Are you a Blackberry? I used to be until last year when I switched over to the iPhone 3g. I switched because of asthetics mostly, the web browsing is the nicest of any mobile device, and the application selection is, of course, by far the largest.
However, as I get deeper and deeper into my time with the iPhone, I continue missing things that I thought I could live without. For instance, as soon as I switched, I missed the ability to send emails from several different email accounts. Like many people, I manage all of my emails through a single Gmail account (so I only have one email account setup on my iPhone), but I need to be able to reply from a different email address. On the iPhone, this is next to impossible without major complication. And even if you get it to work – it sometimes doesn’t work, and worse yet, I’ve had to go back and reset it up because the settings were lost. I’m at the point now where I’ve just left it to the one email address, even though it’s not ideal.
I want my multiple addresses back.
Also, as great as all the applications are, the vast majority of them are games. I think I have 3 games on my iPhone – mainly time killers like solitaire and a couple basketball shoot-around games. I don’t want games on my iPhone and I don’t need them. Now, I understand why people do – and the iPhone provides a great game experience for a handheld device – but I just want to GET THINGS DONE.
I can’t do this without email that works how I want it to.
I love seeing the beautiful display of HTML email on my iPhone, I love knowing that no matter what I need to accomplish, that “there’s an app for that.” I love the smooth swipes and scrolls and the beauty that is the iPhone’s software. I just don’t love it enough to keep it.
I’ve been keeping a close eye on the upcoming Blackberry 9700 (Onyx) and 9900 (Pluto) – and I have to say that I’m excited to switch back to Blackberry this winter. It’s recently been discovered that the 9700 Onyx will most likely keep the Bold name (Onyx was just it’s development title). It’s essentially an upgraded Bold in a little bit smaller package than the original Bold 9000 model.
Then there’s the 9900 – thought to be a full-size Bold, but with a touch screen. No, not a Storm-type touch – think a normal Bold (keyboard and all) but the screen is also touch-sensitive. Slick. There hasn’t been any hands-on reports of the 9900 yet, though it’s thought to be coming to AT&T this year.
The 9700, however, has been seen and reviewed quite a bit lately. It’s thought that it will ship later this year with Blackberry’s new 5.0 operating system – which I’m sure will still be light-years behind the iPhone in elegance, but you know what? I bet I’ll be able to send emails efficiently again.
As a home business owner, web-worker and blogger… there are a handful of apps on my iPhone that I count on everyday. MOST of those are also available for the Blackberry. I don’t think I’m going to miss anything except the iPhone’s beautiful design. It’s possible that Apple might address the iPhone’s shortcomings for business in the next version of it’s software, but I’m not interested in waiting around to find out. I need to get stuff done, and to do that, I need my Blackberry back.
