Why BlackBerry Failed

I've been a BlackBerry user for two and a half years now. I was happy with it for the first year. It felt like EVERYONE had a BlackBerry. Out of my circle of friends, only one didn't have a BlackBerry at the "peak" - around late 2008-2009.

It was cool. It was smart. BBM was coolest way to text. But then what happened?

It's too easy to blame the iPhone. I think it's more the lackluster advancements that BlackBerry has made since their real competitors have come out. It's still running with an "office" mentality that will be the product's downfall. Originally, the BlackBerry was meant to be an "office" phone - for portable e-mail communication. It made sense and was a huge success.

But now BlackBerry has lost any edge it had. That's not news. It's just the way it went down. It seemed like a product that would withstand any new product, but instead it couldn't find ways to innovate itself. It remained too "office"-y while trying to be marketed as a "consumer" product.

Easiest problem is the internet. If you can't look at the "real" internet - not the mobile version - then it's stupid. iPhone's and Droid's can, so why can't BlackBerry? I literally don't use the thing to go on the Internet - mainly because I'm trying to save the battery - but the browser sucks.

Everything about the BlackBerry is too much of a pain in the ass. The BBM is cool, but it's not cool when nobody's on it anymore. Since the phone's break all the time, your PIN changes, so nobody knows you have an updated PIN unless you tell them. If you have alot of contacts, that could take a while.

I know I've written about this before, but the battery is atrocious. I also use the damn thing too much, but the battery won't last me much longer than maybe 6 hours? Again - most of that is because I'm OCD for Foursquare and check Twitter when I'm bored, but come on. I turn my phone off to save the battery. Doesn't it defeat the purpose of being mobile if I have to charge my phone every 5 hours? And, this speaks to how absurd our society has become, you feel lost without a functional phone, and the feeling of an almost-empty battery can be terrifying if you're crazy enough. We're enslaved to these devices.

I'm not totally sold on the touch concept, but BlackBerry got it wrong. The Storm with the "click" nonsense was lame. People were skeptical with the iPhone's touch screen for texting, but it seems that everyone's gotten over that. The new Torch works for touch, but it's still running on the BlackBerry Operating System - and that is what crippled the product. The App Store is too slow moving for me to want to do anything. It takes away from the simplicity that iPhone has really mastered.

I forget when I'm up for a new phone - because of the stupid contracts that we're stuck in - but I know my next phone will NOT be a BlackBerry. I'm done with them. Mainly it's the battery, but also the browser are too limiting. I'm stuck on Verizon, so who knows if the iPhone will actually be coming or if it's just more rumors, but I think I'll be content with the Droid X - the thing looks sweet.

Sorry BBM, but you're days are numbered.