(Photo: RIM)

If you had to assign every smartphone maker a musical genre, picking out Apple's would be easy: aging, inoffensive alt-rock. (Hence the Foo Fighters appearance at this month's iPhone 5 presser or Coldplay "jamming" at its big music event in 2010.) Corporate, with a fading patina of cool.

But you needn't search through your Spotify account to find the genre that best fits BlackBerry. RIM has chosen for itself: cheese rock. In order to woo developers turned off by declining BlackBerry usage, executives have filmed a cover of REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Loving You," which debuted at something called a "BlackBerry Jam Americas" this month.

Like the much-maligned power ballad, the video seems to imply, BlackBerry is outdated, clunky, and makes you cringe if anyone catches you near it.

We're gonna give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume this is Doritos® Locos Tacos Supreme of retention strategies. Considering the preface they video by saying, "Thank you to those devs who are working hard, and for those jumping on board every day," when devs are jumping in the opposite direction, they have to be in on the joke.