The BlackBerry TourGuide

I avoided the iPhone for a long time. In part out of principle (I’m not one to join the crowd), and AT&T crap network; but also because when I did try them in stores I just wasn’t that impressed.

The original iPhone felt solid but also underpowered. The 3G felt cheap to me compared to the original iPhone, this may have been the plastic back replacing the metal one; and it still felt slow to me compared to my BlackBerries. Both versions I had issues with the touch screen not working the way I wanted. It also felt ridiculous to me to spend extra money for a 3G phone (and more expensive data plan) while living in an area where AT&T did not have 3G (and still does not) and no solid ETA.

Last summer a few days after the 3G S launched I did as I had before and spent a few minutes playing with the new display model in the AT&T kiosk in the mall. The phone was noticeably faster than it’s predecessors (and the Storm). The it felt solid again (though I still missed the shiny back); and I finally got the touch screen to work for me. I still had issues with typing (offset to some degree by improved auto-correction).

What made me walk away (other than not having the funds at the time) was the way the AT&T rep casually bashed the Storm (“I hear it had problems”). I spent a few minutes “educating” her about the merits of the Storm running an uo to date OS, and how the iPhone was STILL (3 generations in) inferior to BlackBerries (i.e. lack of multitasking, crappy keyboard, etc.).

After reading some more about it I decided to add an iPhone 3GS to my tech arsenal. I knew I could never use it as an everyday device but it did have some compelling features and did work slick. So a couple weeks later I went back to the same kiosk, talked to another rep and bought myself a shiny 32GB 3G S (in white if you are wondering, they ran out of black).

For a while I was captivated by the thing and used it often. I have to admit that the phone has a nice presentation, and the app variety is completely awesome and they are all at your finter tips reado to download.  To date I’ve downloaded something like 600 apps (most of which are no longer on the device), free and low cost.Many of them are great, as long as you can get used to the idea of only doing one thing at a time and not always having your place saved when you exit an app to do something else. While the newer BlackBerry browsers have improved a lot over the last couple years, mobile Safari completely brows them away, along with third party browsers like Opera Mini and Bolt.

For a brief time I used the iPhone 3G S even more than my BlackBerries, but as time went on the limitations of the device got more and more frustrating. The most important to me are:

1. Multitasking. A smart phone MUST be able to run multiple apps at the same time and in the background — PERIOD — and the iPhone simply can not do this. Push notifications are not the same, not nearly as good not only because they are not uniformly implemented yet, but also because apps time extra time to reopen and not all apps save your place.
2. Notifications: Every single notification is a pop-up so if you get 3 emails in rapid succession while playing a game or surfing the web you get one for each one which must be dismissed. If you get a notification you DO want to do something with you loose your place in the app you are currently running. This whole system needs an overhaul.
3. Flick Scrolling — Don’t get me wrong the idea of being able to do this while reading a document or web page, your contacts, or your music or app collection is cool when you first try it. but after a while it gets really old and tiresome when you realize that this is the ONLY way to do this. It It is especially tiresome when you have a lot to scroll through.  I like the BlackBerry way of being abet to hit a key (say a G) and jump ahead to contacts or songs starting with a G. I like being able to hit T for Top an B for bottom to skip to the top or bottom of a web page, email, or other document.
4. Lack of Folders — I like being able to organize my apps into folders. Yes, you can organize them on various screens but that gets cumbersome when you get too many apps and you are limited to 160 app icons on your springboard (Apples name for the iPhone UI) I have 32GB of space (really 29GB) but if I install more than 160 apps they don’t show up in the UI — FAIL!. (Note: I am well awarer that you can get round this by jail-breaking, but some other time I will explain why I don’t believe in doing that.)
5. AT&T — As stated above I like in an area of the country where AT&T’s 3G service is not available. AT&T fanboys tell you that their EDGE is comparable in speed to EVDO; and it is, at least on paper; but I can tell you from experience this is most certainly NOT the case in real world conditions. The web and application downloads are noticeably slower than my Storm or Tour. To add insult to injury AT&T’s barely works in my bedroom. Now I live near the center of one of the largest cities in Minnesota and outside or in the front room of my house I get great reception on both my VZW and AT&T phones, but im my bedroom in order to use the internet on my iPhone 3G S I have to go through my Verizon Wireless MiFI! There allso sooms to be something about the phone where the signal strenght meter has little or nothing to do with how strong the signal really is. Additionally every time I have asked about 3G cervice here I get “it’s comong” and the last I heard it was coming by thanksgiving or the end of the year at the latest, but both dates are long past and still no 3G icon on my iPhone. FAIL!

After 6 months I can safely say I’m over the iPhone now and only use it for the browser and occasionally playing Solitaire or Battleship on my breaks at work. Baring some major improvements (i.e. true multitasking that does not slow the phone to crawl) I can’t see myself getting the next generation this summer — even if it IS on Verizon

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