Blackberry aka Crackberry

     Many people refer to Blackberrys as "Crackberrys" due to the fact that it is very addicting. Its a reference to the drug Crack Cocaine, in a sense that once you start, it's next to impossible to stop. I realize now the true meaning as to why this was the nickname given to it.
     As a current iPhone owner, I am very pleased with my phone. I find that i actually prefer iPhones now because of the entertainment factor. Not only that, but I find that I actually use my phone a little less now. This is because the iPhones messaging system in my opinion, isn't as good as the Blakcberrys. So a negative of the iPhone actually works out to be a postive to me, and a positive of a Blackberry turned out nto be a negative. When I had my blackberry, I was constantly on it, texting, and bbm-ing. I was always wondering what everyone else was doing, and constantly telling everyone what I myself was doing. Now with the iPhone, I still text people, and find many useful apps to use in my everyday life, but I do not have my eyes glued to my screen like I did in the past.
     So when it comes down to it, if you are a very social person and always constantly want to be in touch with your friends, then Blackberry is the way to go. If texting isn't necessarily something you need to be doing all day, then the iPhone is probably better for you. Basically, one phone isn't exactly better than the other, one just may be better for you.

Made the switch?
As I stated before, i recently misplaced my Blackberry smartphone. After some serious thought, I ended up replacing that phone with the iPhone 4s. No this does not mean that everything I have said in the past is now irrelevant, however now I feel that I can give an unbiased opinion on which companys smartphone is trully better. In all my life, I have owned 2 iPhones and 3 Blackberrys. I feel that is enough to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both, especially since each model I owned was a different kind.
 The first thing I noticed when i went from my most recent Blackberry Bold 9900 to the iPhone 4s was the battery life. The battery life on my Blackberry was noticeably weaker then on my iPhone. Also, the amount of games and apps on the iPhone easily surpass my Blackberrys. However, I will say in Blackberrys defense, that i much prefer typing/texting on the Blackberry over the iPhone. Having a physical keyboard over a touch screen is much more practical. I know that the ihone takes some getting used to when it comes to texting, but the I also have had an iPod touch and iPad for several years now and still prefer Blackberrys keyboards. Not only that, but Blackberrys "BBM-Blackberry Messenger" in my opinion is far better than the iPhones "iMsg". BBM was much more fluid, easier to use, and faster.
I am very happy with my new phone, however I do notice the fact that there are certain things about  my Blackberry that I miss.

Playbook > iPad!
In a surprising turn of events, RIM's twitter account stated that according to Future Shop and Best Buy, (2 of the largest electronic retailers) the playbook actually outsold the iPad. This is probably due to the fact that RIM recently released a software update which fixed several of the bugs in the first release. Also, Apple will probably be releasing its iPad 3 in the near future which has people forgetting about the iPad 2 at the moment, due to the distractions about the newest model. With that being said, the playbook was the number one selling tablet for a week. Plus one for RIM!

Earlier this year, RIM's two CEO's have finally stepped down. Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have left their positions, to make room for the new CEO (former Chief Operating Officer) Thorstein Heins. This change has been long awaited, due to the obvious downfall of RIMs shares. many believe that this change is exactly what they need to do a complete 180 and turn the company around. Is it too little too late? Only time will tell.

First taste of a smartphone.
     First things first, I purchased my first smartphone when i was in the 11th grade, which was about 4 years ago. I had never owned a smartphone before, and decided to go all out. The very first iPhone was released in 2007 in the United States. There was no actual release date at the time for the iPhone to be released in Canada so I actually went to the states to purchase the first generation iPhone. I was in love with the phone, especially because I had never been exposed to the capabilities of a "smartphone" before. I could go on the internet, youtube, email, play games, have a gps, and all by touching a screen. The concept of having a touchscreen in my pocket was amazing enough for me, let alone calling or texting someone with it. Eventually, I found myself broke and decided to sell the phone because I thought as amazing as it was, it was sort of unnecessary.
   
