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Feeling overloaded with BlackBerry news and rumors? We know the feeling. We hear new things almost every day, and it can be tough to keep up with it all. that’s why we’re bringing you BlackBerry News from the Wire every Thursday.

We’ll catch you up on everything ‘Berry that happened over the course of the week. Not only that, but we’ll rank ‘em by importance, so you can more easily skim the items and read the ones of most significance. If you only have time to read one article, for instance, you might want to head down to our 5-star section. It’s All the BlackBerry News Fit to Geek.

Look for BlackBerry to start Touring in July
As we anxiously await the official announcement of the BlackBerry Tour next week at WES, the boys at BGR are putting together information before the fact. The latest: look for a July release on Verizon. Knowing RIM that could be mid- to late-July, even back into August. Sorry, but it’s hard to shake the pessimism after last year’s Bold announcement and release. Still, the Tour looks to be the best BlackBerry yet, and it should be worth the wait.

Taking a deeper look at OS 5.0
Last week on News From The Wire we pointed out the new features on OS 5.0, which hopefully will be announced next week. If that got you excited, then be sure to check out Kevin’s complete walk through of incremental features. Perhaps just as interesting as the new features is a bit of sad news: Older devices might not be compatible. There are conflicting reports on whether the 83xx series will get an upgrade in the future, but it seems that all older devices (pre-4.6) will be left out on this one.

RIM’s Trade-Up Program leads to $30 Bold
Don Reisinger of CNET relates a most excellent tale of BlackBerry and RIM awesomeness: . Long story short, he decided to give up his iPhone 3G for the Bold. He used his wife’s upgrade to bring the price to $399.99, $299.99 with the mail-in rebate. But then the sales rep introduced him to the BlackBerry Trade-Up Program, in which RIM buys your old phone. To Reisinger’s surprise, the iPhone carried a trade-in value of $222, plus $50 for using the promo code “graduate”. That knocked the phone down to about $30 with sales tax. That’s a pretty awesome price for a killer device.

BlackBerry Unite! out, new collaborative tool on the way
The headline says it all. It appears RIM is letting BlackBerry Unite! die off. That’s not a terrible idea. It was a good concept, but it never realized its full potential. In its place RIM is rumored to have BlackBerry Groups, an on-device application which accomplishes many of the same collaborative tasks as Unite. Maybe a WES announcement?

Another WES rumor: Pearl flip on Verizon?
While we’re all amped for the announcement of the Tour, there could be another RIM/Verizon announcement at WES. We could be seeing the first of the BlackBerry Apex. Or, really, not so much. TheStreet.com admits that this is an EVDO flip, so it’s the 8230, which we know is coming to Alltel, which we know is owned by Verizon. So maybe this isn’t such a big deal. The name Apex drew me in, I suppose.

Slacker hits 1 million downloads
Streaming radio is where it’s at. Want proof? Slacker Radio has logged one million downloads since its release in January. Not bad, Slacker. Keep those songs free-flowing and it’ll be two million before they know it.

The way-too-highly-priced custom Bold
We’ll end the week on a light-hearted note. Al Sacco has the story of a U.K. department store which is selling a custom BlackBerry Bold for £1,000 ($1,500 USD). As Sacco notes: “you could buy two brand new, unlocked Bolds with the full ColorWare treatment–not just a battery cover and a unique keypad–for less than the £1,000 (roughly $1,500) the company’s charging for it.” Amen. They’re only putting out 10, so they’ll probably sell. To whom, though, I have no idea.

Deleting carrier crapware. Carriers loading apps and quick launches onto your BlackBerry is annoying. Here’s how to rid yourself of them.

BlackBerry secret codes. It sounds so cool because they’re “secret,” but these codes do have useful applications.

Do you spend too much time on your BlackBerry? This nifty application will let you know exactly how much time you spend on your favorite device.

Streamlining BlackBerry use with IntelliBerry. This is a neat and cheap application which will make your multitasking life a bit easier.

Using the Alt key to switch between apps. It’s a quick and easy way to multitask.

Using caps lock and num lock on your BlackBerry. It feel like an Alt key week here at BBGeeks. The latest is how to use the Alt key for caps lock and num lock.

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