BlackBerry users's iPhone-hating obsession = inferiority complex?

[surferfromuk]

I'd like to think so, but since it's over a year with still no sight of copy and paste I'm a bit sceptical.

Phone's only been out a year. It had to start from nothing - and it's already leading the way...I'm not sure why there is no cut and paste - I can only imagine it's a deliberate ommision - perhaps they don't want to clutter the UI - I don't know but it's turning into one of those 'it's got no task manager therefore it's not complete' type of beating sticks that certain people like to keep slapping about as if to proof that the iPhone is somehow inadequate. I can honestly say I've personally never needed to cut and paste on the phone. I certainly have NEVER even contemplated it on another phone so why it's such a crisis on the iPhone I don't know...seems like Windows users are using it as some kind of 'crisis deficiency' in an effort to sway people who will seriously NEVER need to cut and paste from buying an iPhone. It's like old fashioned Windows PR FUD...

I mean tell me so I know - what would you want to cut and paste on an iPhone ?

 

[Niiro13]

I don't know but it's turning into one of those 'it's got no task manager therefore it's not complete' type of beating sticks that certain people like to keep slapping about as if to proof that the iPhone is somehow inadequate.

Those certain people don't understand the push concept (which is like eleventy times better ). Then again, it doesn't come until September =/

 

[tomegun]

Both are great devices and both work for some people. I have a curve right now until the iPhone comes out and I like it a lot. However, for my personal use, the iPhone will be better (two cars with iPod adapters).

At least neither one of them are WM! I had a Sprint Touch and the only thing I miss about it is the form factor. Other than that, it was a pain in the butt to work with something that is so erratic.

Oh, I know what I wanted to say. The battery on the Curve is unreal. That is the most shocking part of using a BB.

 

[BongoBanger]

Phone's only been out a year. It had to start from nothing - and it's already leading the way...

In some features, yes. In others it's way, way behind.

I'm not sure why there is no cut and paste - I can only imagine it's a deliberate ommision - perhaps they don't want to clutter the UI - I don't know but it's turning into one of those 'it's got no task manager therefore it's not complete' type of beating sticks that certain people like to keep slapping about as if to proof that the iPhone is somehow inadequate.

Well, not really. If the iPhone wants to be considered as a corporate device it's going to have to have a cut and paste facility to edit e-mails, extract text and send it on.

I can honestly say I've personally never needed to cut and paste on the phone.

It's rare that a personal user would actually have to. I've used it on my N95 for N-Gage activation codes and to cut bits out of texts but I guess not everyone would.

I certainly have NEVER even contemplated it on another phone so why it's such a crisis on the iPhone I don't know...

Well it is a big let down for business use. It's just an inexplicable omission.

seems like Windows users are using it as some kind of 'crisis deficiency' in an effort to sway people who will seriously NEVER need to cut and paste from buying an iPhone. It's like old fashioned Windows PR FUD...

In fairness a lot of WinMo users are corporate and it is a valid concern for that market.

I mean tell me so I know - what would you want to cut and paste on an iPhone ?

E-mails mainly.

 

[weg]

So over the last month I regularly visited and read posts on a couple of the big BB forums (e.g., pinstack.com).

It's just fanboyism. Go to Engadget, find a few posts about Windows Mobile 7 or something like that, and look at all the posts of Apple fanboys immediately stating that the iPhone is much better... (of course, there are Microsoft fanboys, too, but they are usually less preposterous).

The BB might be better for certain applications, and there are other applications where an iPhone is the better choice. Who cares? Just buy what you need. If you need to convince other people that you made the right choice (looking for reassurance), then you're probably not so sure about that after all. That goes for BB fanboys as well as for Apple fanboys.

 

[mixmacface]

we don't hate them, we petty them, they are missing out on sooooooo much.apple

i think you mean pitty. . but this is a ridiculous argument. . those who are faithful to apple will with all their might swear by apple's products. those who do not like apple (who actually despise) them will try and take apple down at the "knees". it's a silly argument, and nobody will win. . and somebody will always re-ignite the fire.

and on a lighter note, i just had some amazing brownies. they were absolutely fantastic.

 

[179202]

i think you mean pitty. . but this is a ridiculous argument. . those who are faithful to apple will with all their might swear by apple's products. those who do not like apple (who actually despise) them will try and take apple down at the "knees". it's a silly argument, and nobody will win. . and somebody will always re-ignite the fire.

and on a lighter note, i just had some amazing brownies. they were absolutely fantastic.

