New to Apple - Extremely disappointed

[ctt1wbw]

So why do people believe that the Blackberry is for business use but the iPhone is not? I keep hearing this over and over again, sounds like a broken record.

I can't think of anything that the Blackberry can do that the iPhone can not do. Help me out here.

 

[li2327]

I guess when it comes to email, blackberry gives you more options such as document attachment etc. I use mine for strictly personal use so it works just fine for me.

 

[ctt1wbw]

You can attach docs on the iPhone. I just don't get why people continue to say that the iPhone is not for business use. The only drawback is that you can only have one Exchange account, but how many Exchange accounts do people have on the Blackberry phones at one time?

 

[minimo3]

I carry a BB Curve for business and the iPhone for personal use so here's just a few reasons off the top of my head:

End user features:
- iPhone currently only supports Microsoft Exchange. It misses the other 40% of the market who use Lotus Notes or Groupwise. (Although Domino 8.5.1 is slated to provide Exchange ActiveSync support)
- no support in iPhone for corporate instant messaging solutions like Sametime or Office Communications Server
- Battery lasts longer on the BB. If I go on a overnight trip I don't have to bring a charger, the battery easily lasts 2 days even with heavy usage. I can bring along a 2nd battery if I need to - no hunting for power sockets at an airport!
- Extra loud speakerphone that doubles as a makeshift polycom for all your colleagues when stuck at a remote customer location
- Profiles that let you totally silence the phone quickly so it doesn't distract you while you're up there giving a presentation. Vibrating pants are not cool
- LED light to let you know you have mail even if its on total silent mode
- Camera-less versions available for folks who work in high security locations
- Reasonable international data roaming plans e.g. $64.99 for unlimited international BB data on AT&T
- BB devices available on multiple carriers and networks for maximum coverage. AT&T has serious network congestion issues in some locales e.g. NYC and parts of southern California
- Bluetooth voice dialing, very handy when you're driving from the airport to the hotel in strange city and trying to make calls while negotiating rush hour traffic
- Telenav for driving directions in unfamiliar places
- Ability to open files in ZIP attachments
- BB Messenger. Instant and always-on. Like SMS text messaging without the per message charges

IT Admin features:
- One single place to manage everything, the BES server. With iPhone you'd use Exchange for policy management, IIS for logging, Apple policy config tool for device management
- Unable to forcibly push policies on the iPhone. Users have to manually click on a email attachment or run the policy to add it to their phones. Also unable to update policies OTA
- Very fine grained security control for Blackberry (you can enable/disable almost every feature in the device). iPhone supports very limited Exchange ActiveSync policies e.g. remote wipe, and disable camera (only with Exchange 2007)
- Admins can prevent users from installing apps on a BB
- No good reporting and logging tool for iPhones

 

[minimo3]

Some other reasons came to mind after I typed that out:

- Unable to set out of office notification on iPhone. Half the time I forget to set it when I'm at the office and only remember it at the airport. Blackberry lets you do this.
- Limited VPN support on the iPhone. For the popular IPSec protocol only Cisco is supported. My company had to specially buy a Cisco VPN to run a pilot test.
- Blackberry lets you search emails on the server mailbox that have not been downloaded to the device. I'm not sure iPhone does this (someone will have to verify). This is very useful when pulling up old emails for reference

 

[Alli]

Your 3rd point is a mind set. You are used to RIM server which is its own mail protocol. If you use an IMAP email client, there is no downloading of email messages - they are simply always in sync with every client you use. So yes, you can search all email at all times.

 

[ctt1wbw]

Some of those reasons, like the LED light and the silenced options, those are reaching. An LED light is for business use? The iPhone uses tags and stuff like that to tell you when you have mail.

And that little knob on the side mutes the phone. You realize that right?

And preventing users from using their phone is not a very good answer either. Just don't give someone the password to install apps, or only let them install free ones. Just because someone who has a business iPhone downloads Facebook doesn't mean that viruses are going to get into the corporate mainframe.

