BlackBerry has a long way to go to earn laurels back, the struggling smartphone manufacturer's chief executive Thorsten Heins admitted.

In a recent phone interview, Heins candidly admitted that BlackBerry has second-class status when it comes to the pecking order of smartphones.

The BlackBerry Q10, which will feature a physical keyboard, may consume 8-10 weeks after the release of the full-touch BlackBerry Z10 smartphone to become available in the U. S. market.

As the BlackBerry Z10 is expected hit U. S. stores around mid of March this year, the Q10 will therefore become available in the country sometime in to mid-May to early June.

The 8-10 weeks holdup in the arrival of the Q10 was announced by Research in Motion (RIM) Chief Executive Thorsten Heins in a recent interview.

Canada-based BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM), which has been struggling in the smartphone arena over the last one year or so, is banking heavily on the Wednesday launch of its new BlackBerry 10 (BB10) platform for a reversal of fortunes in the mobile-device arena.

According to a Bloomberg report, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) revealed in a last-week government filing that it is dropping Research In Motion (RIM)'s BlackBerry handset in favor of the Apple iPhone.

Popular location-based social network Foursquare has finally brought the "Nearby friends" feature back on to the iPhone and BlackBerry.

The "Nearby friends" feature, which allows users to know what their friends in their vicinity are doing, was scrapped to only see check-ins from nearby friends in the Foursquare 5.0 revamp.

According to a Monday report from Bloomberg, even though Research in Motion (RIM) is currently struggling with plunging BlackBerry demand in the consumer and enterprise market, the company is still witnessing a growth in the sales of BlackBerry devices within the US Government.

In a Tuesday announcement, Research in Motion (RIM) revealed that it had brought on a substantial upgrade to its BlackBerry PlayBook operating system, with one of the several additions to have come aboard being a native e-mail client for the tablet.