...No they weren't.
(I was reading this argument thread and thought I'd jump in...we're talking about whose brownies are better right?)

Cut n paste: It will come soon enough. There have been many reports that they are figuring out how to implement it system-wide without creating clutter is the problem.
The iPhone was behind in many respects, but when the 3G was announced (along with software 2.0), the list of features to add went down hugely. Except for a better camera and storage (which will come in time, tech permitting), all the omissions are purely software based. This is a great thing!

 

[Kinderhauz]

After looking at blackberryforums I found some pretty funny stuff. This one is my favorite:

-The iPhone offers nothing (enterprise feature wise) above and beyond what a Blackberry can do. Organizations with a Blackberry infrastructure already paid for aren't going to switch to something that doesn't improve on anything just to use iPhones (believe it or not most companies would prefer their employees not have great web access on the road)

Wouldn't that be a great commercial for Blackberry?

"Buy our phone -- because the internet looks like **** on it, and your employees will spend more time doing work instead of surfing the web"

 

[surferfromuk]

I find it bizarre how certain people disregard everything amazing about the iPhone and just bleat on about cut and paste resorting to fanboyism claims when logic runs dry. Fact is when it comes they will just start bleating about something else because they simply will never be happy with what they have. Funny how calls of fanboyism only come into play when microsoft products are in the topic and the allegation is always from the microsoft camp. Bottom line - they hate that Apple inspires such admiration - it's bad for their business.

 

[marksman]

"Buy Blackberry for your company. Especially if you don't want your employees surfing the web. We employ advanced web-blocking technology. With our special UI, we are able to make web-browsing so painful and agnoizing, that no sane employee of yours will waste their time at work or at home mindlessly surfing the web. This means higher productivity for you."

 

[BongoBanger]

To be fair internet browsing is way, way down on the list of requirements for a corporate smartphone and, as a manager myslef, I can totally understand why you wouldn't want your employess to have a good browser!

 

[Agathon]

An interesting thread. I don't think that Blackberry users have much to worry about in the short term, since the corporate world is pretty conservative and people tend to stay with what they know.

Having said that, and having read some of the posts on Crackberry.com, I think they are scared witless. All this stuff about copy and paste and MMS is a mere smokescreen.

-----
Pause: I doubt the iPhone will get copy/paste because it would violate the UI conventions. The iPhone treats things like phone numbers, URLs, contacts, etc. as objects, not as pieces of text. The iPhone will more likely rely on a send object to app model than copy/paste. End pause.
-----

What really scares Blackberry users is that the iPhone is a game changing device. As I've said a million times, it isn't a phone – it's a portable computing platform that happens to have a phone in it. You can even buy one without a phone if you want.

You may have noticed that other mobile phone platforms run on wildly different kinds of hardware. Some of them are candy bar phones, some have full keyboards and so on. This makes it really difficult for developers to standardize user interaction across different devices. Every developer is going to know exactly how their app is going to work on every iPhone.

Platforms like Windows and Macintosh rely on everyone having the same kind of screen and a mouse and a keyboard. Mobile phones are littered with buttons and all sorts of different hardware UIs. Successful platforms require UI standardization. The iPhone has that by basically eliminating buttons.

The iPhone has a much more versatile UI. This is the whole point of getting rid of the buttons. It is what makes it a computer that happens to have a phone in it rather than a phone that has some computer functionality.

Lastly, from what developers are saying, the iPhone has a much better SDK than other devices.

Look at it this way. If there's one thing that the iPhone has over its competitors, it is the browser. But the browser is just one application. In six months there are going to be a whole host of applications, all of them a click away and many of them free, which will be desktop class applications.

Or look at it another way. You will be able to play a pretty nice version of Super Monkey Ball on your phone. So what if you don't like Super Monkey Ball? That's not the point. You try playing Super Monkey Ball on a Blackberry Pearl, and then you realize that a phone that can run an app like Super Monkey Ball and phone apps and browsers and multimedia, can basically do anything.

Ask yourself who would want to buy a computer that was only good for reading email or crude browsing when you could buy a computer that could do those things and was so versatile that it could do pretty much anything.

Apple has made a nice phone with a cool touchscreen interface. If you leave it at that, then there isn't much for other companies to worry about. But the nice phone with the touchscreen happens to be a pretty awesome standardized platform for third party developers with extremely low entry barriers.

