Monday, June 09, 2008

iPhone 3G

It was fun to watch the WWDC keynote today on MacRumors. It was even more fun to watch things on summize as Twitter held up admirably during the keynote. I was impressed with the new iPhone. I really like the white version, as it seems like a nod to the original iPod to me (an owner of the original.) It made me think, should I get rid of my Blackberry 8830 and switch to the iPhone?

iPhone 3G
  • The screen on the iPhone is awesome. The Blackberry's is nice, but it's not really close.
  • Much better for listening to music. Blackberry is functional for this, but hardly elegant.
  • Web browsing is much better on the iPhone, especiall now that it has a 3G network. The Blackberry browser is good, and Opera works great, but mobile Safari is very nice.
  • The iPhone has a camera. I miss having a camera, even if the iPhone's is crummy (as are most phone cameras.)
  • The iPhone has wi-fi. I often use my Blackberry's network access in places that have free wi-fi.

Blackberry 8830
  • I have tried the iPhone keyboard, and greatly prefer my Blackberry's keyboard. This one is not even close.
  • The GMail app for the Blackberry is excellent. On the iPhone you can use the GMail as IMAP, but that is not as good, not even close.
  • Of course the Blackberry receives my email and calendar from my work's Exchange servers. This is the main appeal of Blackberry for many. If I had an iPhone, I think I would have to run a client from my desktop computer at work. Co-workers have told me that this is a problem because our desktop computers run the 64-bit version of Windows 2003, and a lot of Apple's software has issues with this.
  • Google Maps is also very nice on the Blackberry, even if Verizon screws us over and doesn't let it access the device's GPS. Then again I have used GPS on phones (both mine and my wife's) and it is useful, but definitely not a replacement car GPS. Anyways, Google Maps on the Blackberry seems a lot better than accessing the web application on the iPhone.
Hmm, it doesn't seem like a slam dunk either way. It seems like the calendar/email push advantage may be negated, depending on the OS issues. If Google made iPhone apps, especially for GMail, it would almost clinch it for me. I've used GMail as IMAP provider with Mail.app and did not like it very much. Blackberry GMail is a killer app for me. Given Google's investment in Android, it seems unlikely that they will create a similar app for the iPhone... I think I will stick with my Blackberry.

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