans in March.

RIM offers a ton of premium apps for free as part of the "Compliments of BlackBerry" promotion.

The yet to be announced BlackBerry Curve 9320 gets pictured with its dedicated BBM button.

More changes happened in RIM's Board of Directors when Jim Balsillie and others step down on March 29th. RIM's earnings report for Fiscal Q4 2012 was also on the 29th. Heins was quoted as saying, "My impression of RIM on day 2 of being CEO is very different from my impression in week 10." For me personally, this was when I felt Thorsten had started taking charge of RIM. It was the beginning of change.

April

Jessie J performs at BBM party in the UK on April 3rd. Unfortunately, turmoil ensued as one of the attendees, a UK RIM employee, was stabbed on the dance floor.

The BlackBerry Curve 9220 is launched in India on April 18th. It would quickly become one of the hottest selling items in that nation.

VP of Dev Relations, Alec Saunders, told all developers why they needed to be at BlackBerry Jam in Orlando in May in the above video.

BlackBerry 7 gets named the most security mobile OS for businesses, again.

The BlackBerry Beta Zone got a much needed makeover.

The Dev Alpha device gets pictured for the first time a week before BlackBerry World and Jam.

May

May was a busy month that started off with BlackBerry World and BlackBerry Jam 2012 in Orlando, Florida.

Thorsten's BlackBerry World keynote on Day 1 was his first as CEO of RIM and it was awesome. RIM showed off BlackBerry 10 for the first time in some kick ass recorded and live demos. The BlackBerry 10 Cascades SDK was also released for developers.

We got some alone time with the newly announced BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha.

That night at the BlackBerry party, the Pacemaker app for PlayBook was shown off in full force.

RIM took all the positive vibes from BlackBerry Jam in Orlando and decided to take it on the road to developers everywhere.

BlackBerry 10's lock screen and cinnamon toast notifications slides leaked on 6th along with the media player, home screen, clock and more. This was one of the biggest BlackBerry 10 UI leaks we had come across at the time.

RIM partners with TomTom for their current and future maps plans.

RIM announces the hire of their new CMO and COO.

The BlackBerry Curve 9320 and 9220 are introduced in Latin America.

The BlackBerry PlayBook's OS 2.1 Beta goes live for developers and pretty much anyone else that wanted to load it.

June

June was a pretty relaxed month to start. Unfortunately, towards the end of June, the morale behind BlackBerry 10 would drop to an all-time low.

During BlackBerry Jam New York, RIM's principal architect, Gary Klassen, gave us another sneak peek at BlackBerry 10's UI and the excellent virtual keyboard.

The insanely expensive BlackBerry P'9981 was launched in Canada.

We're so used to the names L-Series and N-Series that we forget that at one time they were foreign to us. Back on June 26th, the names L-Series and N-Series are first leaked in internal slides. We've referred to each series of device as that since then.

On June 28th, Research In Motion gave BlackBerry users one of the heaviest blows to date when Thorsten Heins announced BlackBerry 10 would be delayed until Q1 2013. The next day, Heins would start rallying his troops at RIM and would begin the slow track back to reaffirm and reinvigorate BlackBerry lovers everywhere.

July

The summer months brought a lot of confidence from Thorsten Heins. He stood behind RIM's decision to delay BlackBerry 10 'til 2013 saying RIM was not "in a death spiral" as many in the media had suggested.

The BlackBerry 10 2013 roadmap was leaked.

App World reached a huge milestone when it hit 3 billion downloads.

The PlayBook Experience came to New York City.

Frank Boulben and Thorsten Heins do a few interviews about BlackBerry 10 and how the launch will happen.

The beautiful BlackBerry 10 keyboard text prediction patent was awarded to RIM on the 18th.

We got a chance to interview Head of Software Portfolio, Vivek Bhardwaj, and talk more BlackBerry 10.

We got another unofficial glimpse at what BBM would look like on BB10 with this leak on the 25th. A 10" PlayBook then made an appearance in the wild. We still haven't seen this bad boy and odds are we may never see it.

August

The BlackBerry PlayBook 4G was announced and released on August 9th in Canada. We're still waiting for a 4G PlayBook in the U.S. and hopefully once BB10 launches, that turns into reality.

"Pink Slip Thursday" haunts RIM employees.

RIM's decision towards licensing BlackBerry 10 continues to be a hot topic in August.

Usain Bolt wins a gold medal at the Olympics, then says he has to "thank a few people on his BBM."

Rumors of Samsung acquiring RIM circle again. Samsung shoots them down, again.

RIM details upcoming device screen resolutions for BlackBerry 10.

"Program has ended" day for Dev Alphas everywhere around the world happened on the last day of August.

September

The month of September was huge for BlackBerry. It was the most revealing for what the BlackBerry 10 UI and hardware would look like.

At the beginning of the month, we got a couple of nice leaks that showed off the home screen and other parts of BlackBerry 10.

We found the first clear picture of the BlackBerry 10 L-Series and then more pictures leaked later.

We all knew it was coming, but on September 6th, Mobihand officially closed its App Stores down.