Lest this be thought of as wildly promoting Apple at the expense of other manufacturers, just take a look at Google. Android is going to be the major iPhone competitor, because Google knows that it's the software. Microsoft knows this too, but they have spent years on Windows Mobile, which has simply failed to attract any real attention.

 

[littlewaywelt]

I think what you like to refer to fanboy-sim is rather an apple-esque point of view. The things you consider advantages and positives I consider disadvantages and negatives. This is the fundamental crux of the differences between Microsoft s/w philosophy and Apple s/w philosophy. If your expecting the iPhone to become like a Windows mobile your buying the wrong phone. It will never be like WinMo ( which I have used). I'd seriously re-consider the reasons your buying this phone because I'm not sure it's for you..you seem to have missed the entire point of it...

1) Task Manager is the anti-thesis of what the iPhone is about. Apple have and are going to great lengths to make the iPhone a one app at a time environment. This is why they are implementing a push notification service so that ever notification orientated application on your phone doesn't have it's own little sniffer process running in the background. I assure you the vast majority of non-technical people do not want to and never will want to go into a task manager if intelligent design can render it irrelevant. I can't think of a single good reason to need to go into a task manager. The home button on the iPhone is even smart enough to be the quit. That's revolutionary design at work. The only reason you ever need to go into a task manager is to kill a hung process or hunt down and kill a hung process.
2) Accessing web pages is a one click deal - you simply add the home page to the main screen - you get an icon - it launches safari and goes to that place on the web page.
3) I don't understand your obsession with 'clicks' - as if they are some kind of measure of perfection. I can quite easily access any app on my iphone with a single click. And each of those apps is beautifully and intelligently designed for multi-touch experience that is staggeringly unmatched in any way on Winmo ( which I have used and found it to be a nasty replicant mutant version of windows transferred to a portable device). Speed dialing is three click if you include the slide to unlock the phone -hardly a UI crisis - the trade off being you haven't cluttered your open screen with endless crap - meaning you can easily see all your major apps after that first slide - I think it's a BETTER way.
4) Youtube experience on iPhone is not perfect by any means but the hi-res copies make up for a lot.
5) Again you suggest that having access to the registry is some kind of pre-requisite to running your phone. If you want to mod your iphone there are apps like summerboard and there will be plenty of others. Registry is nonsense and the bane of windows since it's not exactly secure is it!
6) I know all about SD cards - I just rarely feel the need to use them. I jack in and my images are automatically copied to iPhoto -which I consider one of the finest photo management apps I've ever used and certainly significantly better than all the crap that comes with any camera. As for any other file copy - I've never needed of felt the need to do it on my phone.
7) Voice search is a seriously subjective technology. It's useless in a noisy environment and it's wierd to be talking to your phone in a room with other people in it...not convinced about that - certainly I've had it on other phones and have never used it..It's a gimmick
8) Number of programs on the app store - well, it's a bit early to make such wide sweeping statements - I think the hardware power of the iPhone and it's 3D hardware graphics acceleration together with the accelerometer and the MT UI will herald some amazing apps and becuase the UI has been systemised by the SDK we will get a uniformity of experience and operational expectation without crappy file menu's...
9) Why would you text someone to tell them your unavailable - seems like a rude thing to do...can't you just ignore them or reply ?

I really don't understand why your getting an iPhone...

Getting an iphone so that I can have wireless syncing of address book and calendar. I'm not bashing it, but rather acknowledging that other devices out there have a lot of superior features The iPhone while amazing does a lot of things that other phones have done for years, but without the iconic apple brand (and everything it deservedly signifies) behind them, they were never recognized. Imho, most power users of WM and to some extent BB laugh when they see iPhones exulted as revolutionary devices. The user interface is. Other than that they aren't.

Don't get me wrong, I'm terribly excited to get one.