 

[minimo3]

Your 3rd point is a mind set. You are used to RIM server which is its own mail protocol. If you use an IMAP email client, there is no downloading of email messages - they are simply always in sync with every client you use. So yes, you can search all email at all times.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but on my iPhone I can only sync (with IMAP) up to 200 of the most recent emails (under settings). Let's say you have an mailbox of about 700MB with thousands emails stretching back 5 years. Now try to search for an email (using keyword search) that was sent/received in say 2007. When I try to do that in Spotlight it comes up blank. It only indexes the 200 emails that are synced locally on my device. With the Blackberry it will perform a search search on the server and search all those thousands of emails.

There is a similar limitation in calendar. Try searching for an event that occurred more than a year ago. It won't find it even if it is sync'ed locally. The spotlight indexer skips items older than 1 year, I guess it minimize the size of the index.

 

[big9erfan]

BB has the full business aspect down, I won't argue that at all, but how long has it taken for them to implement all of that? I know BB has been around for a long time now and Apple is just on their 3rd year of the iPhone. I'd be surprised were more of those issues to not be addressed in the future.

One of the big points you bring up is the cameraless version for those that work in high security locations. A number of my friends had to get dumb phones just for this reason.

 

[Alli]

Got ya now. I hadn't realized that limitation.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but on my iPhone I can only sync (with IMAP) up to 200 of the most recent emails (under settings). Let's say you have an mailbox of about 700MB with thousands emails stretching back 5 years. Now try to search for an email (using keyword search) that was sent/received in say 2007. When I try to do that in Spotlight it comes up blank. It only indexes the 200 emails that are synced locally on my device. With the Blackberry it will perform a search search on the server and search all those thousands of emails.

There is a similar limitation in calendar. Try searching for an event that occurred more than a year ago. It won't find it even if it is sync'ed locally. The spotlight indexer skips items older than 1 year, I guess it minimize the size of the index.

 

[minimo3]

Some of those reasons, like the LED light and the silenced options, those are reaching. An LED light is for business use? The iPhone uses tags and stuff like that to tell you when you have mail.

And that little knob on the side mutes the phone. You realize that right?

And preventing users from using their phone is not a very good answer either. Just don't give someone the password to install apps, or only let them install free ones. Just because someone who has a business iPhone downloads Facebook doesn't mean that viruses are going to get into the corporate mainframe.

I agree that an LED is not "essential" but it saves a lot of time. These are the steps a business iPhone user would have to take to see if he/she had email

1. Press Power button
2. Punch in PIN (most companies would require around 8 character alphanumeric) This is a real pain to key in
3. Slide to unlock
4. Hit Home if its on a different page
5. View badge to see if there are any unread emails

Versus - if the red light is blinking I have emails

Its the same with the silence switch. With the iPhone the switch is normally set to vibrate which is ok in many situations. There are times though (when on stage, sitting on the night stand) when I want it to be completely silent aka no vibrate, no nuthin'. To do this I have to go to Settings -> Sounds -> Silent Vibrate slide to off. Is it doable? Yes, but once again it takes time. With Profiles one can set very fine grained notification controls. I could make a custom profile that silenced everything except calls from Joe. So say I was in an all day customer meeting and we had an important issue that the team back in the office was still rushing to resolve. I could switch to my special profile that silenced all calls, emails, SMS, instant messages, except calls from Joe. This way once his team resolves the issue and he calls it would ring.

As for device restrictions, I don't like them any more than you do. Do I enjoy the fact that IT forces me to key in an extra long alphanumeric password every time I turn it on? No. Do I like it that they restrict my ability to install apps? No. But its not what I like, this is what the business wants. Its primarily because of support. If you're tech savvy and are just managing your own device its not a big deal, but when you have thousands of Blackberries to support, most of the users are not very technical, and there's only 2 of you, you want to minimize the number of moving parts. You don't want to have to figure out whether its a 3rd party apps fault if the device keeps crashing.

With an iPhone its worse because the end user could jailbreak it without the IT Admin knowing or preventing it. This removes the sandbox restrictions. If this user then connects to the Wifi network at Starbucks I can easily SSH into his device. Most users wouldn't know how to change the root password so I'd login using the default root/alpine credentials. Then I have free reign over his filesystem. I can easily sftp off the sqllite databases with his email. It will take all of 3 minutes to get company confidential info.

But to make you happy I'll end with a Blackberry flaw. Once I get on the plane the Blackberry gets turned off and I settle into the iPhone (ok at a safe cruising altitude). I pull out my dinner and start watching a movie. Could I do this on a Blackberry? Kind of.... the BB plays mpeg4 videos but after around 30-40 minutes the audio and video will go out of sync. This is regardless of what bitrate you encode it at. You then have to spend several minutes fast forwarding/rewinding to get it back in sync. Irritating to no end.

