It’s coming up to two years now since I craved for and got the new Blackberry Q10.

I was so happy. My old Blackberry had become a little beaten and, actually, started to break up but I’d had it for over 4 years and it had been through the mill a bit.

But now you had a shiny new black object, still with the keyboard (because I’m old-fashioned like that) so it seemed perfect.

I was so happy with it. OK, so I couldn’t play Ruzzle with F (us Blackberry users were charged for it whereas he got it free) but it had the keyboard AND a touch screen, was brilliant at the emails stuff and now had almost all I wanted in terms of the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Then, just as the guarantee ran out at the end of the first year, the keyboard started playing up. Keys were sticking. I would press an “i” and on the screen would come “oooOOiooo”. This was a little annoying. It got worse. I googled it and learnt, to my horror that this was a common problem. As mine was just out of warranty, I was fucked …… for another couple of years, to be precise, as I have it on contract!

I looked at videos on how to replace the keyboard but could see that the problem would continue. So I found how to partially clean under the keyboard and I get by. In fact, I’m almost used to it now.

Every so often you gave me software updates which gave me new features and things. It was OK. I realised that, given that the keyboard was crap and you were in the shit as a company, my next phone would, probably, be something else, like a Samsung or whatever is popular in another 18 months time.

Still, you had a chance that I would consider another Blackberry.

That is, until a few days ago.

A few days ago, you gave me another software update. Obligingly I updated and, suddenly, some things started to go horribly wrong. My main problem was that my appointments in my calendar, although still there, stopped giving me reminders. Before, you would set an “reminder” and, up to 2 weeks before, you would get a sound (as you set) to inform you and you could then edit and change this at will. I rely on those reminders.

With my busy schedule, this was, probably, the most used thing for my phone, after the email.

But now, after the software update, although everything “appeared” to be the same, there was no sound or flashing screen with the reminder. Oh, yes, when you “opened” the phone, there was the reminder with the chance to modify – but if you didn’t look at the phone, I would never know.

I googled the problem and found that it was a “known” problem in that a lot of other people had found the same and it wasn’t that I needed to change any settings – it just didn’t work as it should any more.

But, not one to sit back, I had a look around and found that I could now set multiple alarms. Well, that would be good, except that you can only set alarms up to 24 hours in advance!

So, now, I have to keep checking my calendar entries, setting up alarms for that particular day.

I’ve looked but am unable to find anything from Blackberry that says “sorry” or, “we’re going to fix it real soon”. Or, preferably both!

So thank you, Blackberry, for ensuring that a once loyal customer will be looking for an alternative for the next phone. Fucking useless piece of shit.

Update May 2015: The last update partially fixed the problem. Now, however, the long “sound” I have for texts cuts short. Your update to fix the reminders came far too late and with no apology for the considerable inconvenience. Congratulations on royally pissing me off.