[Entertainment72]

Look at any major analyst firm report since the Apple iPhone was released, and you'll see the earnest intoning to stick with the buttoned-down and pinstriped BlackBerry -- widely admired in executive corridors for its safety and security -- and beware that odd, colorful, possibly dangerous Apple device that consumers may love but professionals should avoid. If the iPhone were meant for work, it wouldn't be so much fun to use, would it?

Yes, it was Mac versus PC all over again: The iPhone was quickly pigeonholed as a fun, polished device for the cool kids to play with versus the RIM BlackBerry's rep as a corporate standard designed to get work done. As with the Mac-versus-PC dichotomy, Apple's focus on visual interface, exotic technologies like touch, and fun stuff (music, video, and games), coupled with its lack of "serious" capabilities such as encryption, let that perception take root as the conventional wisdom.

[ Dive deep into mobile 2.0 technology with InfoWorld's "mobile 2.0" PDF special report. | Get the scoop on all tech mobile in Tom Yager's Mobile Edge blog. ]

I didn't grow up in my corporate life with either an iPhone or a BlackBerry. For me, a phone is something to make calls with, and a PDA handles my contacts and calendar. But a year ago, I replaced my nearly dead Handspring Palm-based PDA with an iPod Touch and quickly grasped the significance of the "modern" PDA -- the importance, from both a personal and a professional point of view, of having the Web, e-mail, and more at my fingertips. To me the iPod Touch, and by extension the iPhone, was about as productive as a PDA could be, yet I saw BlackBerrys everywhere in conferences and business meetings.

What was it about the BlackBerry that I was missing? Would the iPhone really fall short in a business setting?

To find out, I spent a month with an iPhone 3G and a BlackBerry 9000 Bold (the professional model that RIM recommended as the best to compare to an iPhone) to see how well each would fare in my daily grind. (For the answers to that, see my upcoming stories later this week at InfoWorld.com.) In doing so, I also had the chance to compare the two devices in depth: mail to mail, phone to phone, browser to browser, and thumb stroke to touch-tap. In short, I evaluated them based on everything from classic PDA functionality and usability to location-based services and availability of third-party apps.

And how do they stack up? Frankly, I've concluded it's time to bury the BlackBerry. A revolution in its time, thanks to its ability to provide instant, secure e-mail anywhere, the BlackBerry has become the Lotus Notes of the mobile world: It's way past its prime.

I was shocked to discover how bad an e-mail client the BlackBerry is compared to the iPhone. And the BlackBerry is terrible at the rest of what the iPhone excels at: being a phone, a Web browser, an applications platform, and a media presenter. With its Windows 3-like UI, tiny screen, patched-together information structure, and two-handed operation, the BlackBerry is a Pinto in an era of Priuses.

[ See the iPhone versus BlackBerry side by side in InfoWorld's comparative slideshow. ]

Let me show you point by point why most people -- most companies -- should retire their BlackBerrys and adopt iPhones. And why some of you sadly cannot. Note that both devices are available only on AT&T's network, whose coverage and reliability is mediocre on much of the East and West Coasts, a drawback that really hit home when I lost data coverage in lower Manhattan for several hours as AT&T passed me off to roaming partner T-Mobile and its data-less service.

Deathmatch: E-mail, calendars, and contacts I fully expected the BlackBerry to beat the pants off the iPhone when it came to e-mail. So I was shocked by how awkward e-mail is on the BlackBerry.

In both cases, I used a personal POP account and a work Exchange 2003 account. The iPhone works directly with Exchange, so my e-mail, e-mail folders, calendars, and contacts all flowed effortlessly among the iPhone, laptop, and server. The configuration was trivial. For the BlackBerry, I first used the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), which acts like a POP server: You can't access your Exchange folders, contacts, or calendars. And man, is the setup painful, as you step through seemingly countless Web-based configuration screens. After struggling with the limitations of BIS, I asked our IT staff to connect me to our BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) instead, which gave me the connections to folders, contacts, and calendars.

