^^ And Apple's massively superior API, I don't know how it compares to RIM's but its certainly a vast improvement over Windows Mobile's API.
RIMs UI is basically a lot like Palm's UI except it required the use of a scroll wheel which doubles as a button. This was up to about 2 years ago. The concept is that you can totally operate the device with a single hand. As you scroll the wheel up and down, you change the selected icon on the screen. Press that scrolling wheel inward, and you execute that icon.
The BlackBerry also makes use of 4 other buttons. Key among them are an option button and a home button. The Home button is the same as Apple's Home button. It merely takes you back to the beginning. The Option button is where RIMs UI shows it's age. Once you select an application, such as email, and you decide you wish to compose an email, you use the Option key, or you can just press the scroll button at the top of the listed emails. In both cases, an email compose window will start. But imagine that the choices are merely a list of choices accessible in that Option key approach.
Say you are in a call, and another call comes through. You'd have to press the option button to see a list of choices in how to deal with that incoming call. Say you are in a ToDo Matrix, and you want to enter a new ToDo action item. You scroll to the ToDo icon, and press in the wheel. You are in the app now. Press the Option button and get a list of choices, one of which is to create a new item. Or you could use the scroll wheel to scroll to the bucket container of organized data and click on one of those items, which is again a shortcut to enter data for that item.
Basically, you live in a world where you scroll to select, press to execute, and hit option for choices. Always those three things. And Home to go back to the beginning.
In the days when no better design had been thought of, this was considered perfect. Or at least the best interface out there. But Apple has changed that. Apple's concept of the choices being married to the applications showing interface is a faster method to achieve the very same thing. But because the choices are simply there in front of you based on where you are and what you are doing, it makes using the application not only easier, but also faster.
As I said in a prior in email. I'm not someone talking about the BlackBerry out of ignorance. I have own a BlackBerry text pager, which is what they first started doing when they first starting building hardware. I later bought a BlackBerry fortified with Yahoo, which was their PDA before they married a phone to the PDA. And after they married the phone to the PDA, I had an Exchange Email Server with BlackBerry Enterprise Services and a BlackBerry 8800 first, then later a BlackBerry 8310. I'm a member of the BlackBerry forums, and I have said many very nice things about 3rd party software such as ToDoMatrix, DataVault, LexSpell, JiveTalk, and IM+ and many many more. I know the BlackBerry very well. So it's easy for me to talk about its strengths and lack thereof. What gets me are those BlackBerry users who barely try the iPhone and feel qualified to speak about it.
But this poster running around here saying BlackBerry apps are already out and therefor more real then yet to be released apps on the iPhone needs to seriously re-consider that lame position. There are already thousands of iPhone applications running on JailBroken iPhones right now. And they are far better than anything on the BlackBerry. Version 2.0 of the software is merely Apple legitimizing the platform by governing software. And the software is real. BlackBerry has NOTHING like what we saw from SalesForce.com. NOTHING!! I am simply blown away by BlackBerry owner's ability to dig little holes and hide their heads within them. They are acting like silly dumb animals that believe if they can't see it, it isn't really there. That's so beneath you guys.
The software for the iPhone is real. Deal with it. And it easily out-classes RIM in every way. It's not even an argument because you guys don't have an argument. You don't have the platform bold enough to argue this point. It's like telling me Palm's Treo is more powerful than a small laptop. It isn't. The two devices are in two different classes. The Iphone is next generation hardware and software. To suppose the BlackBerry is as powerful or more powerful is a ridiculous joke of a statement.
I'm reminded of Audible's comments on the BlackBerry forum when asked by me and others when we would get a good audible client. Audible basically said the RIM wasn't fast enough to handle Audible's client and it's been a challenge to get it working well on the platform. It's been in beta forever.
The music player, the video player, etc all outline how crude and lackluster the platform is. Oh but you BlackBerry uses will respond with silly comments like, it's a business tool, it's not meant to do that. Well, let me inform you gents. It's not a question of "meant". It's a question of "capability". Whether it was meant to do it or not, it's choking its guts out trying to do simple things like be a good media player. The interface for just playing simple MP3s is awful. And please, if you are going to tell me that Flipside is awesome, then you are clueless. Flipside is a lame application with seriously 1/100th of the feature-set of an iPod or the iPod app in the iPhone. It clearly shows the differences in classes between the iPhone and the BalckBerry. Quite frankly, pTunes on the Treo blows away any music app on the BlackBerry.
The best software on the BlackBerry is easily RexWireless's ToDo Matrix. It's pretty much the sole reason for debate that the platform has good software. Ascendo's DataVault is another good app. JiveTalk is a good app. WorldMate Live is a very good app for travelers. I was once stuck in 115 degree heat in Las Vegas when the airport itself lost all power. And it was WorldMate that I used to find my departing gate and time, and it got me the heck out of that misery. It's not a question of good software. BlackBerry has excellent software. It has great services, and it's reliable. But it's not in the same generation of hardware / software as the iPhone. It doesn't have a foundation as rich in capability as the iPhone. It's truly that simple. Apple sat down, and simply designed better, faster, easier to use hardware and software designed to do one thing. Beat RIM, Windows Mobile, and Palm in terms of hardware and software design and capability. And with an army of 200,000 developers they have in fact waged war. In a matter of mere months they are already the #2 player in smart phones.
So I ask, what planet are you guys on? One in three fortune 500 companies are testing the iPhone in their enterprise. Where is that rather nice dent of customers going to be taken from? Apple was never there. So it has to come from RIM, Palm, and Microsoft. RIM is the largest, so it makes sense they will take the largest hit. How is this even debatable?
Now if you RIM guys want to put your reputations where your mouths are, please stick around here for just one little year. Because I'll bet you in one year from today or less, RIM will be #2 and Apple will be #1.
Why? You had to see that March 6th event to understand. The quality of the software is so much better on the iPhone, that's it's simply an unfair race in my opinion. It's not even a question in my mind as to who will be on top. It's merely a matter of "When".
All I want to know is how many of you BlackBerry guys will be willing to come back here and tell me you were wrong. Wrong about the platform, wrong about the keyboard, and wrong and RIM's ability to create a device that competes with the iPhone. BOLD is nice, but not even an iPhone 1.0 competitor. And I'll bet you Thunder, if ever released is also not worthy of even the iPhone 1.0, let alone 2.0. And further more, I'd be willing to bet you right here and now that the Thunder is nothing but the same exact lame OS where the scroll wheel / track ball is removed, the keyboard is removed, and both are substituted for the touch screen. To be absolutely clear, all the brainiacs at RIM will do is replace the trackball with the touch screen and leave the concept of Options, Home, intact which defeats the purpose of the one-handed UI the option and home key makes sense for in the RIM UI. And "When" they do that, you will see the proof of what I am saying right now. That RIM is clueless. They see the iPhone and think that all it is, is a touch screen device. That's shallow and stupid non-thinking. If they can't honestly see that's it much more than that, then you guys are about to have some serious marketshare losses.
Alex Alexzander
