For a long
time the tech bloggers have been making bets that BlackBerry is dying, at one
point before BlackBerry 10 was released bloggers like Mashable and Gizmodo were
in overdrive singing the song of the burial. But we all know what happened
since then. BlackBerry survived much to the chagrin of these bloggers. After a
lot of missed bets they gave up and left the funeral rather sombre. There was
to be no body to lower into the ground. What is interesting is that since that
time Mashable transformed from being technology blogger to something that
resembles TMZ or E! Entertainment probably because of lack of content in the
technology news space. They never realised their stream of quality news was
dependent on a diverse technology economy.
Roll to 2016
there are undertones of "death to the Berry" mainly buoyed by
WhatsApp and Facebook dropping support for the native application. With
Facebook it is important to note that people will still access Facebook like
they currently do. I rarely use the native application for lack of many
features found on the mobile web application. I would still say that BlackBerry
will remain for the following reasons:
It Has an Android Phone
The
BlackBerry Priv has an experience that I've not experienced on other Android
powered devices, Yes for someone grappling with a demanding start-up, an 8-5
job, a degree program, a 6000+ group of students learning to code, a blog and a
family I need a device that will let me do things that take me long much
quicker. Nothing comes close to the BlackBerry keyboard and its ability to
learn your word use. I can type up a 2,000 word blog in the 40 minutes leg of
my first bus trip to work like I'm doing now. That is 50 words per minute and
it is a big deal because on a full keyboard my typing speed clocks at 35 words
per minute. The Priv comes with a BlackBerry Hub which is great for handling
emails. For me email is a big deal and nobody does email like BlackBerry and
Hub, with 6 email accounts receiving no less than 60 emails per day I need the
robust Hub to keep my sanity.
It Has the BBM Application
Someone
might frown and say what has BBM to do with this? Well it is a BlackBerry
product and the prosperity of WhatsApp is BBM's gain. The announcement by
WhatsApp that it will stop supporting multiple platforms did not entail only
BlackBerry. I live in Africa where many, could be as much as 50% of people are
being dropped by WhatsApp. Think of all the people who use Nokia and older
Android phones, that is a huge market. BBM can move now to fill that void which
will be created and what's better than a BlackBerry having BBM?
WhatsApp Is No Longer The Same
While it
might look a big deal today; WhatsApp application faces eventual decline
spurred by its acquisition by Facebook. What made the application popular is
the simplicity and low data usage when sending and receiving messages. Then
came Facebook and things have been slowly changing. The idea is to make it talk
to Facebook and make some money from it. There will be a lot of data mining so
WhatsApp will have its "Instagram moment" and as time progresses it
will become data heavy. What is that thing about pride coming before the fall?
Applications come and go but phones do more than chatting. What would I rather
have, a phone that does another 50 things and an application that does one
thing? Its an easy decision but hype has made people to drop 50 productive
things chasing 1 thing of leisure.
So after the
WhatsApp announcement I made an analysis of my situation and mostly productive
needs. I am staying with BlackBerry meaning I'm parting with WhatsApp. I will
not miss out and my productivity will not be diminished in any way. It will
free up more time to do other things. In Africa it makes it possible for a new
messaging platform because many people use phones that will no longer be able
to access WhatsApp and the decision by Facebook means WhatsApp will change from
the application that made messaging cheap and easy to a heavily connected
application doing things like location pinging, device usage and other data
mining activities.
