Long term Blackberry user moving to 3Gs

[GregGebhardt]

Oh my God what have I done? AT&T will deliver it on Monday!

I tried the iPhone when it first came out but could not cope with the keyboard, but then I only gave it a day or two before I went back to RIM. This time I will allow all the time it takes and know I will adapt. Mainly changing because the 9700 build quality was horrible and after going through three units and still having problems . . . . well I know the Apple's hardware is top rate.

I hope I have done my homework and have already installed the latest iTunes and synced my 9700 with OutLook to be ready for the switch over. I have purchased the Apply Dock for charging at night, lack on the 12v car adapter for emergencies.

A question or two:

I assume that iTunes will handle the switch over. I want to use the SIM that comes with the iPhone. Do I need to call ATT to have them switch service or is that handled in iTunes?

I will also be doing the 60 day trial on MobileMe as I have got to have my email quickly to deal with my customers. I then would do the yearly thing as it would be worth every penny to have my emails forwards from AOL quickly rather than fetching every 15-30 minutes. It seems this would save alot of battery life, too.

A case. I bought a gel skin/shell to make handling the unit a little better but after using the Blackberry Holster with swivel clip, I know that I am having trouble finding similar. I likely will use the Gel and drop it into one of my Blackberry holsters! At least till I find something else. I want to be able to get to my phone with ease as I handle about 60 emails and calls a day. I hope the battery will cope!

Any suggestions out there would be appreciated. I kinda know the Apply interface as I have been using the iTouch for a while now, the 3Gs sounds like a great piece of hardware, just a little scared as I will be using for my company to stay in contact with my customers. My iPhone must work well as a phone and be able to handle email and my schedule. Having a voice recorder is a BIG plus along with a camera.

I hear so many iPhone nightmare stories in these forums but realize that the majority of the phones work very well and you hear from the one having trouble more than the ones who's device is working perfectly. Hope I have made the right choice and would be interested in others who have made the switch to help me feel like I have done the right thing.

 

[kes601]

On the MobileMe thing, if all you will be using it for is the push email, check out something like Pushmail, you can set your AOL email to forward to a @dopushmail.com account and it never gets stored on their servers. Basically what happens is you would forward AOL to that, then you would get a nice push alert that you have a new message. Then you use the iPhones mail client to check the AOL email.

I've used both Pushmail, Gmail-Push (what I am currently using), and MobileMe. I like the two push options more since I can know if I want to ignore the email when it comes in.

 

[ScottNWDW]

I've been using MobileMe since it was launched and have never had a major problem with it. That's not saying it hasn't had it's problems, but most of those have been minor at best. I also have a feeling that as the iPad and next version of the iPhone and iPhone OS release gets closer MobileMe will be getting a major update as well.

Just a note on the calendar and MobileMe, if you use Outlook and want a pretty colorful calendar, Apple and Outlook are two different monsters. Outlook uses "categories" and Apple uses "calendars" Therefore in order to have a colorful calendar on the iPhone you may have to change the way you think about these.

A suggestion I might make for productivity apps
For calendar and tasks....
Pocket Informant, they already have a Blackberry version which you may or may not be familiar with. The iPhone version does not have all the same functionality as the Blackberry or Windows Mobile versions do yet, but it's getting there. The calendar syncs with Google calendar, and the tasks sync with Toodledo, both Toodledo and Google Calendar can sync with Outlook via a third party add in

For Contacts there is a great little app called "Groups" You can put your contacts into groups and through this app send group emails. I have found it to be really useful.

Hope you enjoy the iPhone

 

[sharpycl]

I made the switch from a blackberry curve 8330 back in march and the switch was smoothe for me. All of my contacts were in outlook and everything was handled through outlook such as calendars and notes. iTunes dragged all of that to my iPhone 3G just fine.

I use gmail push for all my email. For what I need it handles my email just fine. Their is a few second to at least a minute delay in mail delivery, but it gets mail to me a lot faster then a 15 minute polling schedule ever did

As far as case options. I'm currently using the Seido Innocase II with holster because it's what I used on my blackberry and for me it helped make the transition easier.