[ Compare modern mobile devices in InfoWorld's guide to next-gen mobile slideshow. ]

It's key to note that BES supports Novell GroupWise and Lotus Notes, while both of those servers support the iPhone only through Web clients, limiting their integration with other iPhone apps such as Contacts and Calendar. Thus, BlackBerry supports more e-mail systems, even though you have to add a dedicated server to get that support (and upgrade to the latest version to support app management). But an iPhone is much easier to use with Exchange than a BlackBerry is, at least as a user. Apple uses Exchange Server 2007 for remote iPhone management (remote kill, configuration, and so on). Apple also provides a free app that lets IT admins manage profiles and internally developed iPhone apps on the devices. The hitch is that the management tool can reach the devices only when they are physically tethered to the admins' computers.

My first struggle with the BlackBerry involved its puzzling timestamping of e-mail messages. Oddly, the BlackBerry lists the messages according to when the device receives them, not when they are sent. (If you open the message, you can see the real date and time.) The first time I told the BlackBerry to "reconcile messages" with the server, so I'd have older messages (past my 30-day setting) available to me, in they flooded -- all stamped with the current date and time, burying my new messages. Each time I got off a plane or turned the BlackBerry on after charging it, all the messages received during those disconnected times would be marked as more recent than the messages I got right after I turned the BlackBerry back on. It makes e-mail management a nightmare.

The second frustration was discovering how hard it is to navigate e-mail. I use folders extensively to manage my messages, and the iPhone makes it very easy to navigate among folders. The BlackBerry lets you navigate down but not up, so it's hard to flip from any one folder to another. And on the BlackBerry, the original message stayed in the top-level inbox, so now the message existed in two places: my too-cluttered inbox and in the folder to which I moved the message from my computer.

Reading e-mail was comparable on both devices, though the iPhone's larger screen requires less scrolling. I prefer the iPhone's on-screen controls for replying, forwarding, and so forth over the BlackBerry's use of its button to open a contextual menu, but that's an acceptable UI-based difference. Still, the BlackBerry's menu is too long and requires too much scrolling for common functions. It's easier to delete messages on an iPhone, both in the list and when reading a message, than on the BlackBerry. The culprit is the BlackBerry's reliance on the step-intensive contextual menu for almost everything you do.

The BlackBerry and iPhone are mixed bags when it comes to navigating messages. Both the BlackBerry and iPhone offer a quick way to jump to the top of your message list, but only the BlackBerry has a way to jump to the bottom. And only the BlackBerry lets you search messages. The iPhone makes it very easy to select multiple messages to delete or move them, while the BlackBerry can only multiple-select contiguous messages, which in practice means you can't work on many messages at once. (There is a workaround for some situations: You can search your messages by name, subject, title, or attachment status, then select those files -- still contiguously -- to work on them.)

Both the BlackBerry and iPhone let you view common attachment formats such as Word, Excel, and PDF. But the iPhone can't handled zipped attachments, while the BlackBerry nicely shows you a list of the contents so that you can open the ones you want.

With both the iPhone and BlackBerry, you can add people who e-mail you as contacts, but the BlackBerry unnecessarily complicates the process. If it can't figure out the person's name, it forces you to enter that before it will save the contact. The iPhone, on the other hand, lets you fill in that information at another time, so at least the e-mail address is stored for easy access later. The iPhone also notes who you respond to and adds them to the quick-selection list of addressees it displays as you begin tapping a name, even if they're not in the address book. The BlackBerry only displays names in the address book.

Both the BlackBerry and iPhone are annoying when it comes to handling calendar invites, but the iPhone is worse. If you get a calendar invitation as an e-mail attachment on an iPhone, you can't accept it from your e-mail; the iPhone can only sync calendars already handled by Exchange. Plus, you can't move an event from one iPhone calendar to another, such as from your personal calendar to your work one. That's just dumb. But a BlackBerry doesn't recognize multiple Exchange calendars, so even if you distinguish private from work calendars in Exchange, the BlackBerry does not. The same is true if your desktop calendar app has multiple calendars; the BlackBerry sees them all as one. (The BlackBerry treats events in each e-mail account, plus those in your synced desktop calendar, as a separate calendar.)

Another area where the BlackBerry hung me up: I could accept some invites sent to me, but not others. The BlackBerry would often tell me that I could not accept invites because I was the meeting organizer -- even though I was not. The BlackBerry also overloads you with calendar item details when you open an invite -- it's overwhelming and not necessary.

