[anon(125664)]

Im not trying to start a flame war. if I did, I'd post this on tipb. These are MY experiences, and MY opinions.


Verdict: iPhone=FAIL.

Ok, to be fair, the iPhone is very cool. And with the right case, its dead sexy. I actually think its rather boring naked. The screen is nice, the browser is cool, but missing one feature. Flash. Yeah, I know, the BBs dont have flash right now either, but adobe is working on it for most phones. As the rules stand, Apple will never allow flash. Maybe that will change, but only Steve knows.

Anyway, browsing, very cool... when you have 3G coverage. 3G on the iPhone is SO SPOTTY. I know AT&T aint the best, but I could barely use the iPhone.

Facebook on the iP was pretty cool, but I really don't think it was that much better then v1.7 for BB. Same goes for Google Maps v3.2 for BB. Notice I'm being specific with the versions. The iP DESTROYS previous versions of both apps, but they are fairly comparable with the newest version.

When I first got the iP, I ran the stock 3.1.2 firmware. Not a pleasent experience. No backgrounding apps. RIDICULOUS. So whe im listening to Pandora, and then want to read a text or mail, I have to exit Pandora, and stop the music. Seriously? In 2009?? Really? Sad. So I jailbroke it. It got much better from there. Now I had backgrounding apps. Kinda stupid that I have to hack my phone to make it useable. But whatever. I also got a UNIX shell, SSH, etc on my phone. Ok. Now this is pretty AWESOME.

Moving on, I tried Tap Tap Revenge/Revolution and Rockband. OMFG!!! SOOOOO AWESOME!!!!

SMS is way better than BB's SMS, but BBM KILLS iP SMS. And OS v5 will have threaded SMS.

Camera is good. But no flash. Huh???

This is where the iPhone completely fails me. The battery was dead by 2PM. Seriously, wtf. Yeah, i was doing some browsing, and playing some games. I know it drains the battery, but gimme a break. A dead battery in less than 5 hours? LOSE!! So I put in my backup battery. OH WAIT, no I can't. No replaceable batteries. WTF. Dont get on me about having all the lights on... WiFi off, BT off, Brightness at about 25%, 1 minute time out, mail set to manual, 3G on. Still 5 hours. And I probably should have turned off 3G also since coverage was so spotty. But then, what is the point of having an iPhone "3G"S?

Lastly, push notifications on the iPhone are a joke. You cant do push email on more that 1 email account (correct me if I am wrong) and even then it will KILL your battery. FB doesnt push either. All "pull".

Anyway, iPhone is VERY cool. So cool, that I'm putting an iPod Touch on my xmas list, but I want a phone that works. For more than 5-8 hours.

So BlackBerry, I'm comin back. Bold 9700, care to make an early appearance?

[Entertainment72]

Weaksauce but in the end the iPhone wasn't for you. I have been to Oak Park and have received perfect 3G service throughout of which makes me question your rant to begin with. You make it worse by stating you are not trying to start a flame war when it's apparent to even concrete you are.

iPhone is not for everyone but neither is BB's ancient OS, to each his own.

[dknyberry]

It's definitely not for everyone, as there are certain things the BB does better than the iPhone (push email), while the iPhone does other things better (multimedia and browser/apps). As for your complaints- yes, the battery on my iPhone didn't last as long as my Blackberry, but partly that's because I use the iPhone much more as I browse the internet or look at Youtube during the day. I hated using the browser on my Blackberry, and it couldn't even render pages right because it always hiccuped when trying to run scripts. It actually is amusing to me reading about how everyone using a BB is trying to load the latest version of Opera Mini or Bolt because the standard browser BB issues on the phone sucks so much. The Safari browser on the iPhone is really terrific, and while some people may say a good browser is not important to them, well, you do need a browser to get onto this site, no?!.. and I don't mean the Wap version of this site. LOL.

You can, btw, get both Yahoo and Gmail as push now on the iPhone, or get everything push if you sign up with MobileMe (and pay their subscription). 3G service is very good in my area (NY/NJ), and I usually get at least 9 hours of use out of my phone and up to 12 if I use it more sparingly throughout the day. A key to getting more battery life, I've found, is to just put it in sleep mode when you're not using it (you still will get phonecalls and email alerts when in sleep mode).

