A Blackberry World

Elliot Wiser, (the guy who created Bay News 9 in the Tampa Bay area) was one of my professors during fall 2009. He had this hunch that mobile phones are going to take over lives; that millennials will rely on mini-computer-like cell phones to function in this world – as if technology doesn’t already drive people away from engaging socially with one another on a normal level. I thought he was looking too far into the future. At this moment in time everything is online and now in its fast-paced nature, everything you can think of is converted to a phone application.

I recently acquired a hand-me-down PDA from my father: the Blackberry World Edition. What a professional, look at me I’m about to take a conference call or Google Zagat rated restaurants, pain in the neck. I’m not complaining but the phone is so wide and bulky that I feel obligated to hold it in my hand wherever I go so the track ball and buttons do not get ruined by the inner-depths of my messy purse. But my concealed aversion towards this mega-phone changed once I discovered a little treasure called ‘phone apps.’ I decided to call my Blackberry friend.

Here I am on the computer happily downloading free phones apps from the Blackberry Web site. So far I have AOL Instant Messenger, Associated Press Mobile News, the Bible and Slifter, a price comparing application, all at my fingertips. Do I care my lap top recently perished? Not like I should because I can research, check e-mail, news, weather, friend‘s status on Facebook and all the other very important things.

Let’s just hope the phone does not kiss the concrete any time soon. There goes the entire face and our friendship.

I haven’t stepped up to the iPhone plate yet and sure enough when that day comes, I will probably spend countless night-time hours browsing through the hundreds of apps in the iTunes store. But for now, the Blackberry apps are warming me up to the ultimate brand for apps: Apple.

If you have a Blackberry, visit blackberry.com and click on software. There you will find apps for news and weather, sports, travel and mapping, games and entertainment, music and media, lifestyle and finance and banking. Be careful, you will get addicted.