The iPhone clearly has some issues, but for such a mature platform, the BlackBerry is surprisingly mediocre when it comes to e-mail. The iPhone makes it easier to read, send, and organize e-mails and contacts, but it falls short when it comes to zipped attachments, handling invites, and searching e-mail. Both disappoint for calendar management.

Deathmatch: Applications RIM has made a lot of noise about its BlackBerry App World store, and Apple recently celebrated its 1 billionth App Store download. Make no mistake: The selection of BlackBerry apps is not only limited, but the apps themselves are typically pale, pathetic imitations of iPhone apps. (Compare the New York Times or Salesforce.com on the two devices, for example.) And downloading an app to the BlackBerry usually means wading through several pages and prompts. I much prefer the iPhone's simple, fast approach to downloads. Like much of the iPhone UI, the App Store recognizes that you're using a mobile device and that six-screen legal agreements and endless "Are you sure" confirmations are not mobile-friendly. If you download an iPhone app by accident, deleting it takes a couple seconds -- and the whole download-install-remove process takes less time than just starting a BlackBerry App World download.

To add insult to injury, there's no desktop version of the App World store to peruse available options, as there is for the iPhone, and the BlackBerry's tiny screen makes it hard to do any real perusing or searching. I was also put off by the fact that the BlackBerry App World functionality itself is a BlackBerry app, requiring a download before you can even get started. Not only that, but downloading App World to the BlackBerry from my desktop system via a USB connection required me to use Internet Explorer as my browser. (As a Mac user, I can't.)

The UI for managing apps on the BlackBerry is pathetic. There are at least four places that apps can reside on the device, so finding them is an unwelcome Easter egg hunt. On an iPhone, they're easily and consistently accessible, and infinitely easier to organize than on the BlackBerry.

Most BlackBerry "native" apps I tried were just glorified WAP apps, not real apps that take advantage of device-specific capabilities, as native iPhone apps do. (WAP is the DOS-like mobile "Web" technology that the cellular industry tried to palm off on us in the late 1990s.) BlackBerry apps -- at least so far -- are incapable of doing the cool things that iPhone apps can do, whether acting as a level or a credit card terminal, managing your Amazon.com orders, or translating foreign-language terms (even hearing the pronunciation, which was handy on a recent trip to Portugal). Awkward interfaces make many BlackBerry apps painful to use, and they usually cost two or three times as much as their iPhone equivalents.

[ See which iPhone apps the InfoWorld Test Center rates as best for business. | And see the 21 "jailbreak" apps Apple doesn't want you to have. ]

The iPhone has a real OS, and its SDK lets you create real applications, with menus, buttons, interactivity, video, forms, and so on. Plus, you can use Web apps, getting the iPhone's UI for HTML-based functions such as fields and pop-up menus; you can even save the Web apps alongside your other apps for quick one-click access. By contrast, the BlackBerry apps often consist of browser forms and buttons (often at tiny, unreadable sizes) that fetch and display data from the Web. RIM might like to think of them as native apps, but they're really just stubs to Web apps.

Most apps available for business are either personal aids such as tip calculators and expense logs; front ends to sales tools; or basic editors. The iPhone has better UIs for the first two types of apps. For editing, the BlackBerry has DataViz's $70 Documents to Go, which is capable and straightforward, letting me do basic text edits in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, and simple formatting such as boldfacing text. You can cut and paste as well. Tracked changes are removed from the document, and though extensive editing is theoretically possible, you're hamstrung by the device's keyboard and trackball.

On the iPhone, I used the $20 Quickoffice for iPhone, a productivity editor that has similar capabilities (including internal cut and paste), plus retains any revisions tracking in the original document. But it can't work with zipped files. Quickoffice is a little easier to use than Documents to Go, but Apple's prohibition against saving files on the iPhone means that Quickoffice can't get to those e-mail attachments. Quickoffice does have a cool tool to transfer files to and from the iPhone over Wi-Fi, but you need your computer up and running to do that -- in which case, why would you edit the documents on the iPhone?

I also tried the devices on Google Docs. It's barely possible to edit a spreadsheet in Google Docs on an iPhone; the most you can do is select and add rows and edit individual cells' contents. You can't edit a text document, and for calendars all you can do is view and delete appointments. The BlackBerry lets you see spreadsheets one column at a time -- which is useless. Bottom line: Google Docs doesn't support mobile.

