These days if you don't own a so-called "smartphone", you might as well be carrying around one of the giant dinosaurs from the 80's!
So which is it? Are you rockin a Blackberry or a Droid? Running around with an iPhone or a Palm Pre? The options are almost as endless as the selection of individual devices each manufacturer offers. Personally I absolutely love my Blackberry. I must admit though, before I got my first Blackberry a couple years ago (I was a late bloomer) I didn't see the point. I mean, it just seemed overkill. Who would want all their emails sent to their phone. Who wants to surf the web when the browsers worked at a snails pace? In my mind the features were cool, but they worked so poorly a few years back that it almost seemed like a tease.
So here we are in 2010 heading into 2011 and smartphones have come a long way. From a time when Blackberry was the only smartphone worth owning to today where you have so many choices that you could easily get lost browsing forums looking for the best fit for your needs. And of course with the technology finally catching up with the promises, you now start to open up the realm of security concerns. When you have more than just phone calls coming to your phone the tendency is to actually utilize the phone to the best of its ability. And in doing so people use their phone to do their banking and shopping. Which brings credit card numbers and other such sensitive personal information. And not only that, but take for instance the Blackberry ban over in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates have banned the use of Blackberry's due to national security concerns. Seems a couple of years ago, 2008 to be exact, a Pakistan-based militant group calling themselves Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out some terror attacks in Mumbai killing at least 173 people and wounding hundreds. What does this have to do with blackberry? Well it seems a few Blackberry's as well as a couple other "smartphones" were used to coordinate the attacks.
Apparently the fact that Blackberry's in particular are a favorite of those who we shall The Evil Doers because of the high level of encryption and and security algorithms. One of the reasons that Blackberry became a no-brainer for business clients worldwide is in fact because RIM has done such a wonderful job safeguarding their phones against hackers. This also has a negative effect. Because agencies such as the CIA and other security agencies are unable to pierce the armor of this simple piece of technological beauty.
This brings us back to the point at hand. The increase in smartphone ownership has jumped across the board. And with more features being added to these phones daily with new apps and new devices being introduced all the time it seems that the "smartphone" has nowhere to go but up. So where do you place your trust? Or does it just come down to aesthetics. Some people do not like the traditionally "clunky" look of the Blackberry (although the newer devices especially the touchscreen models are indeed pretty slim and sleek looking). Most people I know, myself included, rock a Blackberry. But there are a ton of iPhones on the market and Droid is taking a huge foothold lately.
The smartphone race is indeed heating up. We will be looking at this subject frequently here at AU. As new devices hit the market or as new problems become newsworthy we will do our best to keep you informed. Matter of fact we will be running our first feature series spotlighting the various smartphone companies out there. Starting with of course RIM and their Blackberry. From there we will bring Droid and iphones into the mix. However no matter how in depth and informative this series may be, it will be nothing without some participation from our readers. So as the series begins I implore you to leave your comments and follow up our articles with some deep discussions. We will begin our first Feature Series: Research In Motion very soon. So stay tuned, it promises to be worthy of the 5 minute read.
