Blackberry what happened?

You must have heard about the name “Blackberry” at some point of time in your life haven’t you? I remember once asking my mom curiously at the age of 10 “Which phone is that”? And she replied “Blackberry”. Now, ask anybody which smartphone they own or which smartphone they desire to own and most would say ‘Iphone….duh’. So what happened to Blackberry?

Blackberry once reigned as king of the smartphone. Famously known for its icnonic keyboard and simplicity, it sold more than 50 trillion units at its peak in 2011. At one time. Blackberry controlled 50% of the smartphone market in the US and 20% globally. There was a time where everyone had a BlackBerry and BlackBerry’s messaging service ‘BBM’ was the ‘Whatsapp’ of today.

However the invention of the iphone “the first touch screen smartphone” made by Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs changed everything. However the Iphone didn’t kill the Blackberry immediately as the iphone was more expensive than the Blackberry and was exclusive to certain mobile carriers at the time. Also, people just couldn’t part with their keyboards. So for a while Blackberry was still sailing smoothly up until 2011 where the iphone was getting new features every year unlike Blackberry which was growing at a slow rate where they would just add small features over time.

A key reason to BlackBerry’s failure is their ignorance in choosing to stick with the Querty keyboard whilst leaders like Apple provided a full touchscreen interface to which consumers preferred and had become the new trendy feature in smartphones. The other major issue was its design: maintaining the keyboard within the phone carried dead weight which also meant ineffective utlisation of space. Blackberry’s phones were also heavy and chunky and never looked nice unlike the sleek designs of the iphones or Samsung phones.

Smartphones became a huge thing because of the ability to install any kind of app you want and transform your phone to something magical instantly. From Games to productivity apps, the Appstore provides a plethora of options to users. But with BlackBerry’s OS you couldn’t do this and even today there is only a small portion of apps available. Apps like Facebook and Twitter on the BlackBerry were also difficult to use and you only got half a screen to view the content and the phone also missed out on features such as front and back cameras etc.

These shortcomings ultimately led to Blackberry's downfall and by the time the company released its own version of a touchscreen smartphone in 2013, it was just too late.