1- this was the problem with palm os. I can easily switch between multiple apps without relaunching or closing files. I can put someone on speakerphone and check a spreadsheet or file and make appnts or call notes at the same time I'm talking to that person. It's like being at a desktop...sort of.
2- good to know.
3- it's not an obession, it's about easy of use. A WM device is fast and efficient. Ex- if I want to call my wife I can power the phone on and either hit the speeddial picture or use the dpad, again all with one hand. To delete an email I just have to hold the center button and a menu pops up with delete at the top; then I just click the center button again. I don't have to sweep my finger to the right and then hit another button.
4- I'm not a big youtube user and I'm sure the mobile version will be more than sufficient for me
5- registry edits are very nice for customzing. It's plenty secure. There are probably as many WM viruses as there are for mac. You don't need virus checker or anything similar. I've never seen a single person get hit with a WM virus. Being able to easily edit the registry is nice for those who want to do it. Many power users have come up with some great edits.
6- I use iPhoto too, and I like it. But when out in the field, I can take pics in my camera and pop the card into a phone and email them instantly. That's a big plus for many ppl.
7- on the voice search works exceptionally well. It's not a gimick. It's actually useful. I've used previous incarnations and the current MS version works heads and tails above anything else I've tried. When I'm driving I can do the whole thing without having to use the keypad which I suspect would be even more difficult an iPhone which I understand usually requires two hands.
8- I agree. I think apps I the iPhone will be much nicer, but it's going to take a while for the offering to be similar in depth.
9- because if I'm in a mtg the phone tells them so and that I'll call them back as soon as I can. Let's them instantly know when they call. It's a phenomenal feature that's quite the opposite of rude.

I'

 

[surferfromuk]

Getting an iphone so that I can have wireless syncing of address book and calendar. I'm not bashing it, but rather acknowledging that other devices out there have a lot of superior features The iPhone while amazing does a lot of things that other phones have done for years, but without the iconic apple brand (and everything it deservedly signifies) behind them, they were never recognized. Imho, most power users of WM and to some extent BB laugh when they see iPhones exulted as revolutionary devices. The user interface is. Other than that they aren't.

Don't get me wrong, I'm terribly excited to get one.

1- this was the problem with palm os. I can easily switch between multiple apps without relaunching or closing files. I can put someone on speakerphone and check a spreadsheet or file and make appnts or call notes at the same time I'm talking to that person. It's like being at a desktop...sort of.
2- good to know.
3- it's not an obession, it's about easy of use. A WM device is fast and efficient. Ex- if I want to call my wife I can power the phone on and either hit the speeddial picture or use the dpad, again all with one hand. To delete an email I just have to hold the center button and a menu pops up with delete at the top; then I just click the center button again. I don't have to sweep my finger to the right and then hit another button.
4- I'm not a big youtube user and I'm sure the mobile version will be more than sufficient for me
5- registry edits are very nice for customzing. It's plenty secure. There are probably as many WM viruses as there are for mac. You don't need virus checker or anything similar. I've never seen a single person get hit with a WM virus. Being able to easily edit the registry is nice for those who want to do it. Many power users have come up with some great edits.
6- I use iPhoto too, and I like it. But when out in the field, I can take pics in my camera and pop the card into a phone and email them instantly. That's a big plus for many ppl.
7- on the voice search works exceptionally well. It's not a gimick. It's actually useful. I've used previous incarnations and the current MS version works heads and tails above anything else I've tried. When I'm driving I can do the whole thing without having to use the keypad which I suspect would be even more difficult an iPhone which I understand usually requires two hands.
8- I agree. I think apps I the iPhone will be much nicer, but it's going to take a while for the offering to be similar in depth.
9- because if I'm in a mtg the phone tells them so and that I'll call them back as soon as I can. Let's them instantly know when they call. It's a phenomenal feature that's quite the opposite of rude.

I'

Fair enough - You raise some reasonable points - There are a few things here which you might like to know about. ;

1) Cool - well you'll be pleased to know you can do the exact same thing on the iPhone. When in a call you can click the home button go into your email and do all that stuff. The iPhone paints a small green bar at the top of the screen and if you touch it you return to the phone app. Same with the built in iPod - you can go off and do other stuff while that's playing music etc...
3) I think you'll find the iPhone as fast if not faster once you get into it. Hidden pop up menu's are inelegant IMO.
5) There are NO Mac viruses and I certainly don't expect their to be any iPhone apps given the secure signed method of app delivery.
6) Fair enough. I can see where your going with that...Seems quite specialised given you have a phone with a camera which can email your photo without the carry on with an SD card...I don't think too many people will be using their iPhone to jack in a 5MB picture from their SD card to email it..
7) In the Car to initiate a call I can agree - elsewhere I can't see it. However, someone will do a voice call app within a few weeks.
9) Fair enough, still you can record a custom voicemail greeting which says 'Sorry, I'm in a meeting right now. Will call you back as soon as I can'...Then the call goes onto Visual Voicemail - you can see who it is when your meetings done and make a decision to call them all from the visual voicemail screen - very elegant - very easy - very efficient. Texting is like second class post - if it was that important they would ring so no biggy for them to wait an hour for a reply...

