Film Review
BlackBerry (2023)
The story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone.
While sitting around late-night campfires, the post-Millennials among you may have heard tales of the legend of the BlackBerry. Now considered the first handheld smartphone, it was developed in the late-1990s by the Canadian tech company Research in Motion (RIM). By our standards, it was a primitive device — an e-mail pager that users operated by pressing their thumbs on a tiny keyboard that gave off comforting clicks, a feature that was a big selling point.
The BlackBerry evolved into an array of handheld devices that rapidly conquered its sole target: the business market. By the mid-2000s, it had become the most successful tech-communication device in history, reaching, by some accounts, nearly 45% of the market share. Its most fanatical users became the first “tech addicts,” earning it the nickname “CrackBerry”.
Then along came Android, iOS, and the touch screen. BlackBerry was unable to keep up. Not even the comforting feel of those keyboard clicks could save it. Within a few short years, the device’s…
