BlackBerry unveiled its new Passport flagship smartphone last week and media reaction so far has been decidedly mixed. In particular, many reviewers took issue with the Passport’s more square design and its boxy frame that they said made the device difficult to hold. BerryFlow’s Jubei Raziel isn’t hearing any of it, however, and he’s written a long tirade that rips into both the media and the average consumer for not being smart enough to comprehend the BlackBerry Passport’s true greatness.
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“Amidst the iCloud hacking scandal, the iPhone 6 Bluetooth connectivity issue with cars, Apple pulling back its faulty software update which left phones unusable, the iPhone 6 Plus device bending under pressure, a rather nasty bug that exposed yet another major Apple security flaw with their HealthKit apps, and the U2 album that was invasively installed in everyone’s iCloud account without anyone’s permission, the BlackBerry Passport still managed to receive the most criticism and mockery from, what seems to be, an Apple/Android ‘zombified’ media,” Raziel begins.
And he’s just getting warmed up.
“Dan Seifert, from the Verge, outrageously commented that, ‘The Passport device just doesn’t offer the tools I need to get my work done… the hub is a great idea executed poorly,'” Raziel fumed. “While Joanna Stern, from the Wall Street Journal stated, ‘BlackBerry is still years behind on everything else … its software and hardware have fallen so far behind Android and the iPhone.’ […] I wish I could have read a review from a user of the Passport whom the devices are intended for, instead of a soccer mom who’s clearly not the target audience.”
Raziel is right that you shouldn’t review a BlackBerry Passport like you’d review an iPhone or Android phone or Windows Phone. BlackBerry isn’t targeting the consumer audience anymore and if you review the device, you ought to review it on its own terms and not your own.
That said, the Verge review that Raziel railed against tried to do exactly that by reviewing the Passport specifically as a productivity device that could be used for getting real work done. Indeed, Seifert dedicated a good portion of his review to the BlackBerry Hub, which is a productivity-focused one-stop messaging center whose concept he liked even though he found its implementation lacking.
But wait: Raziel isn’t even close to being finished to denouncing society for shunning BlackBerry over the years.
“It’s a sad state of affairs in social America and the media is at the forefront of this empty parade of superficial and limited consciousness,” he cries. “The powers that be (I’m talking to you, marketing gurus) have done a superb job of dumbing us down through corporate branding and brilliant marketing campaigns. Most consumers believe that we need things, like status quo phones, to make us happy, accepted by society, and to live purposeful lives. […] Consumers began the current culture the day we started believing everything we were told by companies who are only after our hard earned money. We can’t actually believe these businesses have our best interest at heart.”
Wow.
And it gets even better. After ripping into consumers for being brainwashed into thinking the mobile device they own makes them superior to people who own rival devices, Raziel goes on to boast about the fact that… BlackBerry users are superior to people who own rival devices.
No, seriously.
“Despite BlackBerry’s history and current challenges, their best customer has always been the intelligent ones,” he writes. “In a sense, I almost enjoy that they are terrible marketers and presenters because for BlackBerry, it’s always about the product. No gimmicks, no smoke and mirrors, and no U2 playing after the presentations. […] There’s something pure about what they do. […]. The Passport device is a reflection of the future of mobility but the shortsighted and deceived masses fail to grasp the inevitable evolution taking hold within the world of mobile communications.”
At this point, you’d expect me to make some snide comments. But no: Some things just don’t need the added commentary to be flat-out hilarious. This is one of them.
