Apple’s iPhone 5 went on sale on Friday and the hype leading up was hard to avoid.
The initial announcement was made a few week’s ago and ever since, people began placing pre-orders and judging by various reports, people were lined up in various cities across the world, waiting to be the first to get the newest “it” technological device.
In a related bit of news, rival company Research in Motion (RIM) and its Blackberry devices witnessed an outage that affected customers in Africa, the Middle East and Europe about the same time – mobile email and texting services were affected.
The iPhone and Blackberry devices are said to be going in opposite directions, with the
iPhone still considered a top-selling smartphone device while forecasts of doom and gloom for the Blackberry, with the latest outage and product delays.
I have to wonder though, how much is the projected downfall of RIM and Blackberry fact and how much is media sensationalism?
I own a Blackberry device, a Blackberry Torch, and I have not experienced outages or any other sorts of major problems besides the rare time the tracking cursor gets stuck.
It’s not the lightest smartphone out there but then again, it isn’t the big brick phones of yesteryear either.
It seems to me that all mobile phones are going the way of touchscreen but I like the QWERTY keyboard my cellphone has.
Outages for cellphone and mobile email service are certainly bad for business but much like high school, it seems that the popular kid is getting all the attention.
While there are certainly those that use and buy the iPhone because they truly like it and its applications, there are those who get it simply because it’s the latest, hippest device.
I have taken pictures with my Blackberry and used it to access Facebook and Twitter remotely when on location for work and there have been no problems.
Other Blackberry users I’ve talked to have also expressed their satisfaction with the device.
Of course, the Blackberry users I queried and myself are only a few and there are probably more out there.
We don’t want the latest gizmo, we’re happy with our Blackberry phones because they serve us well.
Practicality over glitz is sufficient for me.
