Lots of Amateur-ish Questions

[Gawain]

Hello gang, a die-hard BlackBerry user here, who has been on the lookout for trying the competition for a while now. Been to Android, not my cup of tea. Love webOS, but will have to wait and see what HP has up its sleeve for later. WP7 will be appearing on VZW soon, and I'll certainly try that out whenever...

...but, I've been avoiding the iPhone because "I already know that stuff", but the more I've been looking into it, I realize that there's more than meets the eye (of course).

As BB user, some of the niceties are granular in nature, like sound profiles. I was playing around with an iP4 and really only saw that notifications can be either "ON" or "OFF" and use a vibrate switch. But, if I turn on my alarm clock is there no way to turn off all notifications except for say the phone ringer and the alarm?

Bluetooth...I use VZ Navigator. It's worth the money to me, and what's kind of neat on my BB is that with my Jawbone on, the device will provide its turn-by-turn discretely into my ear instead of through the speaker. I've tried to do this with Android and webOS, but to no avail. I was curious if anyone here has been able to do that with their iPhone 4?

The "grid" of applications and folders is the only show in town right? Or, are there themes which can provide a calendar view or something like that (users of a "Today" theme from the BB arena would understand).

Finally, I'm poking around eBay and whatnot to see what the market is like for iPhones (indeed, it's red-hot), and I noticed a lot of them being listed with "Bad ESNs" and still in demand. My question is this: How does an ESN go bad if the device isn't stolen? If you break a contract you pay an ETF and it should be clear right? I can see it being blocked if the ETF wasn't paid. Or (more likely), there is something about the iPhone ecosystem that I don't know...so that's why I'm asking.

Thanks in advance...I hate being a "noob" when I'm not, but...I am...see?

 

[korp#IM]

Hello gang, a die-hard BlackBerry user here, who has been on the lookout for trying the competition for a while now. Been to Android, not my cup of tea. Love webOS, but will have to wait and see what HP has up its sleeve for later. WP7 will be appearing on VZW soon, and I'll certainly try that out whenever...

...but, I've been avoiding the iPhone because "I already know that stuff", but the more I've been looking into it, I realize that there's more than meets the eye (of course).

As BB user, some of the niceties are granular in nature, like sound profiles. I was playing around with an iP4 and really only saw that notifications can be either "ON" or "OFF" and use a vibrate switch. But, if I turn on my alarm clock is there no way to turn off all notifications except for say the phone ringer and the alarm?

Bluetooth...I use VZ Navigator. It's worth the money to me, and what's kind of neat on my BB is that with my Jawbone on, the device will provide its turn-by-turn discretely into my ear instead of through the speaker. I've tried to do this with Android and webOS, but to no avail. I was curious if anyone here has been able to do that with their iPhone 4?

The "grid" of applications and folders is the only show in town right? Or, are there themes which can provide a calendar view or something like that (users of a "Today" theme from the BB arena would understand).

Finally, I'm poking around eBay and whatnot to see what the market is like for iPhones (indeed, it's red-hot), and I noticed a lot of them being listed with "Bad ESNs" and still in demand. My question is this: How does an ESN go bad if the device isn't stolen? If you break a contract you pay an ETF and it should be clear right? I can see it being blocked if the ETF wasn't paid. Or (more likely), there is something about the iPhone ecosystem that I don't know...so that's why I'm asking.

Thanks in advance...I hate being a "noob" when I'm not, but...I am...see?

There might be an app for profiles ... more than likely if you are jailbroken.

I could do Nav through my jawbone on my Droid and haven't tried on my iPhone but I can do music so I would assume it does it.

If the ESN is reported stolen or something along that nature sometimes people will buy the phones and flash them to another service.

 

[Gawain]

Thanks for that info.

For jail-broken devices, any issues to be cautious of? If iOS updates come out and you upgrade the device, I'm assuming that "locks" it again correct? However if the device is jailbroken, is that more simply an enable to sideload applications from somewhere other than the App Store?

 

[kch50428]

Thanks for that info.

For jail-broken devices, any issues to be cautious of? If iOS updates come out and you upgrade the device, I'm assuming that "locks" it again correct? However if the device is jailbroken, is that more simply an enable to sideload applications from somewhere other than the App Store?

If you scroll down to the jailbreak forums you'll find all you need to know and then some... nothing to be really cautions of - updates are straightforward.... wait to update until the jailbreak tools catch up... then, back-up the jailbroken apps & state of the device... update the iOS, apply the new jailbreak tool, and restore the jailbroken stuff and you should be good to go.

 

[lv1]

I was a Storm user (before that a Pearl) and switched to the IPhone. I like the IPhone much better overall. The VZ navigator is slightly different on the IPhone but does work with Bluetooth headsets. I use the Plantronics Pro and hear the sound through the earpiece. Navigator is $4.95/Month on the IPhone.

