Comparing Apples and Blackberrys (Part 1) – Engadget
Indeed, with the iPhone I have been able to pay bills using my bank’s regular Web site, something I’ve not been able to do on any other mobile phone. Here again, a QWERTY keyboard is useful mostly for entering URLs (which can admittedly be long, unforgiving and difficult to assist with … Read More »
July 02
Well the wait is over for me. I talked myself into buying an iPod last night after toying around with it for just a few minutes and my experience with it for 20 minutes today at the mall solidified my decision.
 Yes, the iPhone does do what many other phones do already. That’s clear but it’s the how that counts. The simplicity may be a drawback for some (or at least one I know) but like the BlackBerry OS it’s almost perfect. Just look at how the BB and the iPhone handle the filesystem: the Blackberry does let the user notice that a structure is there when digging through images (which is a must for finding images or files with the expansion card) and the iPhone doesn’t let you worry about such things, making you think it’s not there. The Treo is similar but the Windows mobile OS is heavily constructed around the computer OS mentality to find and finally display files or run programs through a tree hierarchical system. Maybe this has changed since the Pocket PC OS but from what I’ve noticed it hasn’t. Some say this is a drawback to the simplicity of iPhone, I disagree; the Treo made it clear you didn’t need to worry about anything but launching apps and the BlackBerry proved it. iPhone is just banking on it.
And no, Apple does not tell people what to do. They know what people want and they let you do it. Basically, it just works how you want it. If it doesn’t, so be it, because in my experience Apple doesn’t tend to make Swiss Army devices that have a great spec sheets without anything more to back it.
Personally, that’a why I like iPhone (and the Apple TV). I just want a device that works. If I can’t get some clumsy 3rd party app that makes my phone (Treo, PPC, WMD) freeze or hard reset I don’t want the phone. That’s why I believe they’re completely closing the phone to widgets (javascript and CSS) and the web, giving the OS a chance not to deconstruct and fail by bad programming.
iPhone doesn’t make you struggle, similar to the blackberry it’s a phone and an application device. It doesn’t try to be anything more through sacrificing usability.
Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of missing pieces to this puzzle. Many of which can and will be updated through software updates. And the pieces that need hardware updates will come along on the mystery train that Apple loves to use for product releases.
Those hardware functions that lack on revision one are the reasons that I’m giving up my plot to buy an iPhone. What are they? Well, Edge although very responsive to my tests this morning could be replaced with 3g but that’s not why I’m not getting one. And, the storage size limitation of 8 gigs isn’t practical for me but that’s not the reason either, since I would need to sync the iPhone every night to charge anyways. Is it the lack of stereo bluetooth on the first bluetooth iPod? No. Is it the price of that hardware? No, it’s actually worth it as a computing device. The simple small little detail that noone is mentioning is…
No video output.
And since I use my iPod Video daily to watch video at our lunch hour it’s not an iPod to me. And it can’t be to many others who use it to display all the iTunes purchased or other video on their TV. My guess, “why add it while we have the AppleTV?” which is just another shitty marketing cross-sell idea because they think it’s not that big of an issue.
It is a big deal to me. But who am I when millions of iPhones have been sold to very happy consumers.
So for now I’ll still be running with my BlackBerry curve that I still adore. It hasn’t failed me yet and although it may be “limiting” it does what I need it to do, except run full websites (Opera doesn’t count) like Google Reader or Google Talk or have the most highly resolution screen I’ve ever seen in a small device or have hand gestures or motion sensing or come smaller or have WIFI.
I really try not to fall into the hype of the iPhone but with all of it’s failings (no 3G or GPS support) its innovations are what’s going to make it standout. Who knows it could be a bust, yeah right.
Just look at the video after the break. It’s the browser that I want. I know a lot of tablet’s are out right now but non are doing it like this. And then there’s the UI.
I’m just glad their actually showing how awesome the UI is rather than doing some dumb “Hi I’m a BlackBerry” ad. Because showing off the UI should be their main point for the iPhone. The same goes for OS X but maybe they’re going to finally start advertising the UI in Leopard.
I only wish it was either $300 or just an iPod with WiFi. Who knows it could be $300 and sport a 60gb drive in just another year.
I’ve used a couple managed voicemail providers in the last few months. My first provider was callwave which sent me my voicemails as MP3 through email and just like any voicemail added the ability to call in and hear the voicemail from your phone in a queue. A month or two ago I started using Spinvox after a hearing it briefly on a forgotten tech podcast. It provides voicemail like any other service with a call in queue but where callwave sends you an audio file through email it converts the voicemail to text and emails me. The result is something really cool.
As a BlackBerry user Spinvox provides my voicemail to my phone immediately as text, allowing me to actually respond to any message much faster in a medium I prefer. Even though I love mobile phones I don’t love them to talk or call my voicemail I love them for the the other connections they provide, ie e-mail, text and internet.
Personally I hate voicemail, it’s awfully time consuming. It’s slow, you have to find the time to call in, listen to the voicemail and then you have to call the person for a reply. The message that I receive now is a very good conversion of the audio left in the queue sent through email that I can read whenever I want, in a setting that I want and I could forward it to the caller with a reply.
