Poor Research in Motion. First the iPhone shows up and makes its BlackBerry look old and busted. Now, it really is old and busted. RIM is experiencing a "disruption of service" affecting all wireless carriers in North America. BlackBerry users could "experience difficulty" using data capabilities like email and web connectivity on their phones. RIM has called the event a "critical severity outage" which started this afternoon and affects enterprise clients and "users of the Americas network." The company has no estimate for when service will be restored. Quick, call a meeting — people will pay attention for lack of anything else to do. (Photo by decaf)

The British media may be knocking Apple's iPhone, but British cartoonists Charles Peattie & Russell Taylor understand the true significance of the computer maker's shiny mobile phone. Fake Steve Jobs links to a comic strip by the duo that perfectly captures the ethos of the iPhone ... and Fake Steve. Yes, it is elitist, that's the point. The complete cartoon after the jump.

A speedy operating system and long-lasting batteries top the reasons BlackBerry business users are more satisfied than working stiffs who lug Treo, Samsung and other smartphone brands. You say you and your iPhone weren't included in this J.D. Power survey of real businesspeople? Exactly.

Over the weekend, a large number of so-called smart phones set their clocks back an hour a week too soon, observing the old end of Daylight Saving Time. And you thought you were 55 minutes early today! I used the extra hour last spring to hunt down instructions for the most popular computers and phones. Summary for BlackBerry users: Set your phone to Mountain Time for the next week. To save you more time today, I've preposted the first three comments to this item from software engineers.

Facebook debuted a BlackBerry client today, in an effort to bring more investment bankers to its platform. (As if the college girls weren't inducement enough.) Delinquent Valleywag correspondent and haughtily self-important BlackBerry user Paul Boutin sent in a test review between meetings. If you see Paul, point him back to the office — I could tell he was phoning it in. Boutin's off-the-cuff assessement, after the jump.

Apple's third quarter was a blowout all around, but the real question is how the iPhone is faring. Now that we've got a quarter's worth of data, we can compare it to the competition, and gauge the effect of blogosphere scandals like the recent episode of iPhones "bricking" after a software update — sure, tech pundits got worked up, but did people stop buying iPhones? The bottom line: Steve Jobs & Co. entered a daunting market and performed quite well.

Some smartphone junkies are experiencing phantom vibrations — feeling the phone ring when it isn't in their pocket. Some users compare it to a phantom limb. It even has a name: "fauxcellarm." Is that a Blackberry in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? [AP]

Research In Motion beat Wall Street analysts' expectations, reporting a profit of $287.7 million in the second quarter as revenue rose 108 percent. RIM shipped more than 3 million BlackBerry smartphones. Guess the iPhone release didn't slow them down at all. [Canadian Press]

In my career, fast personal networking is as important as fast computer networking. I've set up my BlackBerry with a hot button to jump to my contacts in midcall or mid-email. The iPhone's home screen, on the other hand, includes YouTube and Stocks but not the Contacts app. When you do find it, you can't do a quick search—you can only browse your contacts by last name. This looks fantastic if you have 24 contacts but falls apart when you've got 240 and aren't good at remembering people's last names. Really, anything beats having to scroll through 300 names with my finger.

For Wall Street, it's a juicy notion: Could Microsoft buy Research In Motion? It's the kind of high-concept idea that gets traders afroth and keeps analysts busy churning out reports. It's also — how to put this delicately — completely stupid. Yes, Microsoft could buy RIM — and yes, you could go out and buy a gun and shoot yourself in the face. Both are in the realm of possibility, and both are suicidal ideas.

Not convinced you need a BlackBerry? Research In Motion has corralled a slew of professionals, who in true "Real World" form, reveal what is so tantalizing about their sidekick (if not their Sidekicks). Not only can you listen to a variety of presidents and CEOs espouse the obvious virtues of an email-capable smartphone, but you can also hear predictable sales pitches for their companies. Premal Shah, president of the nonprofit microloan site Kiva.org, spends half of his 2 minutes and 35 seconds telling viewers about the site. In between elevator pitches, he says, "The first thing I do is I look at my BlackBerry when I wake up. In the morning, it's almost like my motivation to open my eyes." Wow. For us, coffee does the trick. If you're looking to pimp your business, submissions guidelines are located in the page footer. If you don't have a BlackBerry, just borrow a friend's and pretend.

While the mainstream media and blogosphere remain fixated on the iPhone hype, Research In Motion (RIMM), makers of the addictive Blackberry, is content with measurable success — a 20% stock surge on "unbelievable" first quarter results: 73% earnings growth, substantial subscriber acquisitions, solid expectations going forward, and a 3 for 1 stock split. [Reuters]

• A sociology professor on the BlackBerry outage and the damage done: "It's hard to speculate on exactly what kind of effects this BlackBerry outage could have, but I imagine that users could feel isolated and alone." GOOD! [Popular Mechanics]
  

We usually expect to read our articles about how today's parents are self-obsessed pieces of shit in New York (which never seems to realize that the subjects they profile are self-obsessed pieces of shit). However, Friday's Wall Street Journal saw New York's douche and said "douch ," with this stunning article about how adults are essentially ignoring their kids in favor of their BlackBerries. It's chock-full of repellent professional-types who should have been chemically castrated before they were ever allowed to procreate, and it should be read in full, but we've culled some of the most poignant parts and placed them after the jump.