 

[entatlrg]

Get your iphone and never look back! I've used BB's since day one, back to the 957 days, I've owned nearly all of them, most recently the Curve, Bold 9000, and then the Bold 9700. Agreed, the build quality is a joke on the 9700, it's keys far over rated too.... I'm a gadget fan and for whatever reason when a new BB comes out I have to try it ... the last years I've been more disappointed than pleased.

What kept bringing me back I think was the physical keyboard ... that was a mistake because now that I've actually given the iphone keyboard a chance I'm faster on it than the BB. *Now that Dragon Dictation is on the scene, (free even), there's much less need to even think about keyboards.

You'll love the screen size, web surfing, you can actually easily DO things on your iphone like send money via PayPal, order online etc. The thousands of app's help make it a great phone, it does so many things so well (that the BB doesn't) that you'll find the iPhone hard to put down even after you've had it for months.

Enjoy!

 

[GregGebhardt]

On the MobileMe thing, if all you will be using it for is the push email, check out something like Pushmail, you can set your AOL email to forward to a @dopushmail.com account and it never gets stored on their servers. Basically what happens is you would forward AOL to that, then you would get a nice push alert that you have a new message. Then you use the iPhones mail client to check the AOL email.

I've used both Pushmail, Gmail-Push (what I am currently using), and MobileMe. I like the two push options more since I can know if I want to ignore the email when it comes in.

I wish it were that easy but from what I can find there is no way to get AOL to forward their mail anywhere or I would not need MobileME. AOL likes you to log on to see their ads. Iw ould change except my company and customers have been using the same email for a LONG time.

If there is a way to get AOL to forward, please elt me know.

 

[GregGebhardt]

Get your iphone and never look back! I've used BB's since day one, back to the 957 days, I've owned nearly all of them, most recently the Curve, Bold 9000, and then the Bold 9700. Agreed, the build quality is a joke on the 9700, it's keys far over rated too.... I'm a gadget fan and for whatever reason when a new BB comes out I have to try it ... the last years I've been more disappointed than pleased.

What kept bringing me back I think was the physical keyboard ... that was a mistake because now that I've actually given the iphone keyboard a chance I'm faster on it than the BB. *Now that Dragon Dictation is on the scene, (free even), there's much less need to even think about keyboards.

You'll love the screen size, web surfing, you can actually easily DO things on your iphone like send money via PayPal, order online etc. The thousands of app's help make it a great phone, it does so many things so well (that the BB doesn't) that you'll find the iPhone hard to put down even after you've had it for months.

Enjoy!

I thank everyone for their reply, so far, but yours encourages me to stick with the learning curve on the keyboard. If I can get over that, I am home free and I am DETERMINED to do so! The iPhone can do so much more and I am looking forward to exploiting it for work! With the Blackberry, I had to do a few work arounds and now will be able to handle some things on the net directly on my iPhone instead of waiting till I get back to my office.

I hope my transition goes as smooth as yours as I have over 600 contacts!

Oh and I knew the RIM 957 well! I was astounded with my first 75xx series!

 

[EricJay]

I just switched from BlackBerry to iPhone last week. Like you, I thought that the virtual keyboard would be the hardest thing to adjust to. Turns out, I'm quite good with it just a few days in... nearly as fast as I was on my BB (then again, I had the Pearl, so that's not saying much).

I'm actually having a harder time adjusting to some of the other changes. Mostly, I miss "mark prior as read." I never realized how often I used it to clear my message counts of items I don't need to see away from my desk. Also, I miss being able to see which of my e-mail accounts had new messages just by looking at the home screen, but I'm getting used to clicking the mail icon then navigating to the "Accounts" page to see.

 

[Ectropian]

New iPhone user

I too moved from BB pearl to the iPhone this week. I found that they keyboard doesn't really act like a keyboard, but a mind-reader for my fingers I could type totally different letters, and the keyboard would read the sequence as if it new what I wanted to type!! Awesome.

As many others have stated, I miss the "Mark all as Read" feature, AND the 1-for-all mailbox no matter which account it came from. *sigh*

One thing I have found useful is the EDIT button, where instead of making the mail as read, I simply tag/delete what I know will end up on my laptop later when I download to my HDD, since I leave all mail on the server. Now if only Folders would sync/work properly I'd gladly give up 600M/1Gig space on my iPhone to have my entire outlook.pst available at my fingertips

--Ted

 

[Small White Car]

If there is a way to get AOL to forward, please elt me know.

