You guys are dreaming if you think RIM is in any danger from iPhone. iPhone may put a dent in their plans to expand into the consumer market, but right now BB's are the standard for the mobile professional crowd, and that's not going to change anytime soon.
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Switching From BlackBerry - Yay or Nay?
- Thread starter Amblinman
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If Apple was their only problem I would agree. But they have many underlying issues and a lack of ability to protect proprietary systems. Also the strict business market is not the future. People already carry two phones because they hate their business form factors. The future is the melding of the vast consumer needs with the average business needs. There will always be boutique providers and if Blackberry is lucky they may survive at that small market, high priced custom implementation model. But they can not compete in the majority sector; personal/ soft business model. IMHO
Thus far, no company has been able to replicate what BB's do so well for the business sector, and it's not like they haven't had the time. When you talk about "melding consumer and business needs", you're forgetting that for any large corporation, the consumer needs don't matter. Most companies don't want their deployed cell phones having cameras, for instance.
I don't necessarily disagree with your very last statement. I'm the perfect example of someone who needs a smart phone to help with running my own business, but since I'm paying for it I also want as many consumer "Goodies" as I can get. I have a BB, and I love it, but if iPhone can up some of the PIM functionality, they're going to get my money without any hesitation (the lack of a ToDo list is criminal, by the way).
Sorry, didn't see that originally.
And I'll say it again: absolutely criminal on Apple's part. C'mon, guys. A ToDo list is way too basic a feature for a smart phone.
No doubt BB hit the nail on the head when they tapped their market. My point is that in the larger scheme of things, that business market will become smaller, and is not of interest to the big players; Apple, Sony, Motorola, NBC, EMI, Warners etc.
The popular cell phone market is so much larger and profitable.
I would love to see the exact percentage of BB type enterprise smart business phones in use compared to the rest of all phones worldwide. And the percentage is only going to get smaller for BB as normal phones morph towards biz models.
There is another factor in all of this - RIM happens to make exceptional devices. The OS is incredibly stable, the phones themselves are getting slimmer while losing none of their sturdiness. The Curve is a great, great device. It's as attractive an functional as just about any device currently available, save for everyone's beloved iPhone (and the iPhone can't compete with its email or PIM functions at the moment, either).
I hate to admit it but the Curve caught my eye, and if the iPhone had not come out I would have bought one.
I'm currently on VZW with an 8830. I toyed with the Curve for a couple of weeks, but ultimately I didn't want to switch carriers just for a camera (which, along with size, is the only difference between the Curve and the 88 line). I can tell you that if VZW offered one with all the features it currently has, plus WiFi, I wouldn't even be looking in the iPhone's direction - no matter how "hot" it is.
BUT - welcome to the power of iPhone. it wasn't until after playing with one in an Apple store last week that I decided I absolutely would switch to AT&T. And quite frankly, part of that is RIM's fault. They're very methodical in how they release features. They dole them out phone by phone. Want a camera? You can only get it with an 8300 or Pearl. Want media capabilities and a camera? Sorry, you can't have both if you're with Verizon. Want WiFi? Gotta wait for another version of the 8800, which won't have a camera. Want GPS? You can have it, but only with an 8800 and not with the 8300. Etc, etc, etc.
And if you're a VZW customer, you're always going to be last in line for any new BB, and when you do get it, it will be a crippled device.
It's stuff like this that makes jumping to iPhone and AT&T so attractive for me. It'll be a bit of a downgrade in voice clarity, but I can live with that for all the extra stuff I'll be getting.
Well, I hope you enjoy it, I know you will. One thing everyone seem to agree on is the iPhone is a lot of fun to use. I have a feeling towards it like I do my iPod, probably because they hold the "soundtrack of our lives". As some one who most wanted a great iPod and Phone in one, I got just what I had hoped for.
I came from an 8700c, and was decided on switching to a Pearl/8800 or the iphone. Any of them would have been pretty much identical in cost.
My logic was as follows: The 8700 was a tank. I wore it on the beltclip holster because I felt like it was too big to fit in most of my pants pockets. Also, I was always worried about it dialing 911 because it was so easy to make an emergency call on it (I hate soundling like an inconsiderate person, but they really need to make that harder to do...).
I really loved the blackberry, and was planning to jump right into another one, but smaller, and able to at least have more than 64mb of memory.
Then the iphone info came out. I graduated from University of Delaware, where the Fingerworks founders were stationed (awesome to see that patent, can't wait to see the results on my phone!), and as lame as it is I had some sense of pride that I was going to be able to get a new device based on the technology that I got to see developed at UD.
When I saw that the phone was all screen, and so small, I was sold. Now, my iphone sits in my pocket, and I harly use my aircard because the safari browser is so great.
The e-mail is taking some time to adjust to, and I do not like the pull effect, but the iphone is more graceful phone, and the browser experience is no comparison... At the end of the day, I would say if you are using something primarily for business, get the blackberry. I had e-office on mine, which was a pain, but you could actually edit a spreadsheet and reply if you absolutely had to... If it is for personal use, get an iphone. Just a better convergence device.
