I can remember back in the day when BlackBerrys were still cool. At the time I had a BlackBerry Curve 8330, it and the Pearl were the phones to have. Along came the timeless iPhone, and things have never been the same since.
After Apple's entrance into the mobile market, the smartphone drastically changed. The introduction of accurate, capacitive touchscreen displays removed the need for a physical keyboard. This freed up more room for the display and kick-started the increasingly popular candybar form factor – the bane of the BlackBerry's existence.
Some companies like Palm/HP and RIM have have been reluctant to adopt the new form factor and have stuck to their roots instead. RIM did attempt to make a keyboardless BlackBerry … twice. But RIM simply could not let tactile feedback go. The two iterations of the Storm line were equipped with SurePress (or clickable screens), which only proved to be more trouble than it was worth. Both of the Storm handhelds were bug-ridden, full glitches and were far from what RIM had hoped.
Since the Storm 2, RIM has sort of fallen off the map. Sure, they have slowly been releasing rehashed and updated versions of existing models, and they do have some highly anticipated devices on the horizon. But in comparison to the buzz around Android, the upcoming iPhone and in light of all of their in-house issues, the future of RIM is bleak.
Regardless, there is still a large number of BlackBerry faithfuls. The CrackBerry Nation is alive and well, despite the likes of more modern and quickly evolving platforms. This is not surprising as I was once a BlackBerry addict myself and it took quite a lot to divert my attention elsewhere.
What is surprising, however, is who is still using the aging BlackBerry: celebrities.
CrackBerry has been releasing weekly, celebrity BlackBerry sighting roundups for as long as I can remember. I became curious of how many celebs still use BlackBerrys, so I Google searched “BlackBerry celebrity.” I came across the site Celebrity BlackBerry Sightings (how original), which gets updated on a regular basis. They, along with CrackBerry, have featured countless celebrities like Lady Gaga, Jennifer Garner, Brad Pitt, Nikki Minaj and probably anyone else you can think of, all spotted with their various BlackBerry handsets while out and about.
I know some people simply still love their BlackBerry for whatever reason, and I understand some still prefer the hardware keyboard and simplicity of a BlackBerry over a touch-based phone. But as impressionable and "hip" as celebrities tend to be, I would have pegged most of them to be iPhone users over CrackBerry addicts.
Maybe they just don't care about having the latest and greatest. Maybe they've tried Android or an iPhone and have reverted back to a more familiar platform. Some have traded their 'Berry for an iPhone and I'm sure there are some Android celebrity users out there, but I never would have guessed so many have stuck with their BlackBerrys for so long. Either way, I'm curious about what all of these 'Berry addicted celebs will do if RIM can't survive this turbulence they're flying through right now.
All I know is if I had pockets that ran as deep as theirs, I would own every phone and tablet under the sun. Can I get a +1?
Image via CrackBerry
