One of my favorite websites, LifeHacker, published an article today on how to hack your iPhone so that it can “read your mind.” While the iPhone can’t actually read our minds (yet), the hacks they provide sure seem like it can come close. In short, the hacks allow you to program your iPhone to automatically perform certain tasks during certain times of the day or under certain circumstances (i.e., if you’re in range of your home Wi-Fi network, the screen lock feature is turned off because it’s assumed to be a “safe” location).

While I’m scared shitless of the idea that technology will be able to read our thoughts, motives, and emotions some day, I’m actually a fan of these programmable tweaks. Why? It saves us time that we spend hunched over our glowing little rectangles. Less time spent hunched over glowing rectangles means less time aimlessly clicking through our phone’s menu screens. Less time aimlessly clicking through menu screens means more time for human interaction. Okay, hopefully you see where I’m going with this. The point is, I think we’re finally building tech that’s built around us, not tech that requires us to change our lives to use it.

The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, my dad suggested I take a course in logic from the local community college.  I forget what else accompanied, something explicit or implicit I’m sure, falling under the general parental-advice-umbrella of “how this would be good for me.”  At the time this advice went through the two stages of my teenage listening process: acknowledgment that I’d heard what was said and then prompt dismissal of what I’d heard.  And, obviously, I spent that summer not logically thinking about anything.

Now, with my Computer Science degree nearly ten years old, I can see value in the suggestion.  Not that if I met my 17-year-old self on the street, I’d do a better job convincing him that his dad had a point, but as a web developer, logic is the tool used most often, not the table-based HTML layouts and laughably simple Javascript I learned in the Fall of 2002.

Blackberry made my blog topic selection incredibly easy when I saw their promoted Tweet pop up in my timeline. The problem is, what the hell can I say about the product strictly based on the attached video? “Cool iPhone clone!” or  “Sweet text input feature, man!” or “Nice couch, dude!” are the only things that I can think of. In an attempt to get back on the tractor and become relevant in the smartphone market, all Blackberry seems to be doing is making iPhone, Jr.

As a former (and shamelessly admitted, satisfied) Blackberry user, here’s a few things I know I’m not alone on when it comes to Blackberry features:

- What they lack in terms of breadth of usable applications, they make up for when compared to how well those few applications operate (I’d argue that Blackberry phones posses one of the best email systems of mobile devices).

- Blackberry Messenger, or BBM, is also a clean and efficient tool that comes standard on Blackberries. I’ve heard that iMessage is similar, but you need a solid Wi-Fi or 3G connection for it to work properly (whereas BBM seems like it could operate from the depths of a nuclear fall-out bunker). Furthermore, you can’t see when your parties have read your message in iMessage like you can in BBM (a sneaky, but often helpful feature that can’t be turned off like in iMessage).

- The Twitter application for Blackberry is also solid enough to merit a mention when it comes to reliability and usability.

These three features, along with being an actual phone that makes calls, make Blackberry phones some of the most efficient and simple communication devices on the planet. If all you cared about was keeping up with the Jones’ and not how much ass you kicked in Words With Friends, then the Blackberry is your weapon of choice. If RIM can keep the “Less is more, but our less is better” mindset, then they might get me back as a customer.