To iPhone, or Not to iPhone

Brian  

So the iPhone 3G has been out for a while now. There was no way in heck I was going to pay for iPhone v1, but v2 looks pretty cool and had most of the features I thought were missing from v1, and it’s at a somewhat more realistic price point for me because I’m already paying for a data plan with T-Mobile.

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However, I’m still waiting, because I’m still not sold. Back in February, I snagged a Blackberry Curve for $50 as I upgraded to a data plan and business line for Duce Enterprises. Also, that damn asterisk you see in this picture just annoys me…it’s “half the price,” yet more expensive…wtf!

Reports about overheating, unfair (and illegal?) advertising, poor developer interactions, and more, are a bit worrisome.

Ahh, but do the pros outweigh the cons?

PROS:

  • I can’t get Evernote on my blackberry in app form, and it is quickly becoming my all-in-everything note-taking, to do list productivity and idea tool.
  • how cool is the iPhone? it’s a design and usability masterpiece.
  • visual voicemail
  • App Store
  • MLB Live Scores and Video Highlights
  • Fast 3G browsing (even if intermittently)

CONS:

  • price
  • buggy?
  • poor 3G coverage?

Do we hold the iPhone to another standard? I mean, even at it’s current median rating of about a 7/10, it still kicks the Curve’s ass in functionality. It’s really like the iPhone gets a 12/15 because it’s on a different scale entirely.

My Curve is slow, I get a lot of hourglass activity. It’s on EDGE, which is slower. It has no memory – I added a 1GB MicroSD card and I still have to clean up my files and photos on this damn thing every week or I’ll miss a text message because I have no available memory, and they get lost in the air. 16GB iPhone, here I come – all my music, some of my photos, videos, podcasts, videocasts, and more…all in one mini-computer that happens to also be a phone.

I do enjoy Facebook, ESPN and Gmail on my Curve, but I’m missing out on Facebook, MLB and Mail on an iPhone, among other things.

So, the dilemma I have is, while the iPhone is a marvel, and I’m absolutely sure it would increase my mobile productivity a little bit, is it worth the hassle of a new number, an eBay transaction for the Curve, and a two-year contract with *puke* AT&T?

Help me decide, my fellow techies and smart-phone users! Throw an argument either way