I think, for the most part you'll be surprised at the depth of the iPhone once you get into it. The really clever part of it being that they've managed to hid a lot of the complexity without compromising anything significant.

 

[stagi]

the people on those forums are just haters

 

[born4sky]

Personally I cant wait to get iPhone back to my hands, first generation went on eBay. Right now using nokia n95 and can't say that I am enjoying it.

 

[Shackler]

the people on those forums are just haters

too much haterade on this site and blackberry sites.
E.L.E!
Everybody Love Everybody

 

[PhightinPhils26]

too much haterade on this site and blackberry sites.
E.L.E!
Everybody Love Everybody

I bet if there were cell phones then Jackie Moon would have had both a BlackBerry and an iPhone.

 

[freediverdude]

Well, I think Blackberry is going to become less and less relevant, but not because of the differences between the phones themselves (although the niceness of the iPhone will speed that along).

The problem with Blackberry, like another poster was talking about, is the need for the Blackberry enterprise server, and the fact that all the Blackberry traffic must go through that one single location in Canada. Back in 2000-2005 or so, Blackberry was pretty much the only option for business executives to get reliable work email on a portable device. But with the advent of Windows Mobile and Activesync, and now the iPhone licensing Activesync as well, it will become much much cheaper for IT departments to go with this solution, over an expensive and harder to configure separate Blackberry server. And if Blackberry's Canada location goes down, like we've seen a couple examples of recently, huge numbers of Blackberry users all over the country are suddenly dead in the water, versus if you have some Exchange servers in your business and one goes down, not everyone is down.

So expect that as licensing agreements come up for renewal, and Blackberry servers reach their end-of-life in the next few years, which are they going to pick? Go with the huge Blackberry deal again, or go for what is cheaper and simpler? In my opinion, for Blackberry to stay relevant after the next few years, they will need to completely restructure how their product works, not just come out with a touchscreen phone.

 

[zap2]

To be fair internet browsing is way, way down on the list of requirements for a corporate smartphone and, as a manager myslef, I can totally understand why you wouldn't want your employess to have a good browser!

How is that "being fair"?

If the iPhone had a bad browser people would be all over it as its a terrible device.....having a bad web experience is NOT a plus, not matter how anyone tries to play it off. Nor is lacking copy and paste features. Both RIM and Apple have places to improve, and they need to do so.

 

[brian250]

To me the iPhone is the future of the phone. Jobs made statements like "Today apple re-invents the phone" 12 months ago. I think on that day he may have overstepped the mark a little bit. The hone he launched was a fairly average piece of kit, with fantastic potential. The launch of 3G/2.0 is somehting that will reinvent the iPhone all over again, the flexibility, ability and usibility of iPhone is totally unmatched at present.

The interface on the Blackberry is incredibly user unfriendly, but "ok when you get used to it". By contrast someone was doing something with my iPhone and exclaimed "oh my God I thought it would do that when I did this and it did it!! its amazing!"
When I took mine out of the box, I thought "there is iPhone and everything else, nothing else comes close to this, why have I been messing with buttons for the past decade?"

Oh, and looking at the touch attempts from Samsung and LG.....apple must be absolutely wetting themselves, they are bloody awful!

Brian.

 

[JPIndustrie]

How is that "being fair"?

If the iPhone had a bad browser people would be all over it as its a terrible device.....having a bad web experience is NOT a plus, not matter how anyone tries to play it off. Nor is lacking copy and paste features. Both RIM and Apple have places to improve, and they need to do so.

He means in a corporate environment, not a personal use device.

And that is 'Fair'. Fair in that everyone will have the same tools available when working for company A that employs Blackberries as de facto handheld given to its mobile employees.

I know that sounds like communism but hey, ever heard your teacher say, 'outside the classroom, it's a democracy, but inside the room, I'm the boss!" ? That's the corporate world.

Plus, we in IT don't want to hear from your managers telling us you missed an important quote or binder, simply because you were too busy browsing on Macrumors.

 

[iNikon]

Good Lord people, listen to yourselves. It's a freakin' PHONE! A PHONE!

Do you people live your lives out of this phone? Do any of you actually get laid at all? I seriously wonder when I read posts like this.

"OMFG tehy r soooo jealussss"

"OMG!!!! Did NE ov U C teh screen? It suxors!!!"


Get a grip people.

 

[Sasha-1]

3 words

Blackberry is dead.

 

[tsice19]

Oh the irony.

Apple users are of course so well known for being open minded to competing products

I think you just won the internet.