As for the complaint of not having a camera flash, honestly, my iPhone takes better pictures without the flash than my Blackberry took with a flash. The flash wasn't even strong enough to make a difference in the picture anyway, so I don't see what's the big deal.

The other thing I really like about the iPhone is the design/form factor. Sorry, but IMHO, the BB, with all those keys/buttons make it look like nerdy pocket calculator device that engineers use (nothing against engineers ). No one really looks at a Bold and says, "ooh ahh, a Bold!", but the iPhone and its slick user interface, even after all these years being out, still looks cool. Also, I personally think the whole trackball thing is outdated too, and the iPhone's touch screen features are great.

For me, there simply is not one Blackberry out there currently that would make me want to revert back, and I've owned 4 Blackberries (and still am forced to carry the Curve 8900 by my firm, for work). IMO, BB's are great for email/messaging, but not much else. In fact, all day, the only time I'd really want to pick up my Blackberry is when I saw that little red LED light up, so that I could check for a new message, but once that was over, I'd put the thing back down because there was nothing else I wanted to do on that phone.

[anon(125664)]

Um, yeah, in the end, that's exactly my point. The iPhone wasn't for me. You might wanna consider reading the second sentance of my original post again.

As far as questioning the 3G coverage that I had to endure, I think the point of a mobile phone is to, well, be mobile. I didn't stay at home all weekend. I lived my life as normal, running errands, in various parts of the city and suburbs. Reception was less than stellar.

I didn't say that BBs are perfect. In fact, I pointed out a couple areas where the iPhone is better, which is by no means a comprehensive list.

[dknyberry]

Um, yeah, in the end, that's exactly my point. The iPhone wasn't for me. You might wanna consider reading the second sentance of my original post again.

As far as questioning the 3G coverage that I had to endure, I think the point of a mobile phone is to, well, be mobile. I didn't stay at home all weekend. I lived my life as normal, running errands, in various parts of the city and suburbs. Reception was less than stellar.

I didn't say that BBs are perfect. In fact, I pointed out a couple areas where the iPhone is better, which is by no means a comprehensive list.

If you happen to be in an area where there is spotty 3G coverage, doesn't the phone revert to EDGE? That's what my iPhone does, to at least provide you with data service. And EDGE is still what your Curve gives you right, so you're no worse off with the iPhone because at worst, it still gives you the same kind of service the Curve did data-wise?...or does that have 3G coverage now too?...I don't know, as I don't keep up with that.

Now I'm not saying iPhones are perfect either. IMO, there are things Blackberry do much better than iPhone (ie. email push, multi-tasking, customization, etc.), just that it does it in a package that is not so slick.

[flyawaymike]

disclosure of neutrality here - I own an iPhone with AT&T and a Blackberry with Sprint....

The screen is nice, the browser is cool

more just my opinion - but the iPhone has the most superior browser on a phone. no need to see mobile-friendly websites with it, and don't need to scroll side to side to read things that aren't mobile friendly like on a BB.

Flash. Yeah, I know, the BBs dont have flash right now either, but adobe is working on it for most phones.

this is rather moot, as even the little single-LED flashes found on some BBs and other phones are pretty weak. You cannot see anything in pitch black still, and it only helps in low-light situations at best. [/quote]

Anyway, browsing, very cool... when you have 3G coverage. 3G on the iPhone is SO SPOTTY. I know AT&T aint the best, but I could barely use the iPhone.

this is purely the provider, not the phone. AT&T doesn't have anywhere near the 3G coverage that Sprint and Verizon has - it's not even a contest even.

Facebook on the iP was pretty cool, but I really don't think it was that much better then v1.7 for BB

The FB app is actually *much* better on the iPhone, with the newly released version. It supports a lot more things that neither the mobile site or BB application can do.

SMS is way better than BB's SMS, but BBM KILLS iP SMS. And OS v5 will have threaded SMS.

definitely better SMS under the iPhone, but the comparison to the BBM is apples and oranges (or apples and blackberries? hehe)
Comparing the AIM, Google Talk, etc. versions on the iPhone/BB would be more true, but SMS and BBM (esp version 5), are very different animals.

Camera is good. But no flash. Huh???

again, see previous statement on that. it would be nice to see on the next version in July, though.

