My wife, as wonderful and gorgeous as she can only be, is not a techno gadget loving person. Sure she likes a touch screen camera, but would never really consider a camera in a phone. Email is done on a computer and stresses to me, that she doesn't have to be tied to a smartphone.
One day she decided that yes she would like to get the feel of a BlackBerry; but no, no data, just phone. My BlackBerry Tour 9630 was pressed into service. It was a different move to her, as the phone the Tour replaced, was a candybar Nokia.
Then something happened....a girl friend of hers came over to dinner, and brought with her an iPhone 4. Oh the simplicity of the UI; within no time my wife was navigating all through the various apps and functions. Childs play.
Now if you are Australian, you'll know when I am referring to: the Australian dollar made parity with the US greenback....woot! when it comes to purchasing stuff on eBay. And that's just what I was doing on the couch next to the ladies.
My wife is Indian, and Diwali was a few weeks away, and I wanted to get her a gift: a BlackBerry Torch 9800. Three things about the Torch appealed as the BlackBerry for my wife:
1. Touch screen
2. Operating System 6.0
3. Keyboard just in case (she was used to the Tour by now).
So while she played with the iPhone 4, I hunted for the right Torch (price, condition, seller's reputation). Click, and it was purchased. Good price, considering the dollar's parity. And then the girls realised I was rather quiet, and boy did I cop it from both, when I told them what I had done (at this stage neither knew it was bought for ny wife). I took it all rather well.
So off I go that week for yet another fortnightly stint in Melbourne (2 weeks every month for the company I work for as an International Business Manager, Priority Management (http://bit.ly/pmanz)) and waited for the Torch to arrive in Melbourne, which it finally did, on my last day. So on my flight home to Brisbane, I got to play at length with the Torch (no data mind), and even for a keyboard BlackBerry fan as I am, I was impressed.
I arrived home on the night prior to Diwali, via Taxi, as my wife had a prayer session and couldn't leave the house. And so I presented her with the Torch: took her totally and completely by surprise, but the smile grew when she realised which BlackBerry it was (yeah you may of guessed, I just had to tell the girls (on the night I purchased it) all about the Torch and what it could do). She now had the most up to date BlackBerry around.
The weekend arrived and we activated a BlackBerry plan for her (and got 2 months free to boot!); set up her hotmail and facebook and a few other applications. Gave her a preloaded 4gig micro SD card with the type of music she likes and photos I knew she liked.
And it didn't take long for my wife to display some typical crackberry tendencies:
• The wall charger is on her side of the bed
• She is on facebook a lot more
• She hunts through her emails
• She relies less on her laptop (especially with the good rendering of web pages by the Torch's webkit browser)
• The BlackBerry gets checked as soon as she wakes up.
But the most interesting thing was hoiw quickly she became acclimatised to the BlackBerry OS 6.0's UI....much more user friendly to new BlackBerry users.
As for the question regarding keyboard preference, physical or virtual? She has really adapted to, and adopted the virtual one as her default keyboard! And she's quite proficient with it too!
Apart from now each of us having BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), the big advantage for me is now I really don't get a hard time about my BlackBerry usage/tendencies and habits :)
So there you have it....another crackberry added. One by one, they will come to the DarkSide! LOL!
Oh yeah, this was typed on my BlackBerry Torch, which only landed in my hands a mere two days ago (typed on the physical keyboard, thank you).
Interesting reading - shall take note for hubby. It really was a nice read Thomas I hope you keep us all up to date with the BlackBerry saga ;)
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