My logic was as follows: The 8700 was a tank. I wore it on the beltclip holster because I felt like it was too big to fit in most of my pants pockets. Also, I was always worried about it dialing 911 because it was so easy to make an emergency call on it (I hate soundling like an inconsiderate person, but they really need to make that harder to do...).
I really loved the blackberry, and was planning to jump right into another one, but smaller, and able to at least have more than 64mb of memory.
Then the iphone info came out. I graduated from University of Delaware, where the Fingerworks founders were stationed (awesome to see that patent, can't wait to see the results on my phone!), and as lame as it is I had some sense of pride that I was going to be able to get a new device based on the technology that I got to see developed at UD.
When I saw that the phone was all screen, and so small, I was sold. Now, my iphone sits in my pocket, and I harly use my aircard because the safari browser is so great.
The e-mail is taking some time to adjust to, and I do not like the pull effect, but the iphone is more graceful phone, and the browser experience is no comparison... At the end of the day, I would say if you are using something primarily for business, get the blackberry. I had e-office on mine, which was a pain, but you could actually edit a spreadsheet and reply if you absolutely had to... If it is for personal use, get an iphone. Just a better convergence device.
Thanks for the review. Much appreciated. What's the "pull effect", incidentally?
Also, Another question:
Can I try out the iPhone for the 14 days with a temp number? I'd rather not go through the hassle of porting over my VZW # unless I know for sure I'm keeping the thing.
Blackberry uses what is called "push" e-mail, meaning messages are "pushed" onto the device from their servers. Usually in seconds.
With the iphone, you have to "pull" messages by requesting your phone to go out and grab your e-mail. The only time I find this annoying is when a message is not cached on the phone, so you have to pull it more than once, or even worse, find out that you cannot see it if you do not have a data connection. I fully expect this to be updated, with at least an option to devote memory to on-device e-mail storage. That has nothing to do with any of the patents clouding up push e-mail.
Unless you are getting 500 messages a day, and you have to respond to messages literally in seconds (not really what my corporate or personal e-mail is for...), it is not very annoying.
If you never had a blackberry, it would be hard to find a lot of faults with the iphone e-mail client. Again, the browser difference makes up for this ten times over in my opinion. With my blackberry, I felt like the browser was a chore. WIth the iphone, it is a much happier experience.
With the iphone, you have to "pull" messages by requesting your phone to go out and grab your e-mail. The only time I find this annoying is when a message is not cached on the phone, so you have to pull it more than once, or even worse, find out that you cannot see it if you do not have a data connection. I fully expect this to be updated, with at least an option to devote memory to on-device e-mail storage. That has nothing to do with any of the patents clouding up push e-mail.
Unless you are getting 500 messages a day, and you have to respond to messages literally in seconds (not really what my corporate or personal e-mail is for...), it is not very annoying.
If you never had a blackberry, it would be hard to find a lot of faults with the iphone e-mail client. Again, the browser difference makes up for this ten times over in my opinion. With my blackberry, I felt like the browser was a chore. WIth the iphone, it is a much happier experience.
that is not entirely true. if you use a Blackberry Exchange Server (BES) then emails appear practically instantly. i am on tmobile and just use the regular internet service, no BES and my POP3 emails take anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes to appear on the phone. emails that are sent to my blackberry's email address (myname@tmo.blackberry.net) do appear within seconds.
its not a problem, but i was assuming ALL emails would happen instantly and thats only true if you use BES.
Not completely true. Yahoo Mail is Push Email. Granted not as good as Blackberry. Also, with iPhone you have Sync your Calendar and Contacts via iTunes.
We can debate that the BB does this better or the iPhone does that better, but there is no comparison in the user experience. The iPhone sets the new bar, and it is way too high for the BBs of the world.
I agree with you 100%. I believe in many ways the iPhone sets a very high bar for others to emulate. With an upgraded EMAIL and PIM I would not be owning BB stock.
I'm going to be switching from a BB to an iPhone, so you know what I think of the device but I think you guys are severely underestimating BlackBerrys. I have an 8830 and it is a magnificent device. No, the UI can't touch iPhone (I don't think anything on the market currently can), but that's only going to carry so far with some folks. Apple must improve the PIM and communication features. No copy and paste out of the box is insane, for instance.
Plus, I'm curious to see how the pricing shakes out as they move forward. It's one thing to get people excited enough to cough up $600 for a revolutionary 1st gen device. Going forward, when the bloom is off the rose, will $600 become prohibitive? Especially with people using the device as an iPod. They're not going to be so willing to upgrade every year or so at those prices.
Plus, I'm curious to see how the pricing shakes out as they move forward. It's one thing to get people excited enough to cough up $600 for a revolutionary 1st gen device. Going forward, when the bloom is off the rose, will $600 become prohibitive? Especially with people using the device as an iPod. They're not going to be so willing to upgrade every year or so at those prices.
I have a Blackberry Curve and it is hands down a better hardcore business email machine with multimedia functions built in. If I was relying on just one phone and needed to have reliable push email functions and heavy duty (drop resistant) capability the Curve wins hands down. What my iPhone brings to the table is that it isn't just a phone, I consider it the greatest mini computer with the best interface ever made.