Google chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt admitted to using a BlackBerry as his primary smartphone in an interview with Guardian at the Activate conference. One might assume someone with a high ranking at Google would be using an Android phone, but that’s apparently not the case.
Schmidt says the main reason for using his BlackBerry is his love of the keyboard. Plenty of Android phones — probably with more functionality than that of a BlackBerry — also have physical keyboards as well, but hey, the guy likes what he likes. He was spotted using a BlackBerry back in 2009 and still in 2011 and his taste hasn’t changed.
Aside from talking about his own phone, Schmidt had a few words to speak of on some other topics as well. For instance, he thinks Apple’s relatively new iPad mini is “too small” compared to the regular iPad. Nevermind the fact that the only Android tablets selling even slightly well are actually smaller than the iPad mini. Is he completely out of touch with Google these days?
Lastly, when asked about whether Chrome OS and Android will merge, we reported yesterday that they would not. Eric Schmidt said in an interview that they are “certainly going to remain separate for a very long time, because they solve different problems.” Personally, I think it’s less of a question of merging and more of when Google decides to just kill off Chrome OS. Time will tell.