Providing they haven't already smashed their phones into shards thanks last week's BBM service black out, BlackBerry owners are now being offered the chance to take advantage of an official 'compensation package'.

The move – which serves up over $100 worth of free apps to RIM's customers – is designed to appease those most frustrated by BBM's drop-off, which saw BlackBerry gain negative headlines aplenty the world over.

Guilty dozen

Up for grabs are a total of 12 apps from the likes of Electronics Arts and Gameloft, with a month of free technical support also on offer for enterprise customers, even if they're already on an existing support contract.

"We are grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers for their patience," said RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis.

"We have apologised to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence. We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again."

The outage came as the latest numbers from the US suggest BlackBerry is continuing its downwards spiral in what was previously its largest market – leading some to speculate it could be wiped out entirely by the end of 2012.

A list of all the apps included in the offer can be found on sister site PocketPicks.

[source: SlashGear]