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Like the much-maligned power ballad, the video seems to imply, BlackBerry is outdated, clunky, and makes you cringe if anyone catches you near it.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