It was a sad news article for me today. Blackberry has decided to stop producing it’s own phones. No that doesn’t mean that Blackberry ceases to exist. Nothing will derail the Apple train now but back in the early 2000’s Blackberry was the bomb. Those were the days with the smooth click of the track wheel, the distinctive sound of the email transfer and the soft touch of the QWERTY keyboard. My 5000 series Blackberry was my first electronics love.

Think back to those days. Before the billion apps dominated our minds. Before we cared about web access. Before we cared about plus sized screens. Before we knew better. It was so simple and then it was gone. Run over on the super-highway of  technology and mocked as quickly as it was revered by phone snobs. It makes no sense to me when I reflect on it.

When I upgraded to the Blackberry Bold, I thought it couldn’t be any better. Sleeker look and feel with the centre track button. Sometimes I pull the carcass of that phone out of my cupboard just to feel her touch again. Now my kids laugh at what she looks like, but not me. To me she was a golden goddess of information.

Soon enough it will vanish altogether. The newer Blackberry’s look more like the hollow feeling iPhone anyway. The soul of the phone was ripped out of my hands, many moons ago. I hope that as they outsource the hardware, that somewhere in the outsource world, a young engineer listens to an old phone fogey like me and remembers that what’s old is new again. I can hear the click, click, click of that track wheel coming down the tracks again one day.

Marco