Blackberry is a Stupid "Smart" Phone

I got the Blackberry Curve from Sprint a couple of months ago. I like the phone itself. I also like the Sprint network - never a dropped call and good connections everywhere that I go. The software that comes with it, however, is another thing altogether.

To put it quite simply, I've come to the conclusion that "sync" and "update" are Blackberry code speak for "waste lots of your time."

Lots and lots of time.

After I had only had it for a week or so, I tried to synchronize my music files between my desktop and phone. Funny thing is, every time I did so, a couple of songs disappeared by from my playlists. I was annoyed and stopped trying to sync my phone for awhile.

I lost my ear buds last week and hadn't had a chance to replace them. Since I wasn't going to listen to any music, I figured I might as well sync my calendar, contacts and task list. I asked myself: how bad could it be?

Here's a quick rundown of what happened when I tried to sync my phone and desktop.

• My contact list developed more than 100 duplicates and even a few triplicates;
• I couldn't log onto Foursquare anymore until my password was reset;
• Several of the apps on my phone, such as AP News, simply stopped working and had to be installed again;
• My option to lock the keyboard on my phone disappeared. I know have to worry about pocket dialing someone all the time;

My desktop developed some problems as well. Microsoft Outlook also had more than 100 duplicates and several triplicates. The most bizarre thing is that, after this sync, all of my contacts were now organized according to the person's middle initial.

The middle initial.

I have no f-ing clue how that could have happened.

All told, it took me close to four hours to sync everything using the Blackberry software and then fix all of the problems that developed as a result of that software. The kicker of it all is that I could have done this sync manually in a little more than an hour.

Here we are in the 21st century and it's still possible to do simple, repetitive tasks faster by hand than it is with a computer. At least when crappy software is involved.