We have a lot of positive nostalgia, so time for some negative views :D I hated most every blackberry I owned. Stupid, clumsy and bulky devices.
BlackBerry was not that massive a shift from the standard. It was just _slightly_ different to what feature phones of the day were doing. Sony Ericson had some P800/P900 devices that clouted the BB in terms of power and feature sets. Here's a quick roundup of why I don't hold BB in high regard
1. BBM was not unique or innovative. Many a chat app had existed on J2ME devices LONG before RIM were a thing.
2. BB launched apps from a Main method, making architectural changes all but impossible going forward. This also lead to that goddamned spinning hour glass that needed a device restart to resolve.
3. Not many claims about their security and compression turned out to be true. Whilst the encryption was excellent, handing over the keys to various governments was not. The compression I remain unconvinced about, many a conflicting report out there.
4. Ultimately RIM were unable to execute on the BB platform in a meaningful manner. They were very quickly outclassed by Google and Apple despite an incredible market lead. Looking back, blackberry always felt like a polished proof of concept but not quite production grade. Even low level Android devices had a more polished feel. Touchscreen became popular for a reason, BB pretty much refused to believe it was more than a fad. Then they made the Torch, and they deserved to die at that point. I loathed how useless and unpredictable that phone was at being a phone.
5. This one is subjective: Those keyboards were utter garbage. I could do 60 wpm on a t9, and that was slower than most people I knew. None of those people could match their speeds on a BB. Today's touchscreen keyboards are worse, so point there.
I don't miss my blackberry, but I do miss BBM and that time of my life.
I do miss some of my old feature phones though, such as the Samsung D600 and the Motorola V3 Razer
BlackBerry was not that massive a shift from the standard. It was just _slightly_ different to what feature phones of the day were doing. Sony Ericson had some P800/P900 devices that clouted the BB in terms of power and feature sets. Here's a quick roundup of why I don't hold BB in high regard
1. BBM was not unique or innovative. Many a chat app had existed on J2ME devices LONG before RIM were a thing.
2. BB launched apps from a Main method, making architectural changes all but impossible going forward. This also lead to that goddamned spinning hour glass that needed a device restart to resolve.
3. Not many claims about their security and compression turned out to be true. Whilst the encryption was excellent, handing over the keys to various governments was not. The compression I remain unconvinced about, many a conflicting report out there.
4. Ultimately RIM were unable to execute on the BB platform in a meaningful manner. They were very quickly outclassed by Google and Apple despite an incredible market lead. Looking back, blackberry always felt like a polished proof of concept but not quite production grade. Even low level Android devices had a more polished feel. Touchscreen became popular for a reason, BB pretty much refused to believe it was more than a fad. Then they made the Torch, and they deserved to die at that point. I loathed how useless and unpredictable that phone was at being a phone.
5. This one is subjective: Those keyboards were utter garbage. I could do 60 wpm on a t9, and that was slower than most people I knew. None of those people could match their speeds on a BB. Today's touchscreen keyboards are worse, so point there.
I don't miss my blackberry, but I do miss BBM and that time of my life.
I do miss some of my old feature phones though, such as the Samsung D600 and the Motorola V3 Razer