Why I went back to Blackberry…

blackberries-1377070_1280I have a new iPhone for work.

It is great, there is an app for everything; ordering a taxi, checking traffic, the tides in Fiji or looking to see if that rumble was indeed an earthquake or just I missed lunch.

An app for everything…..

It was the same on my old android too. These smart phones have very quickly become the Swiss army knife of the 21st century, everything in one and everyone has one.

Why then did I make the decision, on replacing my android phone, to eschew an upgrade and go back to a Blackberry?

… back to basics can be good

No, it was not because it was once a proud Canadian icon of technology, nor nostalgia for a bygone era, (remember the BlackBerry 5810 anyone?)…. it was for functionality.  It is just really good at what it does.

It was the same reason I changed my watch.

I had one of the early smart watches, MSN Direct.  News, texts and weather all on my wrist.

However just like the smart phone I was a slave to my charger… never more than 12hours away from the electrical socket… It drove me crazy.

‘Downgrading’…

So I ‘downgraded’, switched to an automatic mechanical watch. It never needs winding, there is no battery to charge, or to change.

It simply tells the time and does it well…. what is there not to like, I have not looked back.

… seems to work

So now it is now the same for my smart phone. The Blackberry is my communicator; calls, emails, messaging and diary, that’s it.

With the keyboard, it is great… who would write long form notes standing on the train with an iPhone…!   and I don’t need to recharge all the time.

Of course I do miss some of my apps. Banking, booking hotels, trains, reading news and entertainment….. but isn’t this what the tablet is for?

Simplify… do a little less, but do it a little better.

Maybe this is just reverse snobbery or maybe advancing middle age… will I next have a desire for an allotment and start getting slippers for Christmas I wonder…  however sometimes it feels like we need to simplify, have things that do less, but do them well.

A pen needs to be a pen, paper paper, phone a communicator and the tablet is now the computer.

So far I am happy with the choice, just not sure how long it will last….

Still, off to snapchat about my problems with carrot fly (…in my slippers of course)!

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