There is also a difference in kind. "Crackberry" types were businesspeople, executives, politicians. People high in social hierarchies with a lot of sway. The people who use VR to that degree are, and I mean this as affectionately as possible, very unusual.
That's probably a big reason Apple has ignored the current VR market segment.
Difficulty of demonstrate is also a pain. It's easy to demonstrate to friends or mom that BB is useful, but demonstrate any HMD usage/functionality is one of the most hardest thing ever. What most people can do best is just send WWDC video.
Crackberries were for people who always needed to be connected. There was no TikTok for BlackBerry, people barely used them for talking to their friends. The modern iPhone barely has anything in common with them
> people barely used them for talking to their friends
In the UK Blackberry and BBM remained very popular for a long time.
That Blackberry was additively used for email (even in a business setting) implies a lot of use for friends. The crackberry addicts were emailing their friends, who were likely also work colleagues, fellow execs, etc.
There's a viral quality to emails from BlackBerry devices as well. Didn't they add "Sent from my BlackBerry" to the end of emails by default? And then Apple famously added "Sent from my iPhone" by default to emails from iPhones.
I Canada at least and I think in usa too there was a period where blackberries were way cooler among teenagers than iPhone are today. In age where each sms used to cost money, blackberry messenger was uber cool.
That's probably a big reason Apple has ignored the current VR market segment.