Emailing has never been easier? Noticed that you’ve developed some new text muscles all of a sudden? Can’t stop with the pinging if someone doesn’t reply within 10 seconds? Well, if these are the symptoms, congratulations! You’re not just officially a ‘Blackberry Boy’, but more on the lines of an addict! They call them ‘crackberries’ for a reason.
Crackberry addicts
Once an exclusive tool marketed so well that every professional had to have one to simplify their life, the BlackBerry has now become a musthave gadget for people of just about any age. Ask a college-going kid what’s the most exciting part of his or her day, and pat comes the reply: chatting on my ‘BB’. And, we cannot forget to include the bored housewife, for whom the BlackBerry has offered an extended horizon at dirt-cheap prices.
With over 10,000 apps, solid and candy-coloured cases, push email and the BBM facility, this smartphone has taken over the basic mobile phone and has supposedly made our lives easy and fast, perhaps a little too fast for our liking.
It literally connects you with everyone, anytime. I never understood the term ‘crackberry’ until I got myself a BlackBerry. And boy did I understand the addictive nature of this phone! I have never had an addiction to anything, be it alcohol, drugs, video games or gambling (well maybe Italian food), until BlackBerry Bold came into my life. There I was texting away till my thumbs went sore.
Hooked no more
Barring the convenience that it might offer to BlackBerry fans, there isn’t much improvement besides visible performance notch ups that would make an average customer think twice about switching over to an iPhone or Android-based mobile phone. In fact, the latest generation of BlackBerry smart phones seem rather boring. The brand is sort of getting lost in a market that is brimming with new technologies and innovative designs that grab the customer’s attention. This clearly makes the good old BB a tad boring and obviously doesn’t translate well for RIM’s sales.
The new BlackBerry phones that RIM will launch have the same physical keyboards with comparatively smaller screens and newer versions of the OS that give the same feel as the previous versions. If RIM has trouble selling the existing products in the market, why produce clones of the same smart phones? This does not make much sense.
BlackBerry seems to be a flash in the pan, with its clone-like unimaginative upgrades that at no level stand close to the other smart phones in the market. Its latest BlackBerry phones, even though solidly designed, are failing miserably.
Are you thinking of switching to an iPhone or Android-based phone? It’s a scary journey, but once you do, you’ll never look back. As a former BlackBerry addict, I knew there would be some obstacles and things to get used to. Once you decide to take the plunge, there are some obvious improvements that you will come to love. And, of course, you will think to yourself, sometimes in life, you get addicted to the strangest of things.
Volume 2 Issue 1