     After selling the phone, I ended up purchasing my very first blackberry. Now, while it wasn't as entertaining as the iPhone, it seemed more practical to me. It didn't have a touch screen (although newer models now have touch screens) , it didn't have as much memory, it couldn't browse the internet as fast, but it did to some things right.  It made calls, and sent texts, which essentially is what a cell phone is for in the first place. The cherry on top was that the battery lasted longer (probably because I only used it for calling and texting rather than games and the internet or music) and that it was much cheaper. That was the main factor for me, cost. Which i believe to this day is what keeps RIM going. Although RIM does offer its high end phones to compete at the top of the market, they also offer something apple does not, which is the lower end more affordable phones. Not everybody can drive a Beamer, Benz or a Bently, so cars like Honda civics or Ford Focuses are available. That's how I like to look at it.

Money Money Money Money...Moooney!
My dad once told me that one of his biggest regrets in his life so far was a decision he had made several years back when it came to the stock market. Now, to set this up, let me first explain that my family is in no way rich, but at the same time we are in no way poor. We live in a decently sized house, own 2 cars, no cottages or boats or anything like that, and we go on vacations every summer. We are what anybody would look at as an "average" family. Now rewind to about 5-7 years ago, and I don't exactly know how, but my dad had a little extra spending money. Him and my mother, was looking into investing the money into some stocks. They did some research and ended up investing in the company that my mother worked for, Citigroup. However, that was not there first choice, there first choice was actually RIM. I don't exactly know why they didn't go with it, but at the time the RIM share was going for apparently around 13$. They had about $15,000 to invest, which would of given them a little over 1000 shares. Now fast forward just less than 2 years later, and I was told that RIM's stocks reached over $100. Now there original investment in Citigroup didn't seem like such a good idea since almost all of it was lost. If they only went with RIM in the beginning they could of potentially made thousands and thousands within the short time of a few years. You really never know with the stock market.

...ouch
I just read an article from the financial post about how RIM's struggles is still continuing, and its future does not look bright. As much as I like RIM and defend them when I can, I realize the fact that numbers don't lie.  As you can see in the picture, RIM has fallen to a mere 15.2% of the smartphone market. Of course we all knew that in the battle between RIM, Apple and Android (by google), RIM has been at the bottom for a little while now, but I didn't realize just by how much.  With that being said, this does not include the rest of RIM's products and these numbers are based solely on the smartphone battle.  Not only that, but these are based on American stats, and in Canada, (where RIM is actually based) RIM surprisingly remains at the top with 32.6% of the market, while apple is close with 31.2%. Add this to the fact that RIM is expecting to release there new operating system "Blackberry 10" with a brand new line of phones later this year, this shows that there's still hope!

Rim is also a competitor in the tablet field. They have the Blackberry Playbook available to compete with Apple's iPad or Samsung's galaxy tab and several other tablets. It has a built in HD camera, and is only 7 inches so it can actually fit in some large pockets and purses compared to most of its competitors. They are also very compatible with blackberry smartphones, and can even share data, which is a very cost effective feature. Not only that, but they can sync with each other and you can actually use the Playbook as a cell phone (messaging-wise)when you have both physically with you. Lastly, it can do something that its leading competitor cannot, which is support flash on the internet. Which basically means that it is able to watch any video on the internet, while the iPad cannot.

Recently, I had a little bit of a situation and unfortunately have misplaced my Blackberry. The good news is that I know for a fact nobody found it and is using it, because it was misplaced in a field in which people wouldn't ever be in anyways. Also, I my Blackberry was password protected and after 10 incorrect password entries, the phone wipes all of the data on it. This gives me a peace of mind that nobody will find my phone, and that if anyone ever does, they will not be able to use it. On a side note, there is a feature on blackberry called " Blackberry protect" in which you register your device with RIM's online database and extra security will be added to it. Anytime you lose your phone, you can log on from any computer and access your phone wirelesly. You can wipe your phone, lock your phone, turn off your phone, send an email to it with your contact information to get it returned, and if it is a GPS enabled phone, then it can even send you an e-mail of a map showing the location of your phone. Unfortunately I didn't have this enabled, however I have learned my lesson and realize how useful the Blackberry Protect feature really is.