Tracking the BlackBerry service outage worldwide

The list of downloadable apps includes the following (with more to come):

Naturally, availability of the above apps depends upon device type and the OS version installed.

Things are slowly getting better for BlackBerry users around the world, as RIM restores service after a four-day outage that took down BBM and email across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Americas, and Africa. That's the word straight from RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, who's posted a contrite video apologizing for the outage and informing customers that the company expects to see some additional instability as systems fully come back online — a process that has no definite timeline as of yet. Hit the break for the video and the source link for RIM's page detailing the restoration process.

RIM's bruised and battered reputation is taking another hit today, courtesy of Microsoft's Ben Rudolph who has taken to Twitter to ask users to detail their discontent with using a BlackBerry. In order to set their tongues free, Ben has procured 25 Windows Phone devices, which he will give away for free -- presumably to those with the most torrid tale of BlackBerry blues. Microsoft's ploy looks to have worked, since Ben has been busy retweeting a great many displeased BB users since. He's even been nice enough to widen the scope of the giveaway to iPhone users; quite a few iOS 5 upgraders have had trouble getting the latest software loaded onto their phones, so Ben wants to hear from them too. Hit the link below to see the announcement and follow his Twitter profile to read the most interesting and compelling critiques of his competitors' software.

RIM says in an official status update that many BlackBerry services are operating again — and chatter on Twitter suggests users agree — but some areas are still experiencing outages. RIM says that BlackBerry email systems are operating everywhere, but it is continuing to clear backlogged messages. BBM and browsing services are online everywhere except for Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa, and three unnamed carrier networks in Latin America. And lucky folks in the U.S. should see all their services operating normally.

It is now unclear what the current extent of the problem is, and when services will return to normal.

Still no good news for BlackBerry users in Europe, Asia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and parts of Africa that have been without service for the better part of two days now, but at least RIM's identified the problem — in statement to Pocket-lint, the company said that the problems were caused by a "core switch failure" that didn't kick over to its backup as planned. The result has been a "large backlog" of messages and data that needs to be cleared, but RIM still hasn't committed to a time frame for full service restoration. We'll let you know as soon as we hear anything.

It hasn't been a fun 20 hours for BlackBerry users across Europe and Asia, but RIM says that email and Blackberry Messenger services are now working normally again after going out early yesterday. There's no word on why the outage occurred, but RIM says that messages were simply "delayed," so it doesn't sound like any data got lost in transit. We'd still double check to make sure, though — and let us know how things are going for you in comments.