This week was known as the week in which Blackberry Smartphones were everything but smart. Not a single BB phone around the world was working properly; it didn’t matter if you were in France, the US or Brazil, heck it didn’t even matter what carrier you had. Plain and simple, Blackberry owners were just carrying a brick around.
Some people couldn’t even make a phone call; alerts weren’t coming through and BBM services were down. Was the late Mr. Jobs sending a message from the underworld? “Blackberry Owners Unite! Switch over to the slick iPhone where your wishes are Siri’s command!” you could almost hear him say. Creepy or not, as a very sorry Blackberry owner, as soon as my services were back up again, I called my carrier and pre-ordered an iPhone 4S.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ1esvGae_s]
I’m sorry Blackberry, for as much as I’d like to be a loyal customer, you didn’t make it even slightly easy on me. For all the times I’ve had to reset that brick, wait for the little black square to think through any process I commanded, I can now almost hear my personal assistant’s voice: Siri.
In a very “too little too late” attempt, Mr. Lazaris – founder and Co-CEO of RIM- sent out an apology to all BlackBerry owners. In the video (you can watch in this post), you can see him reading the teleprompter. Unlike other presenters, like the much mentioned retired soul, didn’t have to use that to know and present their product. It’s not just about the product, it’s about putting your back into it. Forgive Mr. Lazaris, but I just didn’t feel the apology. After so much trouble RIM has been through, this will only make matters worse, but will they pick up after themselves and carry on? There’s only one way to find out.