I found several BlackBerry apps to be unreliable and very slow. Salesforce.com, for example, didn't open for weeks due to an undefined error when connecting to its site. When I finally got it installed, it was very hard to read and use. I tried five times to download Gokivo Navigator -- BlackBerry App World's top-rated navigation app -- at half an hour a pop. It worked the sixth time, and 90 minutes later was installed and running. Not only did the installation take nearly 45 minutes, but then it rebooted the BlackBerry, which took another 45 minutes to grapple with whatever changes were made. This simply doesn't happen with iPhone apps.

When all was said and done, Gokivo Navigator turned out to be hard to use compared to the iPhone's Google Maps. It has as many confirmation dialog boxes as Windows Vista -- so getting to a result requires many clicks -- but lacks the real-time scrolling or page-by-page direction features of Google Maps. You'd need to be desperately lost to use it -- and forget about accessing it in a moving vehicle, given how slow it is and how hard it is to mouse through the maps.

I also found that several BlackBerry apps often hogged my device's resources, leaving me unable to switch to another application, the Web, e-mail, or the phone. That can happen on an iPhone as well, but the "stuck" times on the BlackBerry were both much more frequent and longer in duration.

Read the rest here.

[markxcool]

Holy Cow! What is this type of article doing on CrackBerry? And it goes unanswered by anyone? No one found any objectionable points? If all that is said is accepted by us BB users, are we not even going to say some parting words as we take a taxi to the cemetery to bury ourselves? May we all rest in peace.

[Entertainment72]

Holy Cow! What is this type of article doing on CrackBerry? And it goes unanswered by anyone? No one found any objectionable points? If all that is said is accepted by us BB users, are we not even going to say some parting words as we take a taxi to the cemetery to bury ourselves? May we all rest in peace.

That is freaking hilarious....

[St0rmD]

Holy Cow! What is this type of article doing on CrackBerry? And it goes unanswered by anyone? No one found any objectionable points? If all that is said is accepted by us BB users, are we not even going to say some parting words as we take a taxi to the cemetery to bury ourselves? May we all rest in peace.

You know what they say about opinions...

For me, the iPhone is a no-sell for the exact same reason that the Storm is. But I'll admit I have occasional frustrations with my Curve and there are things I wish for that don't exist anywhere on the Berry landscape (yet...we'll see what the Magnum coughs up). I'm not too proud to admit I've cast covetous eyes on the Android G1 (or the sexy new AT&T one that engadget leaked this weekend), as well as the Palm Pre...

[sandos]

All the iPhone in business will do will make the winmail.dat attachment problem worse.

Which is why you must do BB for work, iP for play.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Zipster]

I just like to put it out there that Google Maps is available for the BlackBerry too and works more or less the same as the iPhone's version.

I have no idea why the article's author didn't bother to check this and download a needless mapping app...

[armedtank]

I now know of 2 large companies that are ditching BB for the iPhone for everyone except Senior execs. My company will more than likely do the same this year. The primary reason for this that the iPhone works with exchange without requiring a proprietary 3rd party app on the server and a BES admin role to manage it. the cost can no longer be justified with alot of my clients, and they are not small.

BIS, has been deemed unacceptable since you have to store your email credentials which are usually the same as your enterprise credentials on a 3rd party system, which even though RIM is secure, still poses a risk to enterprise data. Email truncation and downloading large attatchments are a major concern as well. A 5MB limit in 2009 is laughable.

The iPhone can connect to the company intranet via wi-fi and pretty much does the basics good enough to justify a move, AT&T is also offering huge discounts to Enterprise customers to make the switch. Remote wipe can even be controlled by an admin, so BB doesn't really have much of an advantage from an information management perspective.

I have been a loyal BB user for years, and i'll keep my Curve until they turn the lights out, but I am definitely getting the 3GS..........

[TrendyProfessional1]

I now know of 2 large companies that are ditching BB for the iPhone for everyone except Senior execs. My company will more than likely do the same this year. The primary reason for this that the iPhone works with exchange without requiring a proprietary 3rd party app on the server and a BES admin role to manage it. the cost can no longer be justified with alot of my clients, and they are not small.

