Blackberry's CEO Disses iPhone 6 Plus, Issues Challenge: Try to Bend a Blackberry PassPort

Yesterday Blackberry happened to be introducing its new Passport device for business-oriented customers, when suddenly, as if it were a gift from the heavens, what seemed to be a tremendous Apple fail hit the blogosphere and social networking sites.

Suddenly, people everywhere were talking about the bending iPhone 6 Plus, and so of course, at a subsequent event in Toronto, Blackberry CEO John Chen took the opportunity to chime in on the discussion, saying “ I would challenge you guys to bend our Passport.” Of course, no specific mention to the iPhone 6 was given, but the implications were very clear.

Apple has been clearly dominating the smartphone race against Blackberry and other manufacturers like Samsung and HTC for a number of years now. However, this year it appears that all of those companies, including Blackberry, have beaten Apple in at least one category- durability.

Ironically, despite record sales at debut, with more than 10 million sold on launch day, the “largest iPhone ever” seems to be under a lot of criticism at the moment, and there is no telling what this could do for the sales of Apple and competitors like Blackberry.

The comment could be the one thing that Blackberry has had up on Apple in a very long time. Over the last 7 years Apple has basically taken the sales straight out of Blackberry's hands, with Blackberry now accounting for only 1% of global device shipments as of March 2014.

Still, the iPhone 6 bending issue has given Blackberry and other competitors an ideal opportunity to highlight the strengths of their devices. John Chen probably saw this is as a key moment for him to point out a desirable quality in Blackberry's first global device release since Chen took the position as CEO back in November.