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Stop Press

They’re (not) planting stories in the press

5 October, 2014

Regular readers of Interrobang (‽) (OK, indulge me – pretend that there are some) will know that I am a dedicated (and unashamed) BlackBerry user. This used to be out of pure practicality – I communicate a lot via email, and my first BlackBerry, the pre-iPhone Bold, was the first ‘global’ smartphone to offer multiple email account integration, a hardware keyboard, and Wi-Fi, all of which made it perfect for my needs – but now it’s out of sheer bloody-mindedness. The more iPhones and Android devices take over the mainstream, the more I want to cling to BlackBerry.

bb-passport_1I’m now onto my fourth BlackBerry, having gone from the Bold to a slider (the Torch – my favorite!), to the all-touch Z10, to the awesome but unconventional-looking Passport. The Passport was released (a week ago) last Wednesday (and I had mine up and running by Thursday – early adopter for once), but you’d be forgiven for not knowing that, because the media coverage has been almost zero. Which is my real beef in this post. Now I know that BlackBerry’s media department apparently consists of one elderly, slightly deaf septuagenarian gentleman with a rolodex, a teletype, and failing eyesight, but the indifference shown (or not shown – it’s that indifferent) by the media is truly depressing. My go-to newspaper is The Guardian (I’m not linking to them – they don’t deserve the publicity), though I don’t know why as, led by Tech lead twat Charles Arthur, it is effectively an Apple cheerleader squad, presenting a completely one-sided (and unjustified) view of mobile devices. Example: on the day after the BlackBerry Passport was released, the Guardian ran a short review of the Passport on its Tech page (which gave the BlackBerry Passport a brief ‘meh’). The same day, it ran a total of 12 articles on the ‘new’ (by then two weeks old) iPhone 6 and/or Apple. The next day, the BlackBerry article had disappeared, but the iPhone articles of adulation remained – and are continuing (and being added to) to this day.

I could go on. Actually, I can and will go on… In the same week that the Passport was released, we had the ‘bendable iPhone 6’ crisis. Not only did the Guardian publish a couple of ‘articles’ opining that the crisis was overblown and we should just Keep Calm and Carry On Buying Apple, but they even published a series of photos showing the ‘correct’ way to carry an iPhone in your pocket. Because that’s the problem – our pockets are just too low-tech to cope with the awesomeness of the iPhone 6! If only our pants could keep up with Apple’s rate of ‘innovation’! No doubt we’ll soon see the launch of Apple-branded ‘Hammer-pants’ (iPants?), to ease our poor-performing pocket problems… Then we had the iOS 8.1 debacle whereby the iPhone was rendered incapable of making phone calls… During these significant egg-on-face moments for Apple, both Charles Arthur and chief Apple fluffer Stephen Fry (who also writes glowing Apple ‘reviews’ for the Guardian) were completely silent. Arthur managed to wrench his head from his tear-stained pillow a couple of days later, and what was his response to Apple’s woes? An acknowledgement that his chosen God of Apple had feet of clay? Maybe an article explaining how we, the great unwashed, just weren’t ready for or deserving of iOS 8.1 and it was our fault that it went wrong? No! He penned a lengthy article entitled “Ten things to know about BlackBerry and how much trouble it is in” (my emphasis). A brilliant deflection there, Mr. Arthur!

The Guardian’s Technology > Mobile page provides quick links for Smartphones, iPhone, Apple, Android, Google, iPad, and a few other things, but there is no BlackBerry quick link. You can search for BlackBerry, on the Guardian site, and it does pull up several articles (over the past few years), but browsing through these, it’s very easy to see that most of them are unabashedly negative. Some of this is no doubt justified. BlackBerry were on the ropes for a year or so back there, and they made a few mistakes – but BlackBerry have done a lot of things right – especially with the BlackBerry Passport. This latest device has a great screen that displays 1440×1440 pixels at 453 ppi (vs. the iPhone 6’s 1334×760 at 326dpi), it has 3GB of RAM (vis iPhone 6’s 1GB), has a 13MP 4128x3096px rear camera (vs. 8MP 3264x2448px), a 2.26 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor (vs a dual-core 1.4GBhz Apple A8), a battery that most reviews put at giving almost 2x the battery life of an iPhone 6, etc, etc. But the specs are only half the story. The Passport uses the BB10.3 operating system, which is fast and nimble, and has all kinds of efficiency measures, shortcuts, and timesavers built right in. For getting work done quickly, it is just outstanding. All of which factors have been largely overlooked by the media, who (if they say anything) instead fixate on the fact that the screen is square instead of rectangular (which BlackBerry possibly did to avoid Apple’s next lawsuit in which they claim they invented the rectangular screen – they already claim they invented icons, FFS…).

But I’m not trying to convince you to buy a BlackBerry Passport. It’s probably not for you, anyway (“it’s more of a Shelbyville thing…”). The Passport isn’t a consumer device. It’s not designed for watching movies on (I have never watched a movie on any of my phones, and can’t see myself ever doing so when I have a 60″ flatscreen at home and every plane and hotel I use also has TVs bigger than my phone), or for playing Kwazy Kupkakes, or wasting time in any of the other myriad ways that other phones will let you do. It’s a work machine, aimed at saving time. It’s designed and built for professionals who just want to get their work done quickly and efficiently. And if I’m honest, I’d rather it remained that way. I’d much rather be part of a niche group of people in the know, and not just be cowing to popularity and jumping on the bandwagon (which could also explain my taste in music, no?). So sorry to everyone who’s sent me invites for Candy Crush Saga, Farmville, and so on, but it’s just not for me; I have things I need to get done with what little time I have. And the BlackBerry Passport helps me do that.

But I’m not trying to convince you that you don’t deserve a BlackBerry Passport, either. This is purely about the lack of objective balance regarding BlackBerry in the media in general, and the Guardian in particular. Sure, you can cite popularity, and appealing to the bigger audience, but it’s a chicken and egg thing – yes, BlackBerry devices are about as popular as a poo in a Jacuzzi at the moment, but how is that ever supposed to change if people don’t know that BlackBerry has a new device out (or even that BlackBerry are still a going concern), or that the Passport is actually a pretty nifty device. I know we have freedom of the press, and they are free to choose what to report on (and – more crucially – what not to report on), and I also know that I have the freedom to not read what they write (which is why I’m switching to another online news source – any suggestions?). But I also have freedom of speech, and I’d like to exercise this right by pointing out that the Guardian’s negativity toward BlackBerry is deliberate, pervasive, and insidious (and, again, unjustified), and that Charles Arthur is a total asshole who has no business working in a free press. Instead, he should be working for Apple’s Hype Machine. Oh, wait, he already is…

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