BIS, has been deemed unacceptable since you have to store your email credentials which are usually the same as your enterprise credentials on a 3rd party system, which even though RIM is secure, still poses a risk to enterprise data. Email truncation and downloading large attatchments are a major concern as well. A 5MB limit in 2009 is laughable.

The iPhone can connect to the company intranet via wi-fi and pretty much does the basics good enough to justify a move, AT&T is also offering huge discounts to Enterprise customers to make the switch. Remote wipe can even be controlled by an admin, so BB doesn't really have much of an advantage from an information management perspective.

I have been a loyal BB user for years, and i'll keep my Curve until they turn the lights out, but I am definitely getting the 3GS..........

I don't think Wi-Fi is as secure though

[DaCreed]

hahahahah!! WEll i read the article!! Damn this guy is critical!! a shot right to the ribs!!! wel what i can say is i like the Mac/App core app design every smooth, while i have both i like the model and the way the iphone handles. while the BBS is Use for most of my daily life, its based on what i think business people should have and do, and the BBS lives to it, with the brians to update or change the OS. or few pinches with the apps and software, (.148).. but what is a phone when it cant do what it was build on to do, haha when At&T is with apple, and other companies around the world, why isnt not a good Phone!!! cuz of coverage!! while verizon!! good coverage and service besides the $$$$ lol but you choose.. hahaha

[avt123]

^WTF did you just say?

[dzervit]

^WTF did you just say?

I think he typed that on his iPhone.

[sandos]

hahahahah!! WEll i read the article!! Damn this guy is critical!! a shot right to the ribs!!! wel what i can say is i like the Mac/App core app design every smooth, while i have both i like the model and the way the iphone handles. while the BBS is Use for most of my daily life, its based on what i think business people should have and do, and the BBS lives to it, with the brians to update or change the OS. or few pinches with the apps and software, (.148).. but what is a phone when it cant do what it was build on to do, haha when At&T is with apple, and other companies around the world, why isnt not a good Phone!!! cuz of coverage!! while verizon!! good coverage and service besides the $$$$ lol but you choose.. hahaha

^WTF did you just say?

My translation:
Ha ha!! Well I read the article!! Damn, this guy is critical!! It's a shot right to the ribs!!! Well what I can say is that I like the Mac/Apple core app (Operating System) design, very smooth. While I have both, I like the form factor and the way the iPhone handles. While the Storm is used for most of my daily life, it's based on what I think business people should have and use. The Storm lives up to it, with the brians to update or change the OS. There are a few problems with the apps and software, (.148).. What good is a phone when it can't do what it was built to do? Ha ha, when Apple is with AT&T, and other companies around the world, why is it not a good phone??? Because of coverage!! While Verizon has good coverage and service, it's also a better value too. But the choice is yous... Ha ha ha.

[Navlelo]

There goes another apple fanboi having to justify an iphone to a market it just can't reach. Pathetic, really pathetic. Ill stick with my bold whilst you can get jizzy with iphone 3gsfx version 4 maybe by then they have implemented basic functions like changing alert tones to whatever you want.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[avt123]

There goes another apple fanboi having to justify an iphone to a market it just can't reach. Pathetic, really pathetic. Ill stick with my bold whilst you can get jizzy with iphone 3gsfx version 4 maybe by then they have implemented basic functions like changing alert tones to whatever you want.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

The iPhone is reaching that market. Many business users are using the iPhone a lot now. Remember, the iPhone is a consumer device first, so the things it can actually do for business is pretty good considering. Just because the iPhone wont work for your business needs does not mean it wont work for others.

[avt123]

My translation:
Ha ha!! Well I read the article!! Damn, this guy is critical!! It's a shot right to the ribs!!! Well what I can say is that I like the Mac/Apple core app (Operating System) design, very smooth. While I have both, I like the form factor and the way the iPhone handles. While the Storm is used for most of my daily life, it's based on what I think business people should have and use. The Storm lives up to it, with the brians to update or change the OS. There are a few problems with the apps and software, (.148).. What good is a phone when it can't do what it was built to do? Ha ha, when Apple is with AT&T, and other companies around the world, why is it not a good phone??? Because of coverage!! While Verizon has good coverage and service, it's also a better value too. But the choice is yous... Ha ha ha.