This is where the iPhone completely fails me. The battery was dead by 2PM....So I put in my backup battery. OH WAIT, no I can't. No replaceable batteries. WTF.

potentially a bad battery on the phone? i've used mine pretty extensively at times, but it doesn't die that quickly with me. Also, the slim form-factor that it has, wouldn't be as good if you had to have a battery compartment, and I can honestly say I've never had to use a secondary battery/charger station on a cell phone since way back in 99 or 2000 with a StarTAC/Timeport, it's just too much of a pain to keep all that crap... just plug it in at your desk... when you get in the car and go... etc, otherwise it's only on battery when you're not near those things.

You cant do push email on more that 1 email account (correct me if I am wrong) and even then it will KILL your battery.

you can have push on more than one account, it just has to support it. (i.e. Yahoo, Mobile Me, Exchange, etc.) otherwise you're limited to automatic polling or when you open the mail application, or switch to a mailbox folder.

[scorpiodsu]

Blackberries are very flawed as well. At least be objectionable. Don't say you're not trying to start a flame war and then just go on ranting.

1. Facebook on iPhone kills facebook on Blackberry. Easily.
2. Everyone has know for 2 years that iPhone does not run 3rd party apps in the background. So you should have expected that. But then again, the iPhone runs smooth all day and if it had a removable battery, you wouldn't have to pull it out every so often.
3. First you say iPhone SMS kills BB SMS but then BBM kills SMS!? That doesn't even make sense. BBM is only good if a bunch of your friends have a blackberry. But if they don't it's almost useless. Hard to compare 2 things that serve different purposes.
4. Not sure if you had the 3GS but my battery lasts all day with listening to music, RSS, Facebook, texting and emails throughout.

So at the end of the day, the iPhone wasn't for you. But if we wanted to talk about why blackberries fail nowadays, that list would be pretty long. here's a couple.

Web browsing = Fail
Media Player = Fail
App Memory = Fail
Battery Pulls = Frustration
HTML Email = A joke
Texting = Not threaded = Fail

Best thing about Blackberry is email..... but

Viewing all email folders on account = Fail
Pulling up old emails before you even had that account on the phone = Nope

So at the end as it stand today iPhone > Blackberry..... for now.

[anon(125664)]

@dknyberry
yeah, the curves are still just edge, and yeah, the majority of the time the iPhone would just flip to edge. Made everything run slower then sh**, but it would work. Be there were a few time when the iP would just drop off the grid (or google maps didn't feel like returning data) when my wife's Curve worked. Now, I admit she only had 1 or 2 bars, but hers did work.

I'm torn with the appearance issue too. Personally, as I mentioned, I don't care for a naked iPhone. I bought an orange iFrogz Luxe case, and thought it looked bad *** though. I prefer typing on physical keys, but I got quickly used to typing on the touchscreen. I greatly preferred landscape though. Appearance vs physical keyboard is kind of a draw for me, dunno.

@flyawaymike
I completely agree about the browser. It's pretty pimpin on the iPhone. I hope that RIM does something good with that Torch browser (or whatever that webkit thing is).

This first time I mentioned flash, I was referring to Adobe Flash plug-in for the Safari (or any for that matter) browser. The second time, I meant camera flash. Believe it or not, I find a camera flash useful on my phone. For one, its a much better flashlight than any app I've have come across so far. I turn on the Video Recorder app and enable it there. If anyone knows where to get a dedicated app that does exactly that, PLEASE let me know.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I understood that you are limited to one push connection because of the limitiations of the ActiveSync protocol.

I use my BB quite extensively, and I rarely HAVE to plug it in just to get through the day.

@scorpiodsu
I am fortunate that most of the people that I do chat with do use BBM. So while its not apples to apples for many people, it sorta is for MY situation. But yes, I do agree that for most others, it probably isn't as useful.

Personally, I prefer FB on my BB. It's probably just that notifications get pushed. But I also actually like v1.7. Pervious versions sucked big time.


