I have always been someone who is absolutely attached to her phone—the girl who takes it everywhere, the girl who uses it as her alarm clock and the girl who absolutely panics when it goes missing. Yes, that’s me. So, I’m sure you can only imagine how I reacted when my phone started restarting on its own. And, not only did it restart, but, before it would actually finish restarting, it would also restart again. The process didn’t allow me to access my phone for days. And yet, people would sympathize with me as soon as I said just four words: I have a BlackBerry.
Yes, indeed, I got my white BlackBerry Curve more than a year ago, and, from the beginning, it was flawed. For one, I still had the old trackball — it got disgustingly black, and I would have to replace it every few months. The battery would die, and I would have to reset my phone, not by powering off, but by actually taking the battery out of the slot and then inserting it again. That was what I had to deal with since October 2010.
And yet, I still loved my BlackBerry. Everyone asked me why, and I really had no good answer to that question, except for the fact that it did what it needed to. I got my texts and my e-mails, and I had Internet and unlimited data. Yes, I had some major struggles with it, but it still worked. And then there was BlackBerry Messenger. Oh, how I loved BBM. There was something about BBM that was irreplaceable. Again, there was no good answer as to why I loved BBM, but I just did.
Everyone made fun of me and said, “Come on, switch to the iPhone already,” but I was adamantly against it. I was attached to this phone, and Research In Motion had somehow sucked me in to staying a loyal customer.
But the time came when my BlackBerry Curve died on me, and I knew that it had to go. Yes, I ended up getting the iPhone. And yes, I absolutely love it.
But there’s still a part of me that misses my BlackBerry. Seeing the reports on RIM’s struggles makes everyone else laugh, but it actually makes me sad. It’s sad to see what was once a great company fall to its demise only because it couldn’t keep up. Or maybe it was because it refused to keep up.
Now, I am with Apple and I am truly happy. But to RIM, I honestly wish them the best. I don’t wish them bankruptcy, and I don’t wish them failure. I’d love to see BlackBerry rise to the top again.
So this isn’t goodbye, RIM. Instead, I’ll just say, “See you later, BlackBerry.”
Maggie Chang is a Business sophomore.