Why iPhone Replaced My Crackberry

[trevor#IM]

I wrote this up a few days ago, was going to go in a blog, but didn't get used. Decided not to waste all that effort.

I have been a BlackBerry fan ever since I got my first one, a 7250 on Verizon Wireless, but with the release of the latest iPhone, I felt like a switch to the dark side was the right move. Here is a list of 10 likes and 10 dislikes about the new iPhone 3G...

Likes (in no particular order):

1. Syncing with Mac- I love the seamless syncing with my Macbook. This was the main reason I wanted to switch to iPhone. RIM doesn't offer an easy way to sync with OSX, and the third party solutions leave a lot to be desired.
2. Touch Screen- I thought the touch screen would take a lot of getting used to; I used to have a Windows Mobile Device a long time ago and the touch screen was absolutely miserable to use. The iPhone's touchscreen is in a class by itself. The finger gestures make sense and work well and the keyboard is very easy to get used to typing on. I make a ton of mistakes typing because I type quick and the iPhone's auto correction feature works well. I would estimate it fixes upwards of 95% of my mistakes.
3. App Store- This is what really seperates the iPhone from other devices! Apple did a great job with this and there is little iPhone developers can do. The existing applications are great and most are extremely useful, some aren't but they are still fun. So far, I am running AIM, Remote, Twitterific, Last.FM, Pandora, Shazam, Loopt, and Facebook. For the most part, the applications work great.
4. Threaded SMS- I text a lot. Threaded SMS is nice because it keeps the conversations organized and you can easily see where the conversation left off with a given recipient. Very nice. This is one of those features that is really simple, but makes the user experience much better.
5. GPS- The GPS in this thing is amazing! Even in my house it can find where I am at, pretty much down to the room. It is almost scary, but I love it!
6. Wi-Fi- Unfortunately, I am not in a 3G coverage area, so the iPhone's Wi-Fi is very nice to have when you are close to a hotspot or a router. The iPhone picks up signals very good and connects super easy. I have yet to find an unprotected signal that I can't connect to and the wireless radio in the iPhone seems to be excellent.
7. Music- I love carrying all of my music with me. I can connect my iPhone to my car and listen to any song in my library. I keep my iTunes very organized and have all the cover art, so the iPhone does an amazing job and displaying that art and keeping my music organized. This is something that the BlackBerry wasn't ever really good at. I could put my music on the memory card, but with no Mac syncing, it was a nightmare to add music. Also, the BlackBerry never liked to keep the album artwork from iTunes. Some would show up, some wouldn't. It made my media library on my BlackBerry look very messy. iPhone solves this problem.
8. Safari- You don't think I would forget web browsing in a iPhone top ten list do you? Web browsing is amazing on iPhone. Full HTML browser. BlackBerry can't even compete. This is just something you have to see for yourself.
9. The Screen- The iPhone's screen is amazing in my opinion. There have been reports that the some iPhone screens have a yellow tint. I am not sure if they are defective ones or what, but mine looks amazing. Very crisp, very clear. Definitely sharper than my old Pearl 8130.
10. Familiar Interface- As a Mac user for the past 8 months or so, I have to say I will never go back to a PC. I love my Mac. iPhone does a great job at mimicking the interface of OSX. If you have a Mac, iPhone should be second nature to you, and vice versa.

Dislikes (in no particular order):

