Roughly around the same time the new one arrived via Fed Ex, BlackBerry itself experienced some sort of international outage. So I had to wait til this morning to take it to the store, and hope either Lucas or Russell was working (the two lone BlackBerry holdouts in an
Right after they opened, I took my seat on the floor (none of these places have fainting couches) and waited. Patiently. I could've just put my name in and gone shopping til they called me, but the only two options in that shopping center were the Hooker store (you can't buy actual hookers there -- just stuff they'd wear), and a bakery I shouldn't really be allowed in when I'm all weak and vulnerable. Pal Bluebelle pictured me quietly weaving a corn broom in the corner while singing Shaker hymns ("tis a gift to be simple" and all), and yeah, it was pretty much just like that. My much more technologically advanced BFF is probably a little sick of the endless cycle of codependence between me and RIM (Research In Motion? uh huh. Exactly) and suggested I just join the BlackBerry of the month club. (She also asked if it was possible -- possible -- that trackballs, like vibrators, could simply be worn out? Not that either of us had any experience of the latter -- but I figure a trackball oughtta at least have the equivalent lifespan of my computer's mouse, and I haven't exhausted one of those yet.)
Mostly I was just trying to retrieve a few photos despite the crippled trackball and email them to my gmail for preservation -- which is why poor Lucas was greeted by the above pic of Rick Springfield when he disassembled the handset. I started to explain (I had planned to write a funny column about Californication "destroy me Rick Springfield!" and just hadn't gotten around to it)... but six BlackBerries later, Lucas has seen it all... my porn bookmarks, my Tiger Texts, and the idiosyncrasies of my rolodex (filled with names like "Asshole" and "Don't Answer"). He just gave me a reassuring look that managed to say "shhh baby, just leave it all to me."
He showed me the next-generation Bold, which I promptly hated -- as he predicted I would -- instead of fixing the trackball design flaw, they've just replaced it with a 19th century trackpad that clearly came over on the Ark.
Could they work any harder to try to convert me to
I was not among the first wave of smartphone users to abandon all hope and cling to the iPhone. I have often thought that Steven Jobs and his willing minions who are Apple disciples were just a bit too cult-like in their devotion to a form of computing. I am a PC and have been that way since I first bought a Tandy 1000 in 1985. And yet, there I was purchasing my very first Apple product and locking step with the iPhone world.
ReplyDeleteBefore the iPhone I had a very capable Tilt by HTC. It ran on a Windows platform and performed admirably. With its slide out qwerty keyboard it was a fine tool for typing. However, the requisite stylus for using the touchscreen left a hole in my techno heart that I felt an iPhone might fill.
While the lilliputian keyboard on the Blackberry is clearly not for me, the touchscreen keypad on the iPhone is frustrating each and every time I use it. The powerful word predictor, (that's how the AT&T guy described it to me) is pretentious and know it all, and even a little difficult to override. On its best days the touchscreen is only slightly inaccurate. On its worst days I can't seem to touch it in the right place to get it to do what I want it to do and I very nearly give the thing some airtime. Besides that, the camera won't zoom and it takes no video.
Having said all that, I am still on my first iPhone (after 9 mos.) and it does have a really nifty fart app that you can set to make the phone fart at a given time so that you have time to act completely innocent. To boot it doesn't shut down without warning or need to be rebooted from time to time.
I still think Apple Mac owners are a little scary in their devotion to a machine, and Steven Jobs seems more like a mad scientist every year, but, this Kool-Aid isn't all that bad RT. Wouldn't you like a drink?