When people see that I proudly (and loudly)  rock a BlackBerry Passport in 2015 even though I’m under 25 years old, I always hear the same remarks about apps. “Where are the apps?” “How do you live without SnapChat?” “But you can’t get app ‘x’ on BlackBerry” etc. However, what people don’t understand is that the unsung and subtle feature of BlackBerry is its unrivaled efficiency as a device because of its lack of tangential applications. Sure, I install Android .apks of some popular applications I might need (Instagram and Groupme, which both work fine), but otherwise I have the most productive device on the market today.

It took a change in philosophy of what I wanted my phone to do well to reach this point. I decided that I was going to prioritize calendar, email, phone, and messaging above all else and the BlackBerry 10 OS is clearly geared towards this kind of user. My phone is now a way to stay engaged with those who matter as well as organize and prioritize events and opportunities as they come, not become lost in any of the countless “black hole of time” applications that exist in other app stores. That’s all my BlackBerry does for me, and that’s all I want it to do.