Quiz Of The Week: A Year With BlackBerry

A year ago, BlackBerry was in trouble. It’s still in serious difficulty, but things have changed since we last put together a BlackBerry quiz. Back then, the company was in limbo, waiting for its new operating system while its market share slowly declined. So much has happened in the year since then, we thought it was time for a new quiz.

Once mighty BlackBerry

Back in 2009, the firm was holding its own against Apple and accounted for more than half the US smartphone market two years after the iPhone was launched. But BlackBerry’s failure to build a quality touchscreen device and a lack of development led to a rapid decline.

In 2012, there was speculation BlackBerry was up for sale, and users were restless in a year-long wait for a much-trumpeted new version of the operating system, BB10. BlackBerry was also trying to seize the tablet market with its Playbook.

Things have gone from bad to worse.Its share of smartphones has finally fallen into fourth place, behind the struggling Windows Phone, let alone iPhone and Android. BB10 did not emerge until March 2013, and will never be installed on the now-obsolete Playbook. The company, formerly known as RIM, has shrunk in size by at least 10,000 staff.

The firm is up for sale (or at least considering its options), although BlackBerry fans (and the early votes in our BlackBerry poll) suggest that an investment which would take the company off the stock market to rebuild itself, would be a better option.

It’s been an eventful year for BlackBerry. Want to see if you can remember the key events?

Try the quiz!

And if you liked that, try some of our others….