Wiped 8830 ready to sell

I've decided to go for the iPhone 4 so I used BB Desktop Manager to wipe my device. It failed. Then I did a device wipe from security options on the phone after pulling my micro sd card. There was a time I was happy with my device. Compared to the Palm I came from it was a dream. But once I got my hands on an iPod Touch, I realized what I really wanted in a handheld device. So now I'm off to wipe my 'Touch so I can pass it along to my son and I've wiped my 8830 so I can put it on ebay.

I guess I'll call this thread my "parting shot"...

I grew sick of finding apps that would only run in 5.0 or newer when all I could get was 4.5. I was frustrated that the theme I liked best only worked in OS 4.2. Then there was my experience with BB app world. I managed a handful of transactions and none of them were smooth. Every transaction in the Apple app store was smooth. Of course, I could go find apps and download them myself and install them OTA. Sure I could or I could let them fall into my lap via Apple's app store.

I hope RIM can find a way to make the BB OS API more attractive to developers but for now there just aren't enough relevant apps for my taste. But the biggest push that drove me away was sync. I kept getting duplicates. I don't know for sure BB OS or BB Desktop Manager or Missing Sync was to blame. It very well might be iSync. I synced my BB for the last time two nights ago. I had to spend some time cleaning corrupted and duplicated records but once I did, they showed up right away on my iPad and iPod Touch. Last night I picked up an iPhone 4 and it had all my data OTA before I even left the Apple store.

Another thing that pushed me away was the way calendar entries must be tied to an email address and they cannot be changed. On my device, I had some email glitches (caused by google) that required me to set up BIS over again a few times. This left me picking from one of 3 emails for every calendar event I ever created. Of course only ONE of them ever got synced so the only device that had my entire data was my BB 8830. That was unacceptable. After experience MobileMe seamlessly making all my stuff show up on all my devices, I couldn't help but wonder why I was still dealing with a cable to sync a device that failed to push data up to my Mac simply because I picked the "wrong" email address when I created the calendar entry. After missing a meeting yesterday, I decided I'd waited long enough and I got a device with only one calendar and none of this silliness that calendar entries must be somehow "owned" by one of my email accounts.

RIM is continuing to grow gradually while Android and iOS are growing rapidly. I tried to hold on long enough to get OS 6 and a webkit browser, but I must admit the 8830 left a bad taste in my mouth relative to what I experience on iThings. I also had my doubts that sync and calendar quirks would get fixed any time soon. It was a great email device, but the app experience and sync experience is just plain doodoo. I seem to remember about a year and a half ago, RIM was promising the ability to run apps from SD card "any day now". I thought about the new Bold briefly but ultimately I would still be facing limitations. Now that I have a device with one giant memory footprint that can hold whatever I want it to hold, I (hopefully) never need to think about memory again.

I also considered Android, but as I use all Mac gear at home, I went with the path of least resistance and changed carriers for the iPhone. Hopefully iPhone will be available on multiple carriers in the US and we can pick phones without picking carriers but sadly that time has still not yet arrived.

It's been fun here. I plan to get back from time to time and help with questions when I can until my BB OS memory fades completely. BTW, I'm not picking a BB OS vs iOS fight here. I'm not taking Apple Kool Aid intravenously. There is plenty to dislike about Apple gear, it just happens to suit me well for what I'm doing now. There are still some things missing on iThings like "mark read" but overall I'm happy to be moving on...