I’ve been a very happy blackberry user for a number of years now and would highly recommend it to anyone who spends a larger portion of their day away from their desk where they can’t be reached by telephone or email. I’m not one of these guys that feeds into the immediate response delirium that has forced so many people to be available 24/7, but I do see the importance of timely responses. And thus, as I don’t get to spend much time at my desk, I carry a blackberry.
And then last Christmas I bought my wife an iPhone. We had talked in the past about how much she hates blackberries (She’s a grade 1 teacher), but one day at the mall we stopped and looked at the iPhone and she said “I think I could get used to something like this”. So I stored that chunk of wisdom in the back of my brain for a couple of months and bought her a shiny new iPhone for Christmas.
Now she can’t understand how she lived with out it. She has all her school meetings, our kids appointments and everything else she used to forget about until the last minute, stored on her iPhone. She’s extremely organized with it now. But the part she likes the most is the fun silly games she can download to pass the time while waiting at the dentist or doctors office. A feature that, until the recent App World launch, was ackward and often pricey on a blackberry.
I have spent some time playing with all sorts of iPhone apps and I have to say, I’ve started to consider switching. Not because my blackberry doesn’t do what I need it to do, but because that’s all it really does do. Don’t get me wrong, App world has opened the door to a slew of new programs and games, but Apple has rounded second base in the app distribution game (over 25,000 apps and 1 billion downloads), while blackberry chose to bunt and is desperately trying to make it to first base.
So what is stopping me from making the switch? There are a couple of things that bother me about the current iPhone (OS 2.?) that are holding me back. The first would be battery life. Maybe it’s how my wife uses it, but the idea of not getting a full days use from a single charge is disheartening. Second would be the inability to have TSR like apps running in the background. I have a few blackberry apps that run in the background that I’m not ready to give up (ReQall, Gtalk, Twitter). Thirdly would be keyboard and I don’t mean the lack of one on the iPhone. Personally I don’t mind the UI keyboard on the iPhone, but I do wish some times it would go landscape. After a few years of being a berry user, I’m all thumbs when it comes to typing (yes the punn was intended). Lastly would be the speakers. The other night we were looking at movie previews on our respective smart devices and the speaker on my blackberry blew the iPhone out of the water. Considering the iPhone is also a multimedia device, I would expect the speaker to be better. I guess that is why the iPhone comes with such nice headphones.
So what are your thoughts? what do you use, are you happy with it and would you switch?