NY Magazine posted an article listing their reasons as to why RIM, the creator of Blackberry, fell apart. Once an avid Blackberry user, I have crossed over to the ‘dark side’ and couldn’t be happier with my iPhone. This caused me to think as to why the age of the Blackberry has died so abruptly. While the article goes on to list the reasons the company itself fell under, I wanted to express the ways as to why the phones themselves simply couldn’t keep up. Here are my reasons:

1. Blackberries freeze… a lot. There was no easy way to figure out how many programs were open on your Blackberry at a given time. You were just to exit the application each and every time it was opened. While I knew well enough to close them religiously, I still experienced multiple issues with my phone freezing. On iPhone’s, all you have to do is double hit the home button and you can simultaneous close all your open applications, therefore eliminating a system burnout. Such a small seemingly insignificant change makes a huge difference.

2. The apps kinda sucked. I hope after reading that sub header one app in particular came to your mind: Facebook. The Facebook for Blackberry application was painful. Painful enough that it always froze, always had bugs, and never seemed to work. I consistently used Facebook on the browser, simply because that was more efficient than the app itself. It was really difficult to maneuver, especially with the top bar that was meant to ‘navigate’. While some of the other Blackberry applications worked decently, their iPhone versions seem to be much much more helpful and easy.
3. The screens are small. Zooming in on a Blackberry screen was obnoxious and required several keystrokes. On an iPhone, all one must do is pull the screen, if it is needed at all. With a bigger screen, it is easier to view entire pages. The pixels are also much clearer, both on Android and iPhones than I ever remember seeing on my Blackberry.
4. BBM was far too exclusive and often slow. Ah, Blackberry Messenger, RIM’s version of AIM. I was an avid user of BBM and can report feeling pretty cool when my little check marks turned from D (delivered) to R (read). What was nice about BBM is that it worked both on telephone service as well as Wi-Fi. iPhone’s version, iMessage, is a step up from BBM and I believe knocks it out of the ballpark. Each Blackberry had a specific PIN number (that differed from a telephone number) that could be given out to add someone to your BBM contacts. iMessage differs in that as long as you have a contact’s phone number, the phone will recognize who else had an iPhone and the conversation would instantly turn to iMessage. By not becoming a different application (both texts and IMessages appear under the ‘Messages’ app) this eliminates the chance of your phone freezing since one less program is open. BBM also seemed to have a lot of issues delivering messages; since users could see when their messages were delivered, when it took some time, it often became frustrating. If iMessage gives users trouble, they have the option of sending the message as a regular text message to eliminate a long wait time. When BBM services went down for nearly a day last October, users were very disheartened. I can’t seem to think a similar situation would happen to a company as seasoned as Apple.
5. Trackpads & Roller Balls are a lot more trouble than they’re worth. I used to be anti-touch phones. They seemed annoying and difficult to type on. While typing can still be an issue (that’s a whole other story), the navigation on a Blackberry was often impossible. With both roller balls and their later replacements, trackpads, your phone freezing became almost inevitable. I used to think the idea of them was so cool …Wow I can run my hand over this tiny little square and it will MOVE? I got to deal with it only deciding to move half the time, if that. Guess what — unless I lose or hurt them, my fingers ALWAYS move, i.e. my iPhone screen is always alert when I need it to be.
I will admit, there is one sole thing I miss about my Blackberry: the smileys. Emoji on iPhones are expansive, but it’s more that there are numerous different symbols and not nearly enough smiley faces that express emotions. The eye rolling & the raised eyebrow smiley are two that still hold a place near and dear to my heart. App creators, it’s time to get on the bandwagon and create some better emoji!

In short, RIM was simply unable to keep up with the technology that Mac was developing. My iPhone not only does everything I need it to, it does a hell of a lot more. I can even scan documents with this thing. Can YOUR Blackberry do that, RIM? I think not.

Lovelies, what are your feelings on Blackberry & RIM? What issues have you had with your past or current cell phones?

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