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If you were doing business or wanted to seem cool in 2011, you had a BlackBerry. There was just something effortlessly cool about them in the same way that Walkmans, GameBoys and iPods hold nostalgia today.
No. In 2011, the cool thing to have was an iPhone.
Yes. According to my experience in my small corner of the world, around 2010, the cool people had iPhones, but when you wanted to do serious business, you still used a BlackBerry. Unfortunately, some easily-influenced executives often would prioritize looking cool and just let their I.T department figure out how they can get their work done, even though Apple had nothing that could compare to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).
On top of that, most consumers and gullible executives didn't see the hidden benefits of BES, because with Research In Motion's (RIM) push to enter the consumer market, all the marketing material out at the time focused on the comparatively impotent consumer offering, BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), instead.
Trying to survive in the narrow-margins of the consumer market killed RIM. In 2011, you would get teased for having a BlackBerry if you didn't know how to stand up for yourself and articulate how no other mobile device had the level of magic* making everything work in the back end.
* BES ran on a dozen JAVA services which required arcane magic to work.
Had to be a typo. BB was close to dead and buried by 2011. Maybe they meant 2005?
Keyboards exist. And computers with built-in keyboards. And phones. And phones with buttons on them. And mobile computers with keyboards on them. Keyboard on a phone? Totally new invention, let's patent it.
I mean, people did think it was impossible before that. The idea that you can type with thumbs instead of hands was novel.
My friend had a phone that turned landscape to use a built-in kbd in 2005 or so. I couldn't understand the appeal at the time. But I also didn't buy into sms before having a qwerty kbd on the first iPhone, so what did I know.
Nokia N900?
Entering text on a phone wasn't new. Doing it with thumbs wasn't new. Phones that were computers weren't new. But using specifically a qwerty keyboard on a phone, yes, that was novel.
I'm surprised there's a patent for the general concept which seems pretty obvious (as it did at the time) but I would've expected multiple patents involving the exact design and manufacturing process that made it practical.
I wasn't around at the time, but I saw a documentary on literally this, and there was an industry person talking about how there was an assumed minimum keyboard size.
Like you alluded to, the multi-push number pads were already around, which is evidence on it's own nobody could think of something better.
For the most part I think it was still the era of everyone wanting phones that were as small as possible, so that might've contributed to the reluctance of other brands to go ahead and do it. The Blackberry 8800 was 32% wider than the average Nokia at the time according to phonesdata.com.
Oh boy its time for my monthly spiral into Blackberry/Avro Arrow inspired sadness
*snif*
Meeeeemorieeeeeeees . . .
There was a patent?
I thought other companies were not making it because people were just not buying it as much.
The iPhone crushed most phone buttons as the ability to turn button real estate into screen space was way too valuable.
Ok, so i am typing this on my blackberry key2 which is getting 7 years old.
Please give use a hardware keyboard phone. The only option i see is the unihertz titan slim, which has about the same power as the key2....
Please!
Dope. For you, the softkeyboard era might never begin.
Wait, wasn't there an option for a keyboard on FairPhone? Uhh, looks like just an addon.
Yeah there is at the moment only unihertz with android11 Or a kickstarter is coming this/next month, mecha comet. But its a mobile linux pc, which has somehow the form factor of a mobile....
I will stick with a hardware keyboard phone for my life... I am old, and i am grumpy :)
This explains the iPhone cases with BlackBerry-like keyboards.