No matter who it is I just may not be in the setting where it’s appropriate to pick the phone up; I’d say 95% all my voicemails are the result of me not being able to pick the phone up or I simply don’t want to. Now I wait 2-3 minutes for the email to be sent, I read it either on my computer or the phone and I can call them back when I can without calling my voicemail first. The majority of the time it’s just to get an answer to a question so I just text or email them back with a response. It’s extremely productive for me and it helps me not do something I don’t like, being on the phone.
If anyone want’s a Spinvox account contact me. I’m going to e-mail the contact I know over at Spinvox later this week to sign-up a few friends and he’s told me that I can pass along a full list of people to get free 1-year accounts.
If there are any drawbacks to Spinvox it would be:
I might as well complete my planned post about Google apps since a conversation is about to start.
I’ve been in the transition of using Google Apps for the last few weeks for a trial review. Next week I’ll need to decide whether to keep my apps account or stick with the free apps that 
I’m so dependent on. Since the my reasoning for using Google apps is solely based on my use of e-mail and the guaranteed uptime and support I can’t say anything more about the additional features that I plan to never use (start page, talk, etc.).
Although I do use Google Calendar and having that provided uptime is a major plus.
The problems I have with moving to Google apps is the limitation of taking my already existing gmail account. It wasn’t a problem importing my years of email into the new account through gmails provided pop support nor is it a problem emailing in the new account as @gmail, the problem is being dependent on e-mail forwarding with my @gmail.com. I’m not positive but I’m imagining if gmail is not allowing me to login it’s not forwarding my email, then the uptime means nothing.
The only solution is to transition an email change which fully makes sense because I wont be dependent on a service long term. Of course I like having @gmail rather than dan@[anyone of my domains I decide] and not having to tell everyone to update my e-mail more than I distrust Google’s future. I’ll go on record that I still do not feel locked-in but things would be different if I wasn’t so dependent on @gmail.
So for $50 a year isn’t unreasonable to me it’s having to change my e-mail or changing my Talk account. I use Talk daily especially at work where I talk to developers continuesly and I refer to my chat history a lot. It being an excellent BlackBerry app also helps. And chat history is something I can’t forward to my new account so I would have to login to my gmail to retrieve it.
For my Calendar and docs I just exported and imported them without a problem. however I did have to setup the sharing again with Sara since we both manage each others cal.
Only if Google allowed a gmail upgrade service or the integration between a Google app and Google account because that’s really what’s making me hesitant. Its a shame for them since the money isn’t an issue. I can’t guarantee any uptime like that for $4 a month and e-mail is too critical to grovel at. My issues are e-mail forwarding dependency (or having to chang my e-mail address) and not having the gmail history integration for Talk.
Looks like the Pearl is coming to Cingular soon. I can’t wait and I’ve posted about it before but it’s going to solve so many lingering issues with my current blackberry. Number one on the list is a camera, number two media playback. I can’t say the size is a big factor but it is pretty small. It’s also going to work out well since Sara’s phone can be upgraded and eBay love’s my used stuff.
Google really makes some wonderful mobile apps. First with Google maps mobile then GTalk and nowGMail Mobile. I tested it out a little bit, the UI is great and it’s really easy on the eyes. I doubt I’ll use it on my blackberry since I already have my gmail pushed to my phone but it’s nice to have … Read More »
November 02
I’m so sold on the Blackberry platform and after demoing the BlackBerry Pearl here at Dreamforce and if you use your phone like I do the Pearl is by far the best phone out right now. Too bad I just bought the 7130c but the leap of differences and size is so drastic I have to get it.
And the best news, Cingular is supposedly releasing it in the “next few weeks” and if not definitely before Thanksgiving.
I just commented on how I calendar over at alexking.org: Blog > Calendaring.
So I *think* I have the answer for you. Let me explain what I work with first. I have an iMac at home, a macbook pro for work and travel, and a blackberry.
The only solution I’ve found is Google Calendar, iCal and PocketMac but it might not … Read More »
August 10
My BlackBerry 7130c arrived today and my first impressions are that it’s awesome. When would I buy something that wasn’t? The first thing I had to do was call cingular to get the business data connection rather then the medianet unlimited plan since it’s not compatible for some reason. It wasn’t such a problem this morning but I called tonight to change the service into a cheaper plan and I was on the phone for 30 minutes, it was the most frustrating call I’ve been on for some time.
The first 5 apps that I installed were Google Maps, Google Talk, Opera Mini, BB Messenger and BB 411. Google Maps is pretty cool, I’ve used it and Opera mini before on my other phones so they’re not new to me. BB Messenger although not supported by cingular works fine and is so useful at work since T and B have them too. BB 411 is a “great” info app and I haven’t used it much so I can’t say too much.
Google Talk on the blackberry is a must. I love my blackberry more then any other phone just because of this app, it’s so great. It doesn’t do much more then do IM but it integrates with other parts of the phone which is pretty cool. The reason I like it so much is because the people I really want to talk to or the people I don’t mind talking use gtalk (I’m not saying that I don’t want to talk to you who don’t use gtalk, I’m just saying my AIM is so cluttered with people I rather not be “available” or even “away”). So gtalk is awesome, if you don’t use it you should (Jared: it uses jabber so you can use gaim).
As for the OS it’s extremely stable and I’ve never seen this one nor my old work BB crash, ever.
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