Listen, I can list a bunch of things that BBs suck at too, cuz I agree with your whole list. At the end of the day, the iPhone is not my cup of tea for a phone, but I think its great for more media centric functions. That's why I wanna get the iTouch.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[tghockey07]

disclosure of neutrality here - I own an iPhone with AT&T and a Blackberry with Sprint....



more just my opinion - but the iPhone has the most superior browser on a phone. no need to see mobile-friendly websites with it, and don't need to scroll side to side to read things that aren't mobile friendly like on a BB.



this is rather moot, as even the little single-LED flashes found on some BBs and other phones are pretty weak. You cannot see anything in pitch black still, and it only helps in low-light situations at best.

this is purely the provider, not the phone. AT&T doesn't have anywhere near the 3G coverage that Sprint and Verizon has - it's not even a contest even.


The FB app is actually *much* better on the iPhone, with the newly released version. It supports a lot more things that neither the mobile site or BB application can do.



definitely better SMS under the iPhone, but the comparison to the BBM is apples and oranges (or apples and blackberries? hehe)
Comparing the AIM, Google Talk, etc. versions on the iPhone/BB would be more true, but SMS and BBM (esp version 5), are very different animals.


again, see previous statement on that. it would be nice to see on the next version in July, though.



potentially a bad battery on the phone? i've used mine pretty extensively at times, but it doesn't die that quickly with me. Also, the slim form-factor that it has, wouldn't be as good if you had to have a battery compartment, and I can honestly say I've never had to use a secondary battery/charger station on a cell phone since way back in 99 or 2000 with a StarTAC/Timeport, it's just too much of a pain to keep all that crap... just plug it in at your desk... when you get in the car and go... etc, otherwise it's only on battery when you're not near those things.



you can have push on more than one account, it just has to support it. (i.e. Yahoo, Mobile Me, Exchange, etc.) otherwise you're limited to automatic polling or when you open the mail application, or switch to a mailbox folder.[/QUOTE]

BB's having a weak flash? Hello? Have you seen the storms? I could practically use it as the headlights on my car its that bright.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[flyawaymike]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I understood that you are limited to one push connection because of the limitiations of the ActiveSync protocol.

not sure if that is true or not, or something resolved in the 3.x update, but I do have multiple push accounts and it allows me to have them all checked.

I use my BB quite extensively, and I rarely HAVE to plug it in just to get through the day.

same here, I just do it whenever anyhow, to keep the battery always full, never know when I may be away from a charger overnight or longer. There is also a considerable difference in data usage of the iPhone versus the Blackberry too, so that should be noted as to a cause for shorter battery life.

[anon(125664)]

There is also a considerable difference in data usage of the iPhone versus the Blackberry too, so that should be noted as to a cause for shorter battery life.

Understood, but the fact remains that the iPhone sucks battery like a $5 hooker.

[flyawaymike]

Understood, but the fact remains that the iPhone sucks battery like a $5 hooker.

heh.

well that's my point though, the BB would have less battery life too if it were loading full-blown web pages, rendering all the graphics in them, using more memory to keep them loaded (and again rendering changes from multitouch/accelerometer movements), and utilizing more bandwidth across that 3G connection doing it all. ...and that's just web browsing.

also, i'm not sure off-hand what the battery's specs are on both the iphone/BB... are they equal or does one have more capacity? just another factor in the equation..

[Hankster]

Been a four year BB user and tried out the iPhone 3GS six months ago. Loved it and used it for three months then could not stand the poor battery life. I went back to BB with the Tour and after just three short weeks I RAN BACK to the iPhone 3GS. Good thing I kept it.

The biggest thing for me was the battery, but overall if you realize how much power you're wasting it lasts all day. I went from going down to 40% by mid afternoon to going down to 40% by 8-9pm by: 1)Lowering the brightness during the day. 2)Changing push email to one hour. 3)No Wi-Fi or Bluetooth unless I'm using it.

Just these small things added six hours of use for me. Now, I can go through most of the day and be fine. AND, personally I started HATING the multi-tasking on the BB because I'd have to keep going back and turning every freaking app off...REALLY ANNOYING! After four years I now prefer the OS and UI of iPhone over any BB including the Storm2 which I've played with.

You also have to take into account, in terms of battery life, the more the phone does the more the battery will drain. Right now the iPhone does waaay more than any BlackBerry in terms of OS, browser, apps, video, etc.

