A couple of days I was musing about my experiences with Sprint's EV-DO, and the device I used on that network was RIM's Blackberry 8703e.

My musings of EV-DO brought back (somewhat painful) memories of Crackberry usage! Granted, it was a worth while experience to have a blackberry and mess around with RIM's offerings, but in retrospect, I think the Blackberry, at least the one that only has a scroll-wheel, is quite a horrendous device, internet-slow-down aside!

The main reason I think that Crackberries are horrendous is their user interface. I know that there are many users out there that swear up and down and would bet their lives on the Blackberry's UI, however the truth is that the UI of this device, at least the way the hardware that interacts with the software, is deeply rooted in the original mobitex and DataTAC RIM devices such as the RIM 850 (pictured on the right).

The amount of data you got in these original RIM devices was quite miniscule compared to what we get today! Back then, the only thing that these device supported were email and WAP. Now we get full websites, email, MS office attachments, games, photos, Instant Messaging, and other functions that were never conceived of when the hardware/software interface was designed! what does this lead to?

The Answer is: Blackberry thumb! The more email you get, the more attachments you get, the more you need to switch between applications the worse it gets! Furthermore, it is painfully obvious that the Blackberry UI was designed with a right-handed person in mind. I am right-handed so it doesn't bother me as much, but from a UI engineering/design perspective it is pretty bad. When I had the blackberry, after a month of use, my fingers hurt!

Don't get me wrong, I love scroll-wheels, I have really disliked devices that did not have one, but it can't be the main method of interface between the user and the operating system (and subsequently the applications loaded on to that machine).

One a related note, when I had a blackberry, I felt like constantly checking it for new email when I had it on silent (even though nothing was THAT important) and when I had the sound enabled I would still twitch when I thought I had a new message. I think I have beaten my crackberry addiction. Good bye!!!