If you thought BlackBerry could continue building hardware forever, regardless of how successful, or unsuccessful – as the case may be – that hardware was, then it appears that you would be wrong.

With the same of Nokia to Microsoft, the world lost one of the original smartphone makers to what some would call natural wastage. Failing to keep up with the times and a lack of recognition of new competitors left Nokia on its knees, and as if one mega phone maker all but dying wasn’t enough, it seems the writing is on the wall for another.

Research In Motion, a company known for its once market-leading BlackBerry range, has rebranded itself by the name of its main outlet, and its first move under its new BlackBerry moniker has been to announce the Z10 smartphone. Research In Motion, often referred to under the acronym RIM, has been working hard over the past couple of years to rebuild its BlackBerry brand, which has been left behind by the likes of Apple’s iPhone and the plethora of Android handsets which now dominate the market. The Z10 certainly looks a promising device, having fared favorably against the iPhone 5 in a brief test, and it will be interesting to see whether a new company name, and a new device, will trigger a comeback for BlackBerry.

The majority of the smartphone world keenly awaits the release of BlackBerry 10 and its associated devices. Perhaps not with the kind of excitement it once might have, it has to be said, but out of respect for the power the brand used to possess, it’s hard to ignore the traction Research in Motion has managed to gain over the past year or so. To give us an idea of how far BlackBerry has come its quest to reestablish itself, one German site has compared the BlackBerry Z10 with the iPhone 5, and you may be surprised by the results. Details after the break.

Keen to show businesses that there is a world outside BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Samsung has aired a new ad that it believes shows its own business solution as a real competitor for RIM’s. It may have fallen wide off the mark, however.

If you pulled together a focus group of average smartphone users and gathered their thoughts on the platforms which they believe are most relevant at the current time, then it is unlikely that BlackBerry and RIM would get a significant mention. There was a time when RIM were on top of the world and riding on the crest of a wave, but the emergence of iOS and Android as well as some killer underlying hardware from Apple and other manufacturers has seemingly put an end to that.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS is clearly struggling to maintain relevance in the current consumer market, but with all three of the major mobile operating systems having taken steps to implement some description of voice-recognition functionality, it appears BlackBerry will also be joining the party, too.

Remember that ‘Wake Up’ advertising campaign that was part of the reason a bus full of people turned up outside an Apple Store in Australia? Remember how the talk of the Internet was that the whole thing was part of a Samsung campaign against Apple? Turns out that might not be entirely accurate.

So here we are, the last day of my look into the future. A look at what the big boys of the smartphone world will be doing, as well as what I think they should be doing, throughout 2012.

Just when the world was starting to lose hope in RIM’s first attempt to take on the tablet market with the BlackBerry PlayBook, a tool – which is the first one ever of its kind – has popped up in the interwebs which jailbreaks the said device.

What mobile operating system is more popular in your state: iOS, BlackBerry or Android? Not only enthusiasts have been asking themselves that question, advertising research firms have too. Jumptap, one of those agencies, was nice enough to release a map of the United States laying out which states have more Android, BlackBerry and iOS users.

According to sources, Google is working on its own version of iMessage, the exclusive instant messaging client that’s built into iOS. Details are scarce at the moment, but it would make perfect sense for Google to jump on board, like other competitors have.