 

[ctt1wbw]

I know. That process you listed takes me about 3 seconds. I know that's valuable time.

 

[ctt1wbw]

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that my wife and I own a business. We just bought another one in New Mexico. We owned one for 6 years or so before we gave that up. We use iPhones now for our business. It does just fine. And yes, we hate Blackberry's.

 

[minimo3]

I think I know where the disconnect is: Instead of using the term 'business,' we should reclassify the Blackberry as more suitable for enterprises. In my company's definition that would be firm's with annual sales of more than USD$1B and more than 10,000 employees. As well as companies in regulated industries (finance, healthcare) and with strict security requirements. I think iPhones are just fine for many businesses. In fact I believe Genentech is the largest deployment with about 10,000 users. Apple is adding more enterprise features with each release of the firmware.

Personally I'm not partial to any platform, having used a slew of Treos (180->270-600-650), Sprint Mogul, T-Mobile Dash (Windows Mobile), iPhone 2G/3G, and BB Curve. They all have have their pros & cons. What's the reason you hate the Blackberry so much?

 

[talkin73]

Pocket Informant is making the iPhone calendar bearable, but it's still not all the way there yet.

New question - why is the immediate response to the smallest complaint "you should have done your homework?" Did it ever occur to some people that those of us with complaints did do our homework and went into the purchase with full knowledge of the limitations and made the purchase anyway? Knowing the limitations does not equal liking or being satisfied with them.

Alli, bravo and well said People are entitled to be frustrated and like some things about the iPhone and not like other things. Congrats to anyone that likes "everything" about it But, like many things in life people often have mixed feelings to some degree or another, just human nature. I am also baffled that people get so quickly bashed for expressing their frustrations here. We can probably all agree that forums are a good place to exchange ideas or obtain information, but they generally serve as a place to express opinions as well. Anyone that doesn't know that about forums obviously hasn't done their homework

 

[talkin73]

The OP likes his palm device, so be it. But he could make his calendar the great asset he desires. Or he can go back to a palm, and hang with zach morris and fred flinstone and use old phones together. lol, .

I loved this "Saved By The Bell" reference... took me about 3 seconds to register it. Huge props for working that joke into the middle of this derailed, battle royal of a thread

 

[ctt1wbw]

I think I know where the disconnect is: Instead of using the term 'business,' we should reclassify the Blackberry as more suitable for enterprises. In my company's definition that would be firm's with annual sales of more than USD$1B and more than 10,000 employees. As well as companies in regulated industries (finance, healthcare) and with strict security requirements. I think iPhones are just fine for many businesses. In fact I believe Genentech is the largest deployment with about 10,000 users. Apple is adding more enterprise features with each release of the firmware.

Personally I'm not partial to any platform, having used a slew of Treos (180->270-600-650), Sprint Mogul, T-Mobile Dash (Windows Mobile), iPhone 2G/3G, and BB Curve. They all have have their pros & cons. What's the reason you hate the Blackberry so much?

I used to have one. It's the attitude that the Blackberry breeds. The sort of superior attitude that the users have, that they are not "playing with a toy" and all the other crap like that. I am seeing the same attitude with Palm Pre owners with the only thing they can brag about and be snotty about is multitasking. But if you ask them about battery life...

 

[touchyphone]

I loved this "Saved By The Bell" reference... took me about 3 seconds to register it. Huge props for working that joke into the middle of this derailed, battle royal of a thread

Hahaha, I was trying to bring some lite heartedness(sp?) to the discussion. To me the whole thread is insane IMO. But thanks for admiring the humor attempt. Viva la Zach Morris.

 

[Goldentree]

Just jailbreak your phone and install the status notifier mod. Bam. Problem solved. Then you have exactly one step to check if you have mail, just hit the home button.

Yeah, it's lame that Apple neglected to implement some pretty obvious features, and still refuses to do so. But jailbreaking solves most of these issues.

 

[Goldentree]

Never mind, should have read more carefully. Yeah I can see why an iPhone wouldn't be good for your company. Maybe Apple should make a "corporate" version or something.