[iitaalliiaann1]

Ok, I'm gonna get in the mix. Before anyone flames me, these are just my opinions and I am not in any way nocking a device just to get someone's goat. I have owned a blackberry for 4 years now. I still have a 8350i Nextel for work. I will not compare anything with this device because Nextel sucks and it does not use the full potential of the phone because the speeds are slow and horrible.

My last personal phone was the Storm. Yes, it had it's glitches but it was a great device. It did have great multimedia potential. I had all kinds of music and video and everything worked as advertised. BBM was great and web browsing was OK, at best. Not because of speed but the browser sucks. E-mail was definitely unreal. Lightening fast. The amounts of apps was not even close and there were ones that were pay apps on BB but free on the iPhone. Fail! The camera took awesome pics. Everyone was always like 'Wow that thing takes great pics." Typing was a struggle in its own but I guess things have been fixed on the Storm2. OS 5.0 is also a giant step that has enhances a lot of things. Most of all, you can customize the **** out of this thing.

I now have an iPhone. It is physically appealling (so was the storm). The UI is very fast and smooth. The screen res is also very crisp as was on the Storm. There are a ton of cool apps and I dont have to worry about running out of memory. Big Plus. The browser is great. I am in love with surfing the web on this phone. SMS is very cool. Multimedia is very nice. Typing is very fast and smooth on this device.
Now my opinion of the bad. I know a lot of this can be done by jailbraking but I am not comfortable and if I brick this thing I am not dishing out the cake to buy one full retail. No multitasking...no good. You can't change SMS alert to custom. Just their few crappy ones. No custom or change of alert for mail and calendar alarms. This is all bad. I miss mail all the time. The push mail is really not push IMO. No changing homescreen icon for weather. Why...? I love waking up the device and instantly seeing whats going on outside. No customization, as far as themes. My phone looks like the millions of other iPhones out there that are not jailbroken.

In all, I loved my Storm, but the iPhone is giving me more of a fun factor for my money. If the phone changed those few things I stated it would be all around superb. There is one more thing that would really boost the sales of that phone and keep me a customer forever...end the exclusivity and go to the dark side.

If this phone goes to Verizon, especially on their second to none network or their new 4g that they bought the most shares/rights to, it would be the best of both worlds and I would be the first in line to get one and be a happy Verizon customer again.

[dwaynewilliams#WN]

I don't understand the multitasking argument. I had a BB, and to multitasking, I would have to hit the menu button, scroll to another application. To revert back, I would have to hold down the menu button and find the previous application. To go from one application to another on the iPhone, I am doing the exact same thing. I push the home button to exit the app and go to another one. It is the same process. Also, the only apps that I would like to keep running would be the iPod-and it does play in the background. And GPS. The GPS actually performs no differently than on a device that multitasks. If I get a call while navigating, once the call is over, the navigation system automatically comes back on and continues the trip where it left off. Web pages work the same way. What other multitasking is needed?

[dknyberry]

I don't understand the multitasking argument. I had a BB, and to multitasking, I would have to hit the menu button, scroll to another application. To revert back, I would have to hold down the menu button and find the previous application. To go from one application to another on the iPhone, I am doing the exact same thing. I push the home button to exit the app and go to another one. It is the same process. Also, the only apps that I would like to keep running would be the iPod-and it does play in the background. And GPS. The GPS actually performs no differently than on a device that multitasks. If I get a call while navigating, once the call is over, the navigation system automatically comes back on and continues the trip where it left off. Web pages work the same way. What other multitasking is needed?

Well, for me, I noticed Beejive on BB kinda worked better because it could truly run I'm the background at all times. On the iPhone, they do have a workaround in that you can set it to message you when someone is trying to instant message you, but still it is not as quick and reliable as how it works when you are running it at all times on the Berry.

[fabuloso]

I had an iPhone for an hour. It literally jumped out of my hands, and told me I wasn't gay enough to use it, and walked away.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[dknyberry]

I had an iPhone for an hour. It literally jumped out of my hands, and told me I wasn't gay enough to use it, and walked away.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

You weren't "gay enough?"...meaning you are only a little gay?

