Will offers up his feelings on the news of the new Blackberry phone being released. This isn’t a review. It’s more of a cathartic letter written in response to Blackberry’s sinking ship. Here’s to you Blackberry. Here’s to you.
It sat loosely in my pocket, was thin, and had a keyboard and scroller ball. I’d pull it out whenever it dinged to let me know I had a message, text, SMS, email, or of course a phone call, but there were times where I just flat out neglected it.
I bought mine shortly after the iPhone came out. They were in competition. It didn’t have much of a camera, or anything worthwhile really except for Brick Breaker. My scores weren’t that impressive.
Apps weren’t the best, not that I used them anyway. Still, I felt like a boss when I had it. The possibilities were endless. I could be a CEO, or a self-made man. I was for a while — self-employed — not quite self-made, and then the iPhone caught steam, and I lamented my premature next-gen phone buy. A reminder of previous technological missteps, like the mini-disc player I got just before the iPod came out when MP3 players were around, but nobody really carried one.
I went the wrong way on that one.
I’m a career bad-purchase maker when it comes to making tech buys, because I really don’t use them. I neglect them. I wonder if there’s a culture among Apple’s greatest supporters something akin to the Animal Right’s movement, though clearly less noble. Is there an Iphone Rescue Center, where misused iPhones go to find their “forever homes,” or at the very least their “till next model” homes?
Blackberry’s like the Rottweiler of Smart phones, there’s a community who thinks they’re misunderstood, a community with an overly zealous opinion of them, some of whom may even raise them to be violent, and then there’s an overwhelming voice condemning the whole breed as being prone to aggression.
Someone at the Blackberry office probably sat around thinking, “why are people buying our phones?” Wondering if it was all just a cruel joke, the iPhone like the iceberg that brought down the Titanic.
Will s/he go down with the ship?
The last memory I have of my Curve, a silver, and thin piece of tech, is the frozen screen that stared back at me with an animated waiting symbol. Without provocation, it looked inward, never to be disturbed again. Then I quit my job, and went back to the good old fashioned brick phone that’s a genuine pain in the ass to use. Is the predecessor to a smart phone a dumb phone, or is it just ignorant?
And is it dead, or is it waiting?
In the only possible model it can resurface as, the imagery is unmistakable: the Phoenix. The ashes of my Curve, and all the other abandoned Blackberries out there will rise up again to give new breath to the “Smartphone” market, more glorious than Transformer’s 4, Fast and Furious 6, or Paranormal Activity 4.
Brace yourself for the Blackberry Phoenix. It’s coming.
About Will Ruff
Will Ruff is a writer for Rookerville from Austin, Texas, where he fails at launching startups, writing books, recording music, and otherwise. He's a raconteur at heart and filmophile and soon-to-be self-published author.
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