Why I switched to a BlackBerry, and I'm not coming back

[shakenmartini]

EDIT: Forgot to mention. Two good friends of mine do statistical analysis, and programming. Both use Macs; one a Mac Pro, and the other a MBP/15". The latter does a number of development projects, and swears by Mac, and OS X due to UNIX AND the stability/robustness of the MBP. I'll be sure to tell them that they're doing child's work, and to get rid of those toys and get a Vista box...LMAO...

Now that Unix companies like SGI are no longer selling workstations or our of business, Mac Pro's are about the best option if you also need MS office compatiblity. Linux is the next best thing, but lacks MS Office (OpenOffice.org is getting better, but is still not quite there).

Unless you can unbox your machine, download a tarball (or better yet, write it yourself), open up terminal and type make to build an analysis program, you are not doing real computing.

Can you run ruby and Perl without downloading an interpreter on Windows? Nope. How can you do serious sys admin without Perl?

Again, OSX is a great compromise between having desktop apps and the power of Unix underneath.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

well we are pretty far off topic.

I think the best way to look at this is for the most part Windows VS OSX for the most part they can cover most needs. But OSX does have one draw back that windows does not. I can not think of any software out there that is for OSX only that there is not a windows equilant that is close enough and could do the same thing.

But I can think of quite a bit of software for windows that there is NO OSX equivalent t or any OSX software that comes close to doing what the windows software can do. Now mind you the software I am thinking of is very specialized and only used in a handful of industries and most people here will never of heard of any of it. But like I said those pieces of software have a very small market out there any how.

Now back on topic can we get back to BB vs iPhone.

 

[xraydoc]

This thread is getting a little off topic, so I thought I'd try to bring it back...

I have just ordered a Verizon BlackBerry Tour. Its not that I don't like my iPhone. I love it, actually. And I'm going to keep it - much to my wife's displeasure at (yet another) cellphone bill. But I can't stand AT&T any more. When I'm in a place with 5-bars of signal yet can't keep a call from dropping, I've got to do the sensible thing and give up.

I'll keep the iPhone since it does everything else I need - a good mobile browser, tight integration with Mac OS X's iCal and Address Book, excellent (in my experience) syncing with MobileMe, etc., plus its a great iPod and the offerings on the iTunes app store can't be beat.

But it looks like I need another carrier's device to get a functional phone around here and other places I frequently go (including New York, where you think AT&T's service would be second to none).

And since I can't stand Windows Mobile devices, and since I'm a smartphone kind of guy, its BlackBerry for me. The Curve is ancient and the reviews of the Storm are so bad I'm not even going to bother. So it looks like the Tour is going to be one of the better BlackBerry phones available. Smaller than the Bold but with similar keyboard, same resolution screen as the Storm and more RAM.

And it'll be supported by a carrier that actually has service where I need it... like indoors, damn it!

Additionally - and this wasn't the critical factor but doesn't hurt - my workplace's email integrates with the BlackBerry Enterprise services, something they don't offer for the iPhone.

Guess my pockets will both be full and empty at the same time...

 

[synenergy52]

Not only Blackberry Messenger, but every other IM app. Namely, Beejive. It just stays on 24/7 on my Blackberry. You cannot reliably chat on an iPhone. Don't even go there.

I have the Blackberry 9000 and 2G iPhone

Always on IM BBM? Really? Who uses that other than other BB users?

 

[Etnies419]

Not only Blackberry Messenger, but every other IM app. Namely, Beejive. It just stays on 24/7 on my Blackberry. You cannot reliably chat on an iPhone. Don't even go there.

I have the Blackberry 9000 and 2G iPhone

I have been reliably chatting with BeejiveIM on my iPhone since the app first came out. Granted, the pseudo-push wasn't the best way of notifications, but they were the only ones available at the time. I still was able to get messages as soon as someone sent them and chat with them.

With 3.0, I can chat even better. I stay connected, and I don't have to worry about being signed out, unless I stay out of the app for more than 24 hours. If for some reason I get disconnected, I get a push message. Plus, I'm jailbroken with GRiP installed, so I've got better notifications than the default "HEY LOOK AT ME" notifications. I have not missed a single conversation since having Beejive 3.0.

 

[Stunod7]

Not only Blackberry Messenger, but every other IM app. Namely, Beejive. It just stays on 24/7 on my Blackberry. You cannot reliably chat on an iPhone. Don't even go there.

I have the Blackberry 9000 and 2G iPhone

Can't argue... I turned on AIM push today and I found it kind of... Annoying. For some reason when I would IM on my BB 8820 it seemed more integrated into the flow of messaging. Here it seems like some kind of tacky addon.

 

[okrelayer]

I have not read this entire thread, but with mostly everyone having a cell phone with sms nowadays, why dont you guys just SMS eachother instead of useing aim on both of your mobile devices to chat

 

[Zwhaler]

As a teenage kid who uses an iPhone, I've got to say that my number one gripe with the Blackberry is that I feel like the general user interface is not up to par with the iPhone. And though many points have been made about performance differences between the two, I still believe that the iPhone's attractiveness to, say, the first time smartphone user is far superior to that of the Blackberry. To the average user that is (there's a couple million of us now, ya know.)

...pwnage...

You get em sushi