Are You Addicted To Your BlackBerry?

1. When you go out for a meal with a group of friends, the BlackBerry has a place on the dinner table beside you. No matter how crowded the table becomes with plates and glasses, the BlackBerry stays!
2. You have the Bible application or [choose holy book of choice] downloaded onto it and even use it in church. Your Pastor, Reverend or Bishop may even have one too which he refers to for the scriptures. Even the Lord gets integrated into technology ya know.
3. A bath is no longer a bath without bubbles, candles and BlackBerry use from the bathtub.
4. When you go to sleep, it is right by your bedside.
5. The last thing you do at night is check your BlackBerry.
6. The first thing you do in the morning is check your BlackBerry.
7. You take it into every room you go into in the house, just in case you miss a BBM, a tweet, e-mail or text message.
8. You have your BBM, Twitter, e-mail, phone calls, and text message tones set with a unique tone and vibrate. You know what each specific tone, number of beeps, and number of vibrations each one is for.
9. You lose a little amount of respect for anyone that owns an iPhone. You may not say it, but you sure as hell are thinking it.
10. As far as you’re concerned HTC phones are OK, but iPhones are the devil.
11. No matter how hard you try to resist, that red flashing light always calls you to look at your phone.
12. You bring your charger to work. You just may have an at home charge, one for the PC and one for work.
13. You receive a phone call or text and break your neck to rush to get to it, all because you weren’t paying attention and forgot all about number 7.
14. You’re late for work, you leave the house and don’t have your BlackBerry. Going back for it could be the difference between getting to work late missing the train and getting to work even later. You decide to get to work even later and can use it to e-mail your boss to let them know there are ‘fake train delays’ again.
15. Seeing your BlackBerry at a low battery sends you into a state of panic. If you’re at work you will trawl from desk to desk asking the same people that you blank all the live long day in passing around the office if they have a BlackBerry charger. You won’t rest until you find one.
16. You know you have to do it, but you’re pissed as hell you have to switch your BlackBerry off on a flight even though at 35,000 feet you cannot make or receive any calls. That’s not the point! Like the Twilight Saga “you don’t understand.”
17. As soon as the flight lands, you grab the BlackBerry and turn it on. At this moment in time you do not give a damn about roaming charges. As long as you and your BlackBerry are reconnected [both literally and figuratively], that’s all that matters. You’ll deal with the bill when you get home.
18. The only time your phone is ‘off’ is during a flight or when you have to do a hard battery reboot. Other than that, you don’t want to miss any data connectivity. IT STAYS ON! That’s what the silent mode is for.We don't use the off button.
19. You believe that anyone who has no idea [of the basics] such as their OS and BlackBerry model shouldn't even deserve to own it.
20. If you own BlackBerry and just said “what does OS* mean?” turn yourself into the nearest police station and surrender your handset. You should be ashamed of yourself!
21. Excuse us! [and by ‘us’ I mean all BlackBerry owners] It is not a cell/mobile phone. We refer to it as a Smartphone, a handset, or ‘my BlackBerry’. Thank you very much!
22. We don’t say “call me on my phone” the correct turn of phrase is “call me on my BlackBerry.” Only do we refer to it by the brand when making reference to the call. "Sorry..one moment I've got a call coming through on my phone BlackBerry." Yes we are that up ourselves. Doesn't sound right if you replace BlackBerry with any other brand.
23. You follow @bbgeeks @BlackBerryHelp and @BlackBerry on Twitter. You are members or use forums such as Crackberry as a reference guide, or for light reading on all BlackBerry news.
24. You get excited at the prospect of a new model. Even if the handset doesn’t look any different, you get all excited about the specification improvements. You then make comparisons between the spec of the latest iPhone and realise the REAL reason RIM* are far superior at their craft. They are more about creating smartphones that have no antenna problems when holding them, and aren’t too cheap toward their customers after standing in line for days, and will give them a FREE LEATHER case as standard! 
25. You know what RIM* stands for, and give any BlackBerry owner the side eye who doesn’t.

OS* = Operating System
RIM* = Research In Motion who are the company. BlackBerry is an RIM brand.

Apple Need To Take A Bite Out Of A BlackBerry

The only Apple product I have is an iPod. I have no desire to jump on the iPhone bandwagon as my BlackBerry is all that I need. I’m a phone user who researches the hardware and software capabilities of a phone. I’m not just into what looks pretty or is ‘in’ right now. Currently on my 4^th and soon to be 5^th RIM handset, I’m very happy with and faithful to the brand. So to all those who tell me to “get an iPhone” if I experience a minor glitch with my BlackBerry, please do us all a favour and shut up. Chances are you have no idea what an operating system is and which version your phone currently has.

After my Friday night cinema outing to see Inception, I scanned through the 3 hours worth of tweets on my handset. During this time it seems that Steve Jobs was doing the global press conference about the problems with the Apple iPhone 4 handset and what they were going to do to rectify them.

A free case!

I had to stop, look around, open up my mouth *nothing came out*, re-read the tweets, stopped some more….now, at this point I’m just confused.

What do you mean you guys get a free case? You have one already. Or don’t you? So the hundreds that you spend, the time you spend in queues lining up for these products, the hype behind them which makes you jump on-line and pre-order one with your credit card   

YOU.MEAN.TO.TELL.ME.THAT.YOU.DON’T.EVEN.GET.A.CASE??

I’m sorry. That’s just some bull to me. As STANDARD you should have a case to protect a high priced item from potential damage. With every single BlackBerry I have had, it’s come with a free case which were BLOODY LEATHER (except for my first one which was plastic). This is why this was such a shock to me that iPhone users don’t get one.

Steve n dem are taking the almighty piss with you lot and you don’t even seem to realise.

• No Flash.
• Only last year you guys got picture messaging (MMS).
• The problems with the antenna on this iPhone 4 model.
• Only being able to open up one application at a time.
• No free case.

Errr no, sorry that’s not good enough for the amount you spend, and some of you have the absolute gaul to be getting all happy about getting a FREE case? You should have had one in the first damn place. That’s like going to a fancy restaurant and not even getting a plate and cutlery to eat with.

Upon further reading, it seems it’s only to those that experience antenna problems, and isn’t really a case at all, and just a plastic bumper.

OK, rather than shell out close to a mortgage payment on a product, I’ll just go with a brand that looks after their customer, who’s concerned with looking after their flipping handset and upping the technology when it comes to the software.

If you have any problems with your BlackBerry follow @BlackBerryHelp on Twitter. Make sure you follow them as they reply via DM to any queries you may have.

For iPhone users I cannot seem to find anything Apple related on Twitter that is an authentic account. If you know of one then please drop me an email, or leave the twitter address in the comments section.

My BBM bar code for the normal sane folks. If you don’t have a camera on your BlackBerry to scan the code from your screen the PIN is 20E997B5 I don’t mind it being in the public domain [as it already is] because if you act up/are an arsehole, I’ll simply block your PIN from ever requesting me again.

Simples.