1. EDGE- If you are not in a 3G area, EDGE is painfully slow. This is not the fault of iPhone at all, this is the fault of At&t. But, I have had EVDO in my area for the last two years, so going back to EDGE when there is no Wi-Fi available hurts.
2. Bugs- With any device, bugs are to be expected. For the most part, iPhone has been very stable. There are still some kinks with some applications that I am sure will be ironed out with time. For example, some applications will close out randomly and take you back to the home screen. Not fun, but the iPhone is new so I am going to give them a chance to resolve these issues before I bash Apple too much.
3. No Push Gmail- This is one of my biggest gripes with iPhone. If Yahoo can push to iPhone, why can't Gmail? I am a Gmail junkie and don't want to give it up. So for now, I am stuck with getting my emails every 15 minutes. Some may say, well that's not a big deal, 15 minutes isn't that long. But, if you have been a BlackBerry user, you are used to instant.
4. Touch Screen- While the touch screen works very nice, nothing is quite as good as old fashioned buttons. I do miss my suretype keyboard with predictive type. With a touch screen you can't feel for the keys so you are required to look at the keyboard. This makes texting on the fly difficult. Walking or driving while typing on the iPhone is dangerous. I had no problems texting on my Pearl because my fingers knew where the keys were and I could type without looking at the device. With the iPhone, I find myself pulling over to reply to a text message. (But, I guess that isn't a bad thing.)
5. Durability- With any touch screen device, one always seems to worry about damaging the screen. More so than with a regular device. So far, the iPhone has yet to show any scratches on its screen (knock on wood) and it has been in my pocket since launch day. No cases for me.
6. Battery Life- With my old BlackBerry Pearl, I had the Seidio extended battery and it seemed like battery life was never an issue for me. I do not feel the same with iPhone. I charge my device every night while I sleep whether it needs it or not, so I don't battery life will every really be an issue, but if I were to listen to music for an extended amount of time I could see it going dead.
7. Speakerphone- My BlackBerry had an amazing speakerphone. The best I have ever had. The speaker was very loud and very clear. With the iPhone however, I find that the speakerphone is rather quiet. Fine if I am in a quiet room by myself, but if there is background noise such as a tv or if I am outside I find it difficult to hear.
8. No Cut & Paste- Yep that's right, if you haven't heard this before, the iPhone has no cut and paste ability. You can imagine how frustrating this is...
9. No Turn-by-Turn GPS- I wish the GPS was turn-by-turn compatible. It is so accurate, I don't see why the didn't build in this feature.
10. Cost of MobileMe- Right now I am using my 60 day trial of MobileMe. This service works great by keeping all your information in a "cloud" and syncing all your devices wirelessly. Awesome feature, but with the price of iPhone and the data, this should be included at no charge. Currently, the price is $99/year. This service will be especially important this fall when Apple activates the Push notification for applications.

 

[Sinistar]

Nice review. I never had a blackberry but know several people that do and played with them several times. I agree with the speakerphone part, the BB's do have much better speakers/clarity. It's my only real pet peeve I have though, well besides no 3g here yet.

 

[BB-fan]

Great review however I have seen people say the same thing you said and I don't know why maybe its the area but you say edge is slow and wifi is better. I find edge to fast but wifi is soooo slow. I also got confused on the mobileme part, I know as the rest of this forum probably knows that apple is coming out with their push servers this fall, in order to use this service mobile me is not required is it?

 

[HymerSchmidt]

[*]No Push Gmail- This is one of my biggest gripes with iPhone. If Yahoo can push to iPhone, why can't Gmail? I am a Gmail junkie and don't want to give it up. So for now, I am stuck with getting my emails every 15 minutes. Some may say, well that's not a big deal, 15 minutes isn't that long. But, if you have been a BlackBerry user, you are used to instant.

Get your Gmail forwarded to an Exchange server, then with a Gmail account set-up in tandem on the iPhone, you can effortlessly use the Gmail account for outgoing mail. While setting up the Exchange account(and I mean where it is asking you for server info, username, etc.), in the "Email" section put your Gmail address. As a result, any messages you compose or reply to from the Exchange account are automatically sent through Gmail, using the "From:" feature.

You obviously can't use IMAP features(marked as "read") without always going through the Exchange server on your desktop, work, etc., but it gets you push Gmail.

 

[trevor#IM]

Great review however I have seen people say the same thing you said and I don't know why maybe its the area but you say edge is slow and wifi is better. I find edge to fast but wifi is soooo slow. I also got confused on the mobileme part, I know as the rest of this forum probably knows that apple is coming out with their push servers this fall, in order to use this service mobile me is not required is it?

From my understanding the Push Notification will require a mobile me subscription. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

As for EDGE vs Wi-Fi, my wi-fi is definitely faster. I am not really up on the actual speeds each network type are supposed to get, but I believe Wifi is supposed to be faster than EDGE.

 

[trevor#IM]

Get your Gmail forwarded to an Exchange server, then with a Gmail account set-up in tandem on the iPhone, you can effortlessly use the Gmail account for outgoing mail. While setting up the Exchange account(and I mean where it is asking you for server info, username, etc.), in the "Email" section put your Gmail address. As a result, any messages you compose or reply to from the Exchange account are automatically sent through Gmail, using the "From:" feature.

You obviously can't use IMAP features(marked as "read") without always going through the Exchange server on your desktop, work, etc., but it gets you push Gmail.

I have considered this "solution," but I like the IMAP support. It need to be like Yahoo for me. IMAP+Push.

 

[HymerSchmidt]

I have considered this "solution," but I like the IMAP support. It need to be like Yahoo for me. IMAP+Push.

I think Mail2Web supports IMAP. Or some other free Exchange server might. My point being you could still use IMAP, just not Gmail's.

 

[trevor#IM]

I think Mail2Web supports IMAP. Or some other free Exchange server might. My point being you could still use IMAP, just not Gmail's.

Oh, I know. But since having the iPhone, I am really liking the IMAP. I just want push in addition to it. Like Yahoo Mail is for BlackBerry. That's not asking too much is it?

 

[Libuff]

isn't the gmail push issue a GMAIL issue?