[flyawaymike]

I don't understand the multitasking argument. I had a BB, and to multitasking, I would have to hit the menu button, scroll to another application. To revert back, I would have to hold down the menu button and find the previous application. To go from one application to another on the iPhone, I am doing the exact same thing. I push the home button to exit the app and go to another one. It is the same process. Also, the only apps that I would like to keep running would be the iPod-and it does play in the background. And GPS. The GPS actually performs no differently than on a device that multitasks. If I get a call while navigating, once the call is over, the navigation system automatically comes back on and continues the trip where it left off. Web pages work the same way. What other multitasking is needed?

the difference is the apps are not running at the same time, be it in the background but still active. The exception on that is the pre-bundled Apple applications, and there have been a few 3rd party apps that utilized Safari to keep a thread open (I know a radio streaming application does that).

Otherwise when you switch from say a twitter app to your email or whatnot, that twitter application closed, it is not running. Where as on the blackberry, say you programmed your right-side button to be a task switcher - you can go from your twitter application, task-switch to BBM or mail or whatever, while leaving the twitter application still active and refreshing tweet pulls, or still having AIM on with you signed in, yet you're not using the application.

There are work arounds on some stuff on the iPhone, but it's currently not truly multi-tasking capable for 3rd party apps.

[Entertainment72]

I do not want multi-tasking on my phone which create a multitude of problems that overshadow any benefits you may see. Freezing, poor and low memory leaks.. so on.
The 3G S is so fast that it basically multi-tasks without multi-tasking resulting in none of the headaches multi-tasking usually brings.

[flyawaymike]

I do not want multi-tasking on my phone which create a multitude of problems that overshadow any benefits you may see. Freezing, poor and low memory leaks.. so on.
The 3G S is so fast that it basically multi-tasks without multi-tasking without any of the headaches multi-tasking brings.

you don't need multi-tasking to have memory leaks from apps, happens all the time, but Xcode does a good job of identifying that.

there have been and still are apps that don't release memory on the iPhone platform though.

[katiepea]

i'm with you here, this is actually why i sold my iphone because its a useless toy. the reason they don't have background processing is because the cpu thats in the iphone is a joke, even the iphone 3gs. 1. no background processing is unacceptable for me, i'm an adult 2. jailbreak to get it and your battery is toast. the iphone simply doesn't meet any of my needs, maybe when i was younger and cared more about form than function, but honestly, i even like bb's OS theme better, keep making me hate you apple

[flyawaymike]

i'm with you here, this is actually why i sold my iphone because its a useless toy. the reason they don't have background processing is because the cpu thats in the iphone is a joke, even the iphone 3gs. 1. no background processing is unacceptable for me, i'm an adult 2. jailbreak to get it and your battery is toast. the iphone simply doesn't meet any of my needs, maybe when i was younger and cared more about form than function, but honestly, i even like bb's OS theme better, keep making me hate you apple

you're quite misinformed, sir. the iPhone is quite capable of multitasking applications, the processor is perfectly capable of handling it and the operating system is a variation of OS X.

secondly "jailbreak it and your battery is toast" ??? wha?? doesn't make any sense.

[katiepea]

you're quite misinformed, sir. the iPhone is quite capable of multitasking applications, the processor is perfectly capable of handling it and the operating system is a variation of OS X.

secondly "jailbreak it and your battery is toast" ??? wha?? doesn't make any sense.

i'm not misinformed about anything, i've owned 2 iphones, apples very own response to background processing is that it destroys battery life...which is what i just said.

how doesn't it make sense? if you background process on the iphone your battery dies in hours...i know, i've done it, did it for 2 years...

so if you know more than me, AND apple, which by your claims i'm supposing you at least think you do, then tell me why the iphone doesn't support native background processing...

[flyawaymike]

i'm not misinformed about anything, i've owned 2 iphones, apples very own response to background processing is that it destroys battery life...which is what i just said.

how doesn't it make sense? if you background process on the iphone your battery dies in hours...i know, i've done it, did it for 2 years...

so if you know more than me, AND apple, which by your claims i'm supposing you at least think you do, then tell me why the iphone doesn't support native background processing...

Go back and read what I said. You wrote, "the reason they don't have background processing is because the cpu thats in the iphone is a joke". I responded that it wasn't the case, nor was it with the OS; Apple's own apps do run in the background.
Apple has restricted developers from background apps; it's not a limitation of the hardware/software.

Incidentally, if I leave UberTwitter and NFL Mobile Live running on my BB, it drains it *very* fast as well.