If you’ve been a BlackBerry smartphone user for a while, you’ve no doubt come across BlackBerry themes. BlackBerry themes allow for changing the way your BlackBerry smartphone looks from the background image right down to the icons, cursor style and much more. Over the years, the tool used to create BlackBerry themes saw many changes including its name. What once started as a basic tool called Plazmic, was then purchased by BlackBerry and renamed BlackBerry Theme Builder and renamed again for what would be its last iteration to BlackBerry Theme Studio. The Windows based application allowed anyone to create their own BlackBerry themes and as such, there is a multitude of themes available for download for free or for a fee depending on the level of quality.

With the release of BlackBerry World, themes were given top priority as they were favored by many and considered to be one of the many things that people loved about BlackBerry. As BlackBerry transitioned from the BlackBerry OS, it became apparent themes were not going to be included in the transition. As BlackBerry released the BlackBerry PlayBook they confirmed the PlayBook would not have the ability to be 'skinned' with themes. BlackBerry did however, confirm they would continue support for legacy devices and continued releasing updates to the BlackBerry Theme Studio, albeit at a slower pace until the announcement for BlackBerry 10 came.

With the announcement of BlackBerry 10, customers were advised that themes would no longer be supported on that system much like the BlackBerry PlayBook and all planned updates for the BlackBerry Theme Studio were discontinued. That situation left BlackBerry theme developers with the option of continuing on supporting older devices or moving to the new BlackBerry Native SDK to build feature rich applications which would allow for a smaller level of customization or 'skinning' of the operating system. There is still plenty of BlackBerry theme developers out there creating themes for older devices but as time goes on, there is fewer and fewer creating new work. Be sure to check out our gallery of Free BlackBerry themes as well.