News regarding the Wake Up campaign involving a flash mob protest in front of Apple Store in Australia, a teaser page with a timer, posters, billboards, the words “Wake Up” at the bottom of Bondi Ice Bergs pool, had everyone blaming Samsung for the anti-Apple campaign.  But that was all put to rest when the South Korean company denied any involvement in the movement and details emerged that it was in fact RIM that was behind the anti-Apple propaganda.

Though RIM kept mum about the issue for awhile, they admitted that they were the one responsible for the anti-Apple campaign, stating that everything will be revealed on May 7th, which is today.  The news comes days after RIM’s BlackBerry World event, where the mobile company announced their plans to open source their BlackBerry 10 OS.

The ho-hum revelation

If you thought that RIM would be delivering explosive news, then I’m really sorry to burst your bubble.  The most exciting part of their anti-Apple campaign was the flash mob protest.

The Wake Up. Be Bold. site, which used to have the countdown timer, now reveals a boring black and white script being narrated by an Australian-sounding voice.  So boring!    And if the point of it was to wake people up, I’m sorry to say that if it had been any longer I would probably have dozed off.

Another thing, the Wake Up campaign was confusing.  The script stated that “business is no longer just a suit-wearing, cubicle sitting, card-carrying kind of pursuit” but that’s what business people look like, so why criticize your user base then say in the end that “business is not for everyone”?   Then they go on to say that there’s only one device for people who mean business, so they’re saying BlackBerry is for serious business people – those that wear suits and ties.

And since it’s an anti-Apple campaign, they targeted the iPhone maker but unfortunately it wasn’t even witty.  The script stated, “don’t just think different; you do different,” and “satisfied to just float through life like a cork in the stream.”  Seriously, RIM, that’s the best you can come up with?

Lucky for RIM, a sorry anti-Apple campaign isn’t the only thing they unveiled today.

BlackBerry Screen Reader

RIM also launched the BlackBerry Screen Reader, a free application that helps BlackBerry users who are blind or visually impaired operate their smartphone.  The BlackBerry Screen Reader provides an audible output based on visual information displayed on a BlackBerry smartphone.

“We are excited to introduce BlackBerry Screen Reader as part of our suite of accessibility solutions for BlackBerry smartphones,” said Greg Fields, Senior Product Manager. “BlackBerry Screen Reader helps customers with visual impairments stay connected with the people and information that matter most to them, and is representative of RIM’s continuing commitment to support customers with disabilities.”

The BlackBerry Screen Reader features support for core applications so users can easily access core BlackBerry applications such as email, calendar, phone calls and more.  There’s speech settings to customize the text-to-speech settings (volume, pitch and speech rate) and preferences for punctuation, verbosity and password security. Keyboard shortcuts let you set speech and audio preferences quickly and easily, and the Accessible documentation User Guide is available in accessible HTML through a desktop web browser.

The app is now available for free, compatible for use in the BlackBerry Curve 9350, 9360 and 9370 smartphones and supports English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.