The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 47

The Kingdom That Would Not Touch the Screen

1. 1

   And in the year two thousand and seven, when the glass telephone was revealed unto the world, the Kingdom of the Berry sat upon its throne in Waterloo, Ontario, and its people were many, and they were called the Faithful of the Thumb.

   See also Genesis 24:1

2. 2

   For the Kingdom had been founded in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-four by two men of Waterloo, Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, and it had mastered the hard problem of its age, which was to carry the letter through the thin air of the slow networks, thrifty with every byte. It gave unto the Faithful a small keyboard, and they pressed upon it with their thumbs and did not lift their eyes; and they named the device BlackBerry, and so loved the keys that they called the habit CrackBerry, for they could not put the thing down, not even at the table of their own children.

3. 3

   Then in the year two thousand and five the Kingdom had given unto the Faithful a messenger, and it was named BBM. It was free within the Kingdom, it went from PIN to PIN, and no tongue outside the Kingdom could enter. And the Kingdom thought itself wise; for a messenger is worth the number of friends who bear it, and each of the Faithful held the others as hostages, lovingly.

4. 4

   Yet the chiefs said in their councils that no man would type upon glass, and the Faithful nodded, for their thumbs were already trained, and the glass was a thing for children. They judged the glass as a keyboard, and it was not a keyboard. A key is set in plastic at the factory and shall be on the last day what it was on the first; but the glass was a blank sheet, and any keyboard, any game, any shop might be drawn upon it by the next update.

   See also Genesis 20:1 · Genesis 53:8

5. 5

   And the chief of the house of Redmond also laughed, and said: There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. He counted the telephones that were sold, and not the strangers who would soon be building upon them.

6. 6

   When the year two thousand and eight came, the Kingdom answered the glass with the Storm, a telephone whose face clicked like a button when pressed. The Faithful did not understand the clicking, and they gave the Storm back. It was a hardware answer to a software question, a machine beneath the glass that pretended to be what the glass had replaced, and no update could ever mend it.

   See also Genesis 24:1 · Genesis 20:6

7. 7

   Behold, in the year two thousand and nine the Kingdom held near one fifth of the smart telephones of the world, and the Faithful rejoiced; and the President of the land kept a BlackBerry in his pocket, and the officers of every office followed him. But the summit is the one place on any graph from which every direction is down.

8. 8

   And in the summer of two thousand and eleven, when the streets of London burned and the rioters spoke to one another by the messenger, the Kingdom said it would work with the police. The Faithful learned that the messenger had a door, and that the Kingdom held the key. It was told afterward, in the year two thousand and sixteen, that the messenger of the common folk wore one key for all the devices of the congregation, and that the police of Canada had held a copy of it since the year two thousand and ten. For a lock that one key openeth upon every door is not many locks but one door with many rooms behind it; and a secret kept by the house is kept only from those who cannot knock upon the house.

9. 9

   For the Kingdom knew its congregation too well. It knew which thumbs were loyal, which chiefs feared change, and which Faithful would never leave; and so it stopped listening to the rest of the world. Its charts counted the Faithful who stayed, and the Faithful who stayed were content, and those who had gone appeared upon no chart at all; for a dashboard is a map of those who remained.

10. 10

    In the year two thousand and thirteen the Kingdom crowned its touch-screen prince, BlackBerry 10, and the Z10 came forth with a face of glass, built upon the QNX system, a new body that could not run the programs of the old. But the apps had not come with it. The shop opened with near seventy thousand, against more than seven hundred thousand in the shop of Cupertino, for the builders had gone to the kingdoms where the people were already waiting.

    See also Genesis 24:2

11. 11

    Now a platform is a promise made to strangers: build here, and the people shall come, and thy labour shall be repaid. The Faithful would not buy the Z10 without the programs, and the builders would not write the programs without the Faithful, and each waited upon the other as two processes wait upon two locks, forever. The Kingdom sent a runtime to carry the programs of Android across the water, but they came as guests and not as citizens, and the shop of Google stayed upon the far shore. A phone without programs is a fine keyboard attached to a reason to leave.

    See also Chronicles 45:11 · Genesis 24:16

12. 12

    In that same season the Kingdom wrote down nearly a billion dollars of devices that no one would buy, and the price of its shares fell like a stone into the lake. And in the autumn it threw open BBM unto the iPhone and the Android, and ten millions came in a single day; yet they came to take the messenger and leave the Kingdom, for the one thing that had held the Faithful by their friends now let them carry their friends away. A wall let down after the people have gone is only a road.

    See also Genesis 53:7

13. 13

    In the year two thousand and thirteen a prophet named John Chen was sent to the throne, and he said unto the council: We are a software company. We shall sell what is secure, and not only what is pretty. For he saw that any foundry may copy a device, but the trust of a chief, once earned, is written in no factory.

14. 14

    And the Kingdom made the Passport, a square telephone with a screen as wide as it was tall, and the Classic, and they still had keys. The Faithful bought them, and the Kingdom was pleased, and it did not see the wall being built around its house. For a phone made to please the customers already counted may satisfy the quarter, but it cannot add one name to the count; and each Faithful who departed was replaced by none.

    See also Genesis 47:2

15. 15

    In the year two thousand and sixteen the Kingdom gave the making of its phones unto a foreign house, TCL. It kept for itself the name, the servers of the chiefs, and the QNX system it had bought in the year two thousand and ten. And QNX, which had been a poor excuse for a phone, was a very good foundation for a car; for it was built to answer on time, every time, and in the dashboard no man asketh for a shop, but only that the brake and the warning of the road never wait upon a thought. Thus the Kingdom lost the pocket and found the engine bay.

16. 16

    Verily I say unto you: a platform is not the glass, nor the keys, but the strangers who build upon it; and the Faithful who love thee are the last to tell thee that the strangers have gone. He that listeneth only to the thumbs that obey him shall learn the number of the builders on the day there are none.

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 47:1–16.