Blackberry convert - what I miss...and love

[alent1234]

Comparing my iPhone 3G to my BB Tour;

I prefer the BB keyboard but can easily live with the 3G touch screen
I love the BB LED notifier
Mobile Safari is superior to anything on the BB but Bolt at least makes it usable.
Threaded text messaging on the iPhone is better but the BB has BB Messenger.
I wish the iPhone could run background Apps.
No comparison the iPhone syncs with my macs, the BB sync is barely adequate.
Camera, BB has flash. I actually use this feature and I wish my iPhone had it.

To me it came down to carriers, AT&T was lacking, while Sprint has better coverage here and 3G where with AT&T I was limited to EDGE.

I may get another iPhone but for now the BB just fits ME better.

i've been to places where the EDGE is just as fast as 3G. a lot of it depends on the number of users in the area and the link to the backbone network.

go to the AT&T or Apple store and ask them to install Xtreme speedtest on an iphone and check out the speed. BoyGeniusreport did an informal survey and the average was around 1200kbs for AT&T and a little slower for Verizon

 

[alent1234]

Here's a small tip for gmail users: use the gmail mobile browser interface instead of the iPhone mail app. Yes, this does require an internet connection (and only works with one gmail account), but you can do a lot more from the browser interface, like archiving, labeling, threaded conversation viewing, etc., etc..

(And, if you want "push", you can either pay for nuevasync, or you can use gmail filters to forward mail to any push account -- you just have to read/reply using the gmail account, and not the push account.)

what about configuring gmail as an imap account on your iphone?

 

[Blueline29]

The blackberry keyboard will always be faster. I'm an extremely fast typer and while the iphone is actually acceptable, to say that you can be faster on the BB is not true.

Uh, yes, it can be true. I'm probably 75% faster with 1/1000th the typos on the iPhone than I *ever* was on my Bold. And I was pretty damn fast on the Bold. Sure, it took a little adaptation to get used to the virtual keyboard, but now that I have, I can't imagine going back to the teeny BB keys.

 

[jayenh]

OP here - allow me to ammend my "not up for debate" comment. It's strikingly obvious that it's up for debate. How that's possible is beyond me, but I admit - there seems to be a fair number of people who can type faster on an iPhone than a Blackberry.

you'll be one of them when you give it time. once you realise that you don't need to be accurate and that a light tap of the screen in the general area of the key you want is all it takes you'll be typing away pretty fast. i use 2 thumbs in portrait mode and rarely make mistakes. i could never go back to a physical keyboard, and at the same time i could never use a touch keyboard that isn't as clever or responsive as the iphones, so i guess i'm stuck with the iphone for now, and i don't mind that.

 

[AppleFan360]

The inified e-mail box is something I've always wondered why Apple didn't do on the iPhone. It's available in Leopard on the Mac. Go figure.

I do disagree with typing speed. Once you get the hang of it, typing on the iPhone is very fast.

 

[AMessy]

i've been to places where the EDGE is just as fast as 3G. a lot of it depends on the number of users in the area and the link to the backbone network.

That may be true, and I was happy with the EDGE speed when I first got my iPhone. The problem was I then spent time in areas where I had 3G coverage which was noticably faster than what I had in my home area on EDGE and I got spoiled.

 

[Goodeye]

Ya I have had a iPod touch so I am familer mostly with the iPhone (since I had everything sans phone)

But I am a blackberry user who will be getting an iPhone next week (my work is doing employee discounts with ATT and iPhone is free for us if we switch within the next month.

I think I will miss a lot that I had on the blackberry but there is so much I can do with the iPhone I can't wait!

 

[TLewis]

what about configuring gmail as an imap account on your iphone?

Well, if you use the iPhone's mail app, I think IMAP's an absolute must. These days, it generally doesn't make sense to use POP3 any more; until something better comes out, IMAP's the way to go.

However, the problem here is not with IMAP (which is great), but with Apple's minimally-featured mail app. For example, with the mail app:

• You don't have threaded conversations.
  
  
• You can't easily archive.
  
  
• You can't select one or more messages and apply a label to them.
  
  
• For that matter, you can't apply multiple labels to messages.
  
  
• You can't report a message as spam.

You get all of the above with the gmail web app.