An ode to the BlackBerry

The demise of tech plays out first as disorientation, then entertainment. We’ve reached the latter stage with the BlackBerry, the now-defunct Canadian harbinger of global smartphone addiction. A new film out this month charts its spectacular rise and fall: young folk, look up from your iPhones, and learn how in its Noughties heyday, the BlackBerry was beloved by Obama, Beyoncé and Madonna. With its seductively clicky Qwerty keyboard, it came to control 45 per cent of the mobile phone market. Then it plummeted to today’s share, zero.

BlackBerry the movie had a particular poignancy for me, because I hung on to my final BlackBerry phone, the KeyOne, until well past its cultural sell-by date. Last May, in fact. Like my earlier BlackBerries, the KeyOne had grown old and begun to let me down at important moments. I went to the wrong book launch because when I tried to check the venue, it couldn’t open the invitation. Late one night I stood shivering in the street while it repeatedly failed to call an Uber. Friends and strangers marvelled at its quaintness, the tech equivalent of a Penny Farthing. But this was no way to live. 

A friend who had also stuck with their BlackBerry through thick and thin had gone over to the iPhone, and told me how happy he was now: take the plunge, he urged, you won’t look back. In the end, the device took the decision for me. One day, shortly after I had been complaining about it, the BlackBerry disappeared with all my data somewhere between my sister’s car and my flat. I looked everywhere, but I never saw it again.

The film drags us back to the glory days, a souped-up vision of BlackBerry’s early success: lovable, hard-gaming 1990s tech nerds Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin conceive of a phone that can do email, and team up with Jim Balsillie, a foul-mouthed, ass–kicking businessman.