What BlackBerry's Biggest Fan Wants From the Key2

For the BlackBerry KeyTwo to succeed, it needs Aurora Snow and people like her. The AVN Hall of Fame fellow member and former developed star, at present a 30-something mom who writes for the Daily Creature, has stuck with the brand through its night days and is a real BlackBerry evangelist.

The BlackBerry KeyOne isn't bad at all, but information technology didn't excite many people's imaginations. Back in Feb, Counterpoint Research analyst Neil Shah estimated that only 170,000 people picked up BlackBerrys in the 4th quarter of 2022—less than a tenth of the number it would need to sell to meet a proclaimed 3-5 percent marketplace share goal.

BlackBerry needs fans. I've been spending a lot of fourth dimension thinking about OnePlus recently, and how that company has been buoyed past its powerful fan customs. Just every bit much as it needs law firms and authorities agencies to jump on board, BlackBerry needs existent influencers who love its keyboards enough to brand other people say "what'south that?" and to spread the word.

I caught Snow proclaiming her BlackBerry fandom on Twitter and thought, she'due south not who you lot call back of as a Crackberry aficionado nowadays. But neither is the assistant chief I met at a center school in Manhattan, whose BlackBerry Classic was held together with packing tape.

What these women have in mutual are complicated, highly scheduled lives, and a passionate love of that physical keyboard. Snow makes information technology clear: the No. i affair BlackBerry needs to get right is the keyboard. All those ventures into full-impact phones? Nah. Nosotros chatted with Snow well-nigh her decade-long BlackBerry fandom and what the visitor needs to exercise to keep passionate loyalists similar her on lath.

The BlackBerry Key2 will be appear on June 7. All pictures in this story were taken with the front-facing camera on the BlackBerry KeyOne.

PCMag: Thanks for talking to me, Aurora. Would you say you are the biggest BlackBerry fan yous personally know?
Aurora Snow: I push Blackberry on everybody that is open to hearing about it. I beloved to make people aware that BlackBerry non merely still exists, but is making these great phones that they're missing out on.

PC: And then when did y'all get your first smartphone? Was information technology a BlackBerry?
AS: Oh, wow, that'southward a good question. I think maybe my beginning smartphone might've in fact been a BlackBerry. It was very bulky, but I loved it. I loved all the buttons. I liked to be able to answer electronic mail on it. And so one of the things I liked nearly the BlackBerry was that it felt similar a niggling mini computer style back when and how I could reply all of my emails. I was so fast on it in a way that I merely hadn't been on the flip phones. Then that'south what I'm comparison information technology to back so.

PC: Were y'all relatively early in getting a smartphone in the group of people y'all were with? I gauge it was yet adult industry people at the fourth dimension.
Every bit: I've e'er been an early adopter for things, and this is going to sound funny, merely when I was in high school I had a pager because cell phones weren't available for the masses at that signal. And so I had pagers when you could accept pagers, and every bit soon every bit cell phones became bachelor, I got a cell phone. So yes, when smartphones were in the market place, I had i in my hands.

PC: At what point did you run across other people moving away from BlackBerry? And did they try to convince you [to drib it]?
AS: That would be the Apple tree telephone. I had so many people, then many of my friends went to the iPhone, and they felt like information technology was amazing. And honestly, for media it was. It was superior to the BlackBerry in a couple of regards, but I didn't like the touch on screen. It was, in fact, superior in so many ways that I was willing to try it. So my friends convinced me, and I said, okay, I'm going to miss my keyboard, only this is obviously the style. I got an iPhone and I had information technology for 2 weeks. I hated information technology. I took information technology back to my local AT&T store, and I said I don't similar this. Take information technology back. I want my BlackBerry.

PC: Was it typing on the touch screen? Was that what was really causing problem for you?
AS: Yeah, I mean, I like having a physical keyboard. At the time, I was doing most of my fan email from my BlackBerry, and I kept up with it all the time. And when I got the iPhone...I didn't like that there wasn't buttons to printing. And I had it set up to haptic feedback so I had it vibrating. So I had some sort of sense that I was hitting a push button, but I merely didn't similar information technology.

