Blackberry and Apple
By Steve Sharp
What ever happened to the Blackberry?
I have a friend, a banker who runs the IT team, and who still has one in daily use. Swears by it. Mind you, he has a vintage Jaguar also in daily use, which says something about him.
Launched in 1999, it grew in popularity so that, at its peak in 2011 there were 85 million subscribers.
In the same year Nokia launched its popular 3210, selling 160 million units.
The name BlackBerry was coined by the marketing company Lexicon Branding. The name was chosen out of about 40 potential names because of the resemblance of the keyboard’s buttons to that of the drupelets that composed a blackberry fruit, and the instant pronunciation, which reflected the speed of this push e-mail system.
On January the 4th, 2022, BlackBerry decommissioned the infrastructure and services used by the legacy software and phone operating systems.
In a blog post, Executive Chairman and CEO BlackBerry Limited John Chen explained “the independence, mobility, security, and privacy that so many of us came to associate with those ground-breaking BlackBerry devices remains alive and strong, as does the spirit of invention and innovation that got us here”.
They did not, however, disappear altogether. In 2017 BlackBerry reinvented itself as a software company focused on providing enabling technologies to ensure the safety and security of all devices and systems businesses rely on. In 2021 they prevented more than 165 million cyberattacks and securely connect more than 500 million mobile and desktop devices. Their safety certified software is used in over 235 million vehicles.
Probably it was Apple that killed off BlackBerry. The devices anyway.
Launched in 2007, the iPhone was launched with great excitement, and early adopters ditching their BlackBerrys and Nokias in favour of this sleek, intuitive device.
Steve Jobs + iPhone 4 by Matthew Yohe: 2010 Developers Conference
Steve Jobs recorded in MacWorld, “You know, I was showing this to somebody – I was giving a demo…He said, ‘You had me at scrolling’”.
It democratised mobile communication and information, and by 2018 more than 2.2 billion had been sold.
This week I messaged someone from my iPhone to firm up an arrangement to meet. When, after a few hours I got no reply, I started to behave like one of my children who seem to expect an instant reply to the most trivial question. Sent more urgent messages.
Eventually I realised I had no phone service and was not near any Wi-Fi. Moved to another location, but still no service. The network was apparently down. What to do?
I resorted to what we did before mobiles. Asked in the shop, who said he had been in an hour ago. They added that everyone was complaining about having no phone service. I tried the pub. Not been in this week. A neighbour who saw him this morning.
Then I went round to his house and put a note through the door.
Result. He turned up at the appointed time.
This short journey into the way we were, was followed up by seeing a bumper crop of blackberries in the hedgerows, reminding me of how picking them with my parents to make jam and desserts was an annual event.
Since both blackberries and apples are now in peak season, the next day we gathered both and enjoyed a crumble!
Steve
