im perfectly calm, its you koolaid drinking fanboys that cant stand even the slightest criticsm of apple that should calm down... ive been using apple since the apple 2e. just because you love your kids do you never admit their faults??
i stand corrected with the pearl's data connection, someone yesterday had one and told me it was 3g, they were wrong, i just googled it. but interestingly the fact that even fairly savy consumers dont know the difference illustrates a point someone else made about apple leaving it out as a business decision. i guess on that hand it makes sense, though it isnt good for us consumers at all.. its even a bit misleading... remember jobs called it 3g in his keynote, and a lot of peoploe will think it is... i guess its good for business but its annoying, like when apple puts a crappy graphincs card in one of their computers... most people dont notice but it sucks none the less
as far as the pearl 'trying to be a blackberry' what the hell is the difference?? in the beginning there were treos and blackberries, now there are winmo devices, and a few symbian ones, soon there will be iphones... they are all smartphones, dude... the target market for blackberries is the same as all the others, they are all phones, with multimedia functions, mp3 players, cameras, web browsers... your argument is like saying that its unfair to compare dell laptops with apple ones because they are trying to be completely different things... one may be better than the other, but that is exactly what 'comparison' is
Can you lay off the insults? I'm not a koolaid drinking fanboy and I haven't said that Apple can't be criticized.
Sheesh.
I think you might have misunderstood my point about the Blackjack and Blackberry Pearl though.
Yes, they are all smartphones, but the specific device functionality is different for each, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Just looking at the Blackberries alone, there is a pretty wide gulf in actual usability between something like the Blackberry 8800 and the Pearl, just due to the form factor and different type of keyboard.
And similarly, there is a significant difference between devices like the Blackjack and the Q running Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition, and something like, say, the Treo 750 or the Cingular 8525 running
These devices may all be smartphones, but there are a lot of differences in what their strengths are. The Blackberry is the epitome of a device aimed at e-mail, for example.
It's a reason why you have Blackberry-like devices like the Q and Blackjack running Windows Mobile Smartphone, and devices like the Treo 750 and Cingular 8525 and their full-fledged Windows Mobile OS.
This is really the fundamental point I'm trying to get at. A Blackberry and a Cingular 8525 may all have "e-mail" as a feature, but they aren't all equally good at it. And similarly, the Blackberry and the 8525 may both have web browsers, but they also aren't all equally good at it.
My point with the iPhone is that I don't think it is trying necessarily to compete head-on with devices like the Treo, the Blackberries, the Q, the Blackjack, etc.
There are things that each of these devices will do well, but not all for the same type of audience.
As it is, the strength of the iPhone will lie generally in its full screen multitouch interface (and this would also be its weakness, compared to the people who depend on blackberry-like keyboards for lots of text entry).
Really, I think the role of the iPhone is more to offer some "smartphone-like functionality" to people who don't actually want to deal with the ins and outs of the Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Blackberries, etc.
I don't think Apple is wholly off-base here.
If you look at the marketing for the Blackjack and the Treo 680, for example, they are aiming them largely at consumers; they're trying to sell the idea that these have more full featured capabilities than the typical cellphone someone might buy.
But I think that in reality, a Treo 680 for example has a lot of quirks, as does the Blackjack, the Q, etc........... they are fine for a certain audience, but for people who are interested in the ability to run more full featured e-mail and web browsing and music playing functions, it isn't necessarily the best platform.
The strength of these devices are definitely clear, but I don't think that the Blackberries and Treos and Q's of the world are highly suited for consumer use.
The role of the iPhone, I think, is to have a sort of hybrid - the more advanced functionality of "smartphones" but with a very slick and easy to use interface that wouldn't have the same kind of learning curve or issues that Palm OS, WinMob, etc. have.
The iPhone isn't necessarily supposed to get a hardcore Blackberry user to look at it and say "Oh, yes, this will suit all my needs". But I think it can attract someone who might be looking at a new phone, like the idea of mp3 playback, but find the music players on normal phones to be kind of limited, but also find the Treos and Q's to be a little more cumbersome UI and OS-wise than they want to deal with.
-Zadillo
