Putting my money where my mouth is! 🤑
And Doing what I love, Loving what I do!
Happy 2023 CrackBerry VIP FAM!
It’s been a while since my last update. If you haven’t been checking in on CrackBerry.com regularly you’ve been MISSING OUT. The articles began flowing in December with CrackBerry’s Top 22 Favorite Tech Things of 2022 Series.
Then “The CrackBerries” hit Vegas for CES 2023 where Derek “Maverick” Kessler won our Top Gun dog clown fight to earn the title of Editor/Clown-in-Chief. He’ll be taking the reigns on the day-to-day editorial leadership of the CrackBerry Circus as we continue to ramp up the activity there. Be sure to read his HELLO CRACKBERRY WORLD post.
CBK is a Shaking and a Moving
As for me, I flew home from Vegas with an epiphany. It turns out all these years of tech blogging I’ve been fooling myself. I’m no (content) creator… I’m a (business) builder! So while I’ll still be chiming in and disturbing the internet peace from time to time on the blogs and socials, my day-to-day will be focused on building and supporting the businesses I’m invested in.
Most of my time and energy will be taken up by Journey Commerce. This is the business I started working on last year (that delayed CrackBerry from relaunching earlier in 2022) and I’m really excited that it’s finally coming out of stealth mode and getting ready for primetime. I’ve assembled a kick-ass team and we’ve built an awesome performance marketing platform for brands to tap into. I posted an update to my LinkedIn if you want to learn more about it.
More exciting to the CrackBerry/BlackBerry-loving community is the news I posted yesterday that I’ve become an investor and advisor of Apostrophy AG!
Since dropping the exclusive on the Punkt MC01 Legend QWERTY phone and going hands-on with AphyOS at CES, I’ve been getting to know the teams behind both of these companies better.
And with zero hope of a new BlackBerry anywhere in sight, helping this crew to build something that could be a worthy BlackBerry successor is something I want to see and help make happen.
It’s a HUGE challenge, but I have confidence in this team and the way they’re going about it. I love that they’re Switzerland-based and have a strong stance at every level on privacy and security. And I love that they’re building on open-source solutions where possible (including GrapheneOS for the mobile OS piece of Aphy). Getting a consumer-friendly solution like this to market and then getting it onto some kickass QWERTY hardware is something I want desperately to see happen.
Somehow the world feels right when CBK is jonesing for a new OS and a new phone. It’s going to take time. But there’s at least some hope again. A younger version of CBK would just sit on the sidelines and write about it. CBK 2.0 is going to get in the game with the aim to win.
You can sign up for updates at Aphy.io and I’ll be sure to share the journey of this project as it progresses. I know when it comes time for us to find beta testers we’ll have many here ready and able to help!
Until Next Time…
Be sure to visit CrackBerry at least a few times a week!
Also, Heads Up.. our winner of the Top 22 of 2022 Holiday Contest still hasn't responded to us despite numerous attempts at reaching out. If we don't hear back by the end of January we'll be picking a new winner for the $2022 tech shopping spree!
We should hope carrier support is a thing! If we can get the big three (in Canada) and regional carriers to sell it, then I'll have an upgrade path leading from this BlackBerry key2 LE.
Crucial features are Wi-Fi calling and voLTE. Especially since if the big three are aiming to phase out 3G calling (US Carriers already mostly have) and related networks, this is quite important.
I know not everyone is inclined to use the "pixel hack" without risking screwing up their device just to get those features working.