Tangent Thought Gallery

BlackBerry Bold — How bold is it?

Remember the PC hardware world back about 10 to 15 years ago? You were continually compelled to buy bigger and better systems to keep pace with your new software’s CPU, peripheral, and memory requirements. Consequently the hardened techies and gamers among us were salivating over every batch of “new and improved” desktops/laptops as they rolled off the line. Thankfully, for the vast majority of home and office PC users, we reached a point of relative sanity some years ago—e.g., Office XP would run on the same system as Office 2000, the latest Sims expansion pack, “The SIMS 2 Running for Re-election”, or “The SIMS 2 Retirement Party”, ran fine without major hardware reinvestment. Now we typically replace systems or components when they’ve stopped working reliably. Much like a washer or dryer, they’re home and office computing appliances.

The question bouncing around in my head this morning is this: Are we approaching a similar point of utility with mobile phones?

Research in Motion just announced their first major product release in about a year, the BlackBerry Bold. Now, I’m a long time BB user. I’m now on my 6th BB (seriously), a Curve model, and I’m starting to suspect I’m joining the jaded group that just isn’t going to jump because a vendor blasts a trumpet. (Are you thinking “Microsoft Vista”?) With my current phone I can take pics, movies, play MP3s, track my calendar, do SMS messaging, GPS/maps integration, play games, set alarms, create/answer email, and, oh yeah, make phone calls. The newest BB will do exactly the same. It does boast a higher resolution screen, but they don’t bother to mention it’s about 1/8 inch shorter. Are we starting to reach that point of “communication appliance” utility?

Sure, there will always be a niche market for those users impassioned about fashion and prestige, but I suspect that market slice will experience either stagnation or continued decline. The novelty of the iPhone interface will become dated someday. The children of the 2020’s will roll their eyes if you mention how cool this was back in 2008. I wonder what RIM and Apple will be doing to try gain market share then. I wonder if they’ll still be in business. I wonder how many BB’s I’ll have burned through by that time.