[nrmilstein]

The author says, "BlackBerrys have never been particularly attractive, cutting-edge, or user-friendly." I've never actually owned a BlackBerry, but I was under the impression that they were some of the best devices around, especially for doing business, before the iPhone came along. I've heard people say that they still believe the BlackBerry had the most superior email functionality of any device to date. The iPhone changed all that, of course, but before, I think they were very good devices.

[nknighthb]

That speaks to how bad everybody else was. The first BlackBerry was technologically similar to contemporary PalmOS devices with a GSM module bolted on. Boring. Predictable. But they actually worked.

RIM won by showing up and not being totally incompetent. They lost by being complacent.

[nrmilstein]

Everything kind of looks bad to me now pre-iPhone – the things was seriously years ahead of its time.

[jusben1369]

Agreed. Email was awesome. And integration to calendar a must for on the to folks. I'm not sure Apple ever cared enough to completely close that gap. That's also the reason hardcore hold outs cite today (plus physical keyboard)