 

[shimojunk]

Hi Gawain welcome to the forum. I was a big advocate of BB's a few years ago when RIM's OS and design was somewhat keeping up with the Jones, but unfortunately blunder after blunder (Storm 1, 2, Playbook), and spending too many resources developing the QNX and Playbook instead of beefing up their smartphone lineup, RIM has pretty much sealed their coffin shut and will probably be bought out in a few years (just a hunch).

Anyways, BB does have the advantage when it comes to notifications. iPhone natively is horrible in terms of notifications and the best option to get similar sound profiles as BB is to jailbreak your phone and get MYPROFILES. Basically you create different sound profiles (Sleep, Work, Home, Car) etc and you can switch quickly between profiles. You can set rules (Work profile between 9-5PM, Sleep from 10-7AM , etc) so it switches automatically, although it doesn't always switch correctly.

I'm not aware of any themes like BB's nor are there any widgets in iOS. However you can get a jailbroken app called LockInfo that will display certain information from your lock screen.

Like I said, BB rules in terms of notifications. iPhone is a hit or a miss (lots of misses). Good luck on your purchase.

 

[Gawain]

Hi Gawain welcome to the forum. I was a big advocate of BB's a few years ago when RIM's OS and design was somewhat keeping up with the Jones, but unfortunately blunder after blunder (Storm 1, 2, Playbook), and spending too many resources developing the QNX and Playbook instead of beefing up their smartphone lineup, RIM has pretty much sealed their coffin shut and will probably be bought out in a few years (just a hunch).

Anyways, BB does have the advantage when it comes to notifications. iPhone natively is horrible in terms of notifications and the best option to get similar sound profiles as BB is to jailbreak your phone and get MYPROFILES. Basically you create different sound profiles (Sleep, Work, Home, Car) etc and you can switch quickly between profiles. You can set rules (Work profile between 9-5PM, Sleep from 10-7AM , etc) so it switches automatically, although it doesn't always switch correctly.

I'm not aware of any themes like BB's nor are there any widgets in iOS. However you can get a jailbroken app called LockInfo that will display certain information from your lock screen.

Like I said, BB rules in terms of notifications. iPhone is a hit or a miss (lots of misses). Good luck on your purchase.

Thanks. That's why I've been so weary about committing with an iPhone. The price for the hardware is such a premium if I opt to do it without a contract. It's a lot easier to acquire some of the other devices that are in less demand.

So, notifications from email and other apps is an inconsistent performer in your experience?

 

[anon4705295]

I came from the Blackberry Tour and I was huuuge into theming, especially themes with Today. You're pretty much stuck with the grid, but if you're jailbroken you can tweak that to your liking. You can have five icons across the screen/on the dock, for example. GridLock lets you put the icons wherever you want on the screen (the iPhone defaults to sending them to the top left, and then filling spaces from left to right after that). Also, there definitely are widgets for iOS... again, you have to be JB, but it's totally worth it. You can have widgets a la Android, or ones completely unique to iOS. LockInfo lets you display calendar events on your lockscreen and from a pull-down menu, but there also are widgets to do that as well.

Trust me, a jailbroken iPhone is THE BEST on the market. I use MyProfiles as well, and I just change it manually like I did on my BB (I don't have it set to do it on its own, I never trust things like that) and it has never failed me. Notified Pro lets you have your notifications pop up in the status bar at the top... never interfering with what you're doing. Popup blocker nukes the iPhone's annoying popups, so the notifications are just as good as on Android and BB. I really missed the unified notifications inbox from BB, but Notified Pro is the same thing but better. No matter the app, you get a notification listed there, you tap it and it takes you to the app. It's great.

So, TL;DR is that everything I could do on my blackberry I can do on my jailbroken iPhone... and it does it way, wayyyy better.

 

[Gawain]

Well cool. I'm in the market for one. I'm hoping I'll find the right opportunity to pick one up off contract with a clean ESN and join the fray. I'm still amazed at how vibrant the "used" iPhone market is. Thanks all.

 

[Gawain]

Sweet...I found one at a super good price, and it's already jailbroken. Should have it in a day or two. Just in time too...my poor BB is simply overwhelmed by OS6...hope it's worth it. ;-)

 

[Arelunde]

I spent time with BlackBerries (Pearl, Tour, Storm1&2), then Android (DroidX). Now iPhone 4. From this perspective, the Android (or maybe I should say the X, since that's my only experience) is as customizable stock as the iPhone is with jailbreak. However, I have to add that a jailbroken iPhone has some pretty darn awesome capabilities. I didn't deal in hacked Android, so can't really run an accurate comparison. Each has strengths and weaknesses. Each is user friendly out of the box. Depends on his involved you want to get. Great fun, IMO.