 

[trevor#IM]

isn't the gmail push issue a GMAIL issue?

If Yahoo can push to iPhone, why can't Gmail?

I believe so, but it is still one of my biggest dislikes of the iPhone.

 

[HymerSchmidt]

Oh, I know. But since having the iPhone, I am really liking the IMAP. I just want push in addition to it. Like Yahoo Mail is for BlackBerry. That's not asking too much is it?

No it's not. And we all know Google has the technology. Maybe they are hedging features to eventually promote Android?

 

[bripat22]

you are right about the turn-by-turn GPS. I would probably give up my telenav in exchange for the Safari browser as a trade-off in an IPhone-Blackberry exchange but like you, can't understand why this feature is not built in.

 

[E Pow]

Nice review. I just left Blackberry and came over to iphone 3g myself.

 

[Dieter Bohn]

Excellent overview, Trevor!

re: Resiliancy: just don't leave it in your back pocket and sit on it.

 

[Rene Ritchie]

Awesome post Trevor!

Google has a dodgy IMAP implementation to begin with. I couldn't want IMAP IDLE (push) more, as I use Gmail for my personal account, but they need to fix the IMAP first (no more certificate issues, b'okay?)

And the screen is tough as nails made out of really hard glass. (Just don't leave it in Dieter's back pocket).

 

[schartzr]

Get your Gmail forwarded to an Exchange server, then with a Gmail account set-up in tandem on the iPhone, you can effortlessly use the Gmail account for outgoing mail. While setting up the Exchange account(and I mean where it is asking you for server info, username, etc.), in the "Email" section put your Gmail address. As a result, any messages you compose or reply to from the Exchange account are automatically sent through Gmail, using the "From:" feature.

You obviously can't use IMAP features(marked as "read") without always going through the Exchange server on your desktop, work, etc., but it gets you push Gmail.

When I do that and change my email address it kicks out my exchange server and I lose everything. maybe i am doing something worng any advise?

 

[HymerSchmidt]

It doesn't kick me out. I don't think the iPhone will even "kick you out" of any form. If the settings don't work it will tell you, but it doesn't delete them. Make sure you press "save" instead of "cancel."

If it doesn't like your settings: what you might be doing wrong is changing the "username" field, when you should only change the "email address" field.

 

[Duvi]

I posted my likes over at the CB forums...

I beg to differ. Of the things both do, I believe the iPhone excels.

Below are some example...

Text/SMS... Great threaded messaging, even better than the treo.

Email... This is what true HTML should be.

Voicemail... On my BB, I used to have the box full as most of the times I know who sent me a message and what they said. On the iPhone, usually under 3 or 4 as I am able to just delete right from the voicemail app. I also love the fact that I don't have to go in the order that they came in.

Browser... As this article proves, worlds ahead, just a bit closer now with the Bold's browser. I also love having tabbed browsing like Firefox/Safari.

MobileMe... 20 times better than what BIS offers. I take a pic, I upload it to my MobileMe account (20 gigs of storage) and delete. Contacts/Calendar push... forgot about it. I have a friend who is helping me look up appointments for apartments. She would just add it to my calendar on my MobileMe account and it's instantly on my iPhone while I travel with the address that I can hit and locate in the Maps application.

App store... Wow. Applications are just coming in left and right.

Games? Wow multiplied by 2. All touch and has great games.

Storage?... Not just 16GB of storage for media/files, but also for applications. I've already download over 25 apps and no slow downs what so ever. On my BB, I kept about three 3rd party apps due to precious space. (Opera Mini, Twitterberry & Telenav) Even after a while I took Telenav off.

iPod... Although I don't use this portion... for those who love watching movies or listening to music, this is awesome.

Tons more stuff, not enough time. Even after all of this, I'm not saying either device is better than the other, but for me, it's as perfect of a device as it's going to get. Once again, not perfect, but the most for my needs/wants.

In addition to the OP's post.

 

[tehflakes]

As someone who has recently switched from a blackberry to an Iphone, I agree with all that has been said in this thread.

My only complaint is I havent found an application for msn yet, I had it on my BB and I loved it.
I'm not sure if I can justify 99/year for mobileme.
Also that I cant use custom ringtones for email or sms alerts.

Ryan

 

[mullrat]

I have both a blackberry curve and this new iPhone 3g. I was planning on keeping both phones as I use my blackberry very strictly for business. But this phone has pretty much wowed me since I got it. I synced with my exchange account, and am getting push email calendars and contacts. I love my curve. It's been the best and most reliable phone I have ever had. The iPhone is also a superior media device. It's dr from perfect but still something I can carry around proudly. So what do you guys think? I'm still going to probably keep both but if this thing keeps loving itself, then bye bye blackberry.