PC: Okay, so you had the old-school BlackBerrys. You told me that you had a Priv. Did you take a BlackBerry 10 device also?
Every bit: I had a Bold. I had a Bend. I had a Torch. I had a Priv. [But] in betwixt, I had actually given up on BlackBerry. Yous know how this is; it was really heartbreaking for me merely I felt similar the time had come. I think they had started the adjacent phone, which was going to be an entirely bear upon screen, which was very disappointing, because I think BlackBerry fans ... we like our keyboards. You can't take that away. That is that is what makes BlackBerry so astonishing.

BlackBerry KeyOne

PC: Yes, that was the [BlackBerry] Z10.
As: I was and so happy with my Priv. The camera wasn't the best merely I had my keyboard dorsum, and I really liked the mode the Priv functioned. Information technology felt like the onetime BlackBerry had returned, and I felt similar that was a skillful step, because if the erstwhile BlackBerry returns, then they tin can improve upon that, which I feel like they have considering I now have a KeyOne.

PC: And then what practise y'all call back are the all-time and worst things well-nigh the KeyOne, and what would you similar to see improve?
As: The KeyOne actually has a pretty decent photographic camera as far as BlackBerry cameras go. And that'southward nice you know? No one carries cameras whatever more; our phones accept become our cameras. And then it'southward nice that BlackBerry is finally at to the lowest degree getting something only a little bit better. I'm really happy with the phone. I beloved the manner it functions. I like the security, which is always a selling betoken. I get hacked a lot.

BlackBerry's Height Features

PC: How exercise you feel about that keyboard? Do y'all remember that there's any mode the keyboard could exist improved?
AS: The KeyOne keyboard is improve than the Priv keyboard. I wasn't sure how to experience virtually that considering I had adjusted to the Priv and this seemed so different, but from the moment I started using it, I never had to think about it. And that tells me something: with the Priv, I had to stop and recollect about how I was using the keyboard. And this one I haven't at all.

PC: Now you exercise yous have a lot of interests around privacy. Obviously, I'thousand sure there's all sorts of people trying to contact you for all sorts of reasons. Are there any security or privacy features in a phone or in a network or an application that could make you feel safer?
AS: I mean I have an antivirus and also a security app in add-on to the BlackBerry security on my phone, and I think between those two things, I feel pretty safe. It's really caught quite a few things, and I estimate for me the more information technology catches the more than I feel like it'southward doing its job.

PC: What has it caught? Viruses?
AS: Something had tried to install itself on my telephone, but I doubtable that it might take been part of an app that I already had. Information technology was almost like, information technology created access to my telephone.

PC: Do you try to pay attention to the kinds of permissions apps asking, especially with how Facebook's in the news right now and all that?
Equally: Yes, I don't download certain apps because I don't similar the permissions that they're asking for.

PC: The BlackBerry feels safer?
Every bit: It feels safer. Whether that's true or not, information technology feels safer.

PC: It'south safe to say that the Key2 is coming out on Th. What would make you upgrade or practice y'all think y'all're merely going to upgrade anyway considering information technology's cool to have the latest one?
Equally: I don't upgrade just because it's cool to have the latest 1. Sometimes the latest one isn't necessarily the best one. I'g very curious about the BlackBerry Key2. From what I can tell, in that location's not a lot of difference between the Key2 and the KeyOne. And then I'one thousand waiting to see, which is why I'grand not rushing out and pre-ordering or anything similar that. I want to run across what the differences are.

Selling BlackBerry

PC: How have you been trying to sell BlackBerry to your friends who accept Android or iPhone at present? Are you going to go along to endeavour to practice so?
AS: Kickoff it'southward creating awareness. People see my phone, and it's like, what is that? I'one thousand like, it's a keyboard! Information technology's a BlackBerry!

I've been pushing BlackBerry, and I permit [my friends] use it to hold the keyboard kind of see how information technology is. And I've probably gotten a few converts. So many people that I know love using the keyboard, and they've forgotten that. You lot put the BlackBerry in their mitt after they've been using all these screens, and it becomes so much more appealing. They realize what they're missing. Sometimes people don't know what they're missing until you tin bear witness them.

PC: Okay great. Well, maybe we'll talk over again subsequently the Key2 comes out.
Every bit: That would be crawly.