Always Be My BB: The Case For Blackberry as the Greatest Smartphone Ever

The story of BlackBerry is the great humbling of our time. One insider succinctly explained the company's downfall in an interview with the The Globe and Mail like this—"the problem wasn’t that we stopped listening to customers, we believed we knew better what customers needed long term than they did." It's the story of a company that once had a 20% share of the global smartphone market and now can't even reach 1%.

But for a few of us, BB never left our pockets. We stayed strong through the mistakes (oh god, they were horrendous), we kept our Bolds until the buttons fell off, we slid the Torch's screen up to reveal the awkward keyboard, some even tried typing on a touchscreen *shudder*.

The fanboys don't need to be told why BlackBerry is still worth checking out, we stayed loyal to the last. For the rest of you haters, with your iMobiles and Scamsungs—here is why you shouldn't walk past that BB stand, here is why you should give the underdog some love, here is the case for Blackberry.

Let's get the obvious one out of the way. Nothing feels like a physical keyboard. The buttons are shaped for your thumbs, there's no idiotic auto-correct, the whole sensation changes how you write. If you're replying to a hundred emails a day you need to know you can quickly type and send and your device isn't going to make you look like a tool with strange added words. Sad you'll be missing out on Kanye-gif-keyboards? Then stay with smartphones for boys.

We saw what happened with the Z10 (my eyeesss) and whatever you might call the Storm, but BB learns from their mistakes—the new range including the Passport and the Classic are going back to the company's roots.

The only thing as iconic about BlackBerry as the keyboard is the flashing red light. Simultaneously the most wonderful and frustrating part of the phone. It's like Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey, helping you stay productive while controlling your life. It lets you know you have messages without opening the phone, how useful. It reminds you there are always emails without opening the phone, how horrible. You're like Gatsby watching the light as it flashes on and on. It keeps you on your toes.

(Also you can change the colours and that's pretty rad).

One thing BlackBerry have consistently done better than any other tech company is security. To the point where some autocratic countries tried to ban the devices because they couldn't intercept the messages. BlackBerry don't pander to security services. Some in the UK said this helped fuel the London riots of 2011, while in other countries kids were using it to get around ultra-conservative societies that didn't allow them their freedom.

Even Sony switched to BlackBerry during their recent hack attack because it became the only reliable and secure way for their employees to communicate. Obama's only allowed a BlackBerry.

OK so this isn't necessarily a reason for any of us to buy one, but how cool a company do you have to be to be making self-destructing phones for friggin' spies. Just before Christmas, Boeing (the U.S.'s largest defence contractor) announced it was teaming up with BlackBerry to make phones for U.S. security staff - i.e. spy phones. From this we can deduce that James Bond would have had a BlackBerry and they are cool.

Here we go. Here's the problem.

There was a time when all the big companies made a BlackBerry version for their app. There was a time when smaller screens were catered for. That time ended and the dark ages began. The dark ages of the BlackBerry World app store were when everything was sub-par; apps built for other phones were cracked and squeezed onto the BB screen. Updates went up for iOS and Android but there were no updates for BB.

But last year saw some light in the form of the Amazon App store. The store's android apps became available for BB10 devices and suddenly BB users could play Candy Crush Saga with the other kids. It's not plain sailing quite yet—a lot of the apps are still built for larger screens, making you scroll through what should be a wholescreen page—Tinder becomes an effort. With the latest BBs coming with larger screens (but keeping the wondrous keyboards) hopefully this is a problem soon fixed.

There are enough celeb BlackBerry fanboys that the topic has it's own blog (still running, I might add). Game Changers and Power Players the likes of Drake, Beiber and even the President of the United States stick to them. Kim K said she buys BlackBerry Bolds off eBay so she always has a stockpile of back-ups. She told a conference in October "it’s my heart and soul, I love it and I’ll never get rid of it."

Why? Is it just unwavering brand loyalty? No. It's because these guys know they need to get things done.

'Workphone' has been made into a joke, a throwaway that you turn off as soon as you can, but for those of us who want to stay up to date and in the loop, for those of us who want to get things done, there's nothing better than a BlackBerry. The swipe interface means you can switch from app to email in a motion. Try typing out anything longer than a tweet on a touch-screen phone, you can't.

And let's not forget the look. Metallic, sleek power. Your colleagues don't have BlackBerrys but your boss does.

Throughout this you might be thinking "that's all great, good nostalgia, I still want an iPhone." And up until now you might have had a point, but the latest BBs are not to be sniffed at. They've taken what was great about the old ones and fixed what wasn't. Better integration with the Amazon Appstore and bigger screens mean that though some apps still take scrolling, a lot don't look smooshed up anymore. The Classic even has navigation keys (if you're into that sort of thing) as well as the quick settings and swipe motions that make the BB 10 OS pretty sweet to use.