Thank you for the translation.

[Duvi]

I just like to put it out there that Google Maps is available for the BlackBerry too and works more or less the same as the iPhone's version.

I have no idea why the article's author didn't bother to check this and download a needless mapping app...

I think the BB version is missing street view and maybe some others, but I haven't used Gmaps for the BB in years.

[Duvi]

I haven't read this article yet, but for me, if AT&T allowed me to put the iPhone as my company line, I would do it. It would be a lot easier for me to read work emails. A lot of the emails we receive have rich HTML and does not come out good on the BlackBerry, not even the Storm with the bigger screen. (And yes I have tried an unlocked Storm as my company company line; no bueno.)

I can type faster on my iPhone faster than any QWERTY keyboard BB as well.

For others, it may be reversed.

[Sith_Apprentice]

Phone functionality and ease of use aside, Apple will never have the security of a BB. Their Enterprise pilot program failed miserably. Anything that needs any type of security will stay BB

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Digital]

In fact the latest major review of smartphones security rated the BlackBerrys at 16 out of 16 and the iPhone as only 6 or 7 out of 16. Heck, even WinMo devices scored 10 or 11 out of 16, so that means the iPhone was dead last of the 3 major choices here in the US.

I think the onboard encryption of the new 3.0 software and iPhone 3G S will help, but it's just not as secure all around. Also, the way the iPhone web browser works it will never be as secure as the BB either.

The flip side of that is that when you use 3rd party web browsers like Bolt on your BB's you have less security than the BB native browser.

I think we're seeing most of these manufacturers converge as much as possible.

[gt500driver]

Many things in this review seemed to me to just show a lack of knowledge about the berry.

The one that really stood out was the whining about how hard it is to delete e-mails on the berry. You don't have to mess with a long drawn out menu that requires a lot of scrolling, as the writer says, all you have to do is hit the delete button...

Several other things as well, I just don't feel like going into it.

I see this as someone being biased from the outset and not giving the berry its full due, but to each his own I suppose.

[Zipster]

I think the BB version is missing street view and maybe some others, but I haven't used Gmaps for the BB in years.

It is nice because you get a idea of what the destination looks like if you've never been there before. But that shouldn't be a major selling point. Both versions are just as accurate.

I was just annoyed that the article author decided to download a completely random mapping program just so he'd have something to complain about for BlackBerries. It's misleading on his part.

The same Google Maps (more or less) is available for BlackBerries, so to get a fair judgement, he would need to get and use that.

[Big-Jae]

most of the stuff this guy said was complete bullsh*t,lol
the iphone was created to bring the world of ipods and pdas
's/smart phones into 1, nothing more nothing less as said when it was released.
and quite honestly **** the iphone why is every phone released compared to iphone like its the 1st phone ever created the bb and iphone are not comparable point blank its all based on preference really because the palm pre isnt all that great but is a much better multi touch touch screen phone than the iphone, i could could go on and on but what im saying is this guy lied about alot of things because hes an iphone fan hating on bb's its that simple.

and i completely agree with Gt and zip this guy is just severely uninformed.

[Entertainment72]

Funny how every experienced cell phone company out their compares and copies much of the unexperienced new cell phone company on the block. Just too funny, talk about re-inventing the cell phone wow.

I know one thing, the typical ** hum joe smo didn't give a rats *** about what kind of cell phone they had.. now.. wow!

The iPhone did what the Star-Tac and RAZR did but 100x!

[Zipster]

Funny how every experienced cell phone company out their compares and copies much of the unexperienced new cell phone company on the block. Just too funny, talk about re-inventing the cell phone wow.

I know one thing, the typical ** hum joe smo didn't give a rats *** about what kind of cell phone they had.. now.. wow!

The iPhone did what the Star-Tac and RAZR did but 100x!

And I'm sure the iPhone copied things from phones before it that did well too. I don't see what's wrong with duplicating a good feature. I understand the need to be different and innovate a bit to distinguish yourself on the market, as that usually leads to better ideas.

As for the bolded part in your post, English please.

[12elentless]

Doesnt the iphone have its on site?

ill come check and see if anyone replies to this later, im about to go to the jesus forums and invite them to add Anton Lavey on Facebook.