I can't answer that, but IF you find a way to forward, use the app named 'Boxcar.' It works better than the other similar services.

It will send you a push notice when it gets mail forwarded from AOL. Then, you can set your phone to check mail manually and just manually check it after you get the push messages.

All that depends on forwarding AOL, though, so I don't know if you can do it or not.

 

[Dolorian]

I currently have a Bold 9000 and it is indeed an awesome device. This is my first BB device and I really have no complains about BlackBerry. I have never given me any problems and I really like the features it has, but the iPhone is so much better and before I got the Bold, I was considering getting an iPhone. But back then, the iPhone lacked many things I wanted. It now has them and more. My contract ends in May and by then I am planning to make the iPhone jump.

The main problem the iPhone has on my country is that the plans they have are incredibly expensive and only one carrier out of two offers the unlimited data plan with it and thats for an amount that is equivalent to $110 dolars a month. By contrast, the BlackBerry is about half the price and far more accesible to more people. Which is the main reason why BlackBerry has eclipsed the iPhone here in terms of market and mind share.

 

[nefan65]

I switched a couple of years ago and never looked back. We have a BES Server here at work, and about 6 BB users. I just had to set one up today [9700 Bold], and wow...I'm sooooo glad I switched! LOL!!! What a POS.

Anyway, I've never had a regret. It's only going to get better when the new models [assuming it happens] should hit the streets sometime in June/July this year....

 

[gigapocket1]

The hardest thing your going to have to adjust to is the keyboard. This may sound strange but you have to TRUST it! Everytime you mess up don't backup and delete just keep going and it will correct you on it's own. Eventually. You will be able to type on it without looking. Kind of like I'm typing this message without looking.. Lol..

Why pay for mobile me??? When google is free? just create a google account and have all your email forwarded to google. Then setup a google exchange account on your phone and whenever you have a new email, you will instantly have a badge on the email icon.

 

[sparkomatic]

Greg, I think I've seen you over on some of the BlackBerry user groups in the past. Congrats on the iPhone. I gave up my BB addiction awhile ago and have never looked back. As a matter of fact, I keep a BB around since I still support a BES at work. It's almost odd and outdated to use it now.

It's funny cause I've gotten so used to the iPhone keyboard, it's almost weird using the physical one on the 9700 now. There are positives and negatives for all the devices out there but I can't imagine giving up my iPhone and I'm hoping the 4G will be even better.

Have fun!

 

[DNAppleGold]

You'll be glad you did

Like many others, I was a long time BB user. I was quite happy with my BB and had learned every short cut in the world. But I was feeling there was just more and more I couldn't do (or do well) on my BB. My wife has a G3 and when we're out together we practically never used the BB. But because I use mail/phone so often for business, and I travel so much for work, frankly I was a little nervous.

My concern was misplaced. I finally bought a 3gs about a month ago, have done two extended business trips, and I couldn't be happier. Of course there are features about the BB I miss (speed dialing for one). But for every feature I miss, there are several Iphone features that I like as well - even on core phone/email functions. Overall, I like all the Iphone apps as much and in many cases much, much more than BB. You will simply be amazed how much more you use your phone!

Everyone's biggest concern is typing - it was mine as well. I now find I normally type much faster on the Iphone, unless I only have one hand available (I then use dragon to dictate - you must get this awesome free app). Here how I made the adjustment:

- Type with your fingers, not your thumbs
- cradle the phone with one hand and type with your fingers on the other. Even better, lay the Iphone on a flat surface.
- Use landscape (just remember to turn the phone before you start typing). In landscape mode, on a flat surface, I can actually use 3-4 fingers!
- Use the auto-correct when possible. After about a week, you will be shocked how often the Iphone suggests the correct word well before you've finished.
- If you find you've mangled a word "mid-word", keep typing to see if the auto-correct will kick in Again, after about a week, you'll be shocked how often the phone suggests the right word before you've finished.

Enjoy your Iphone. Most BB users who are willing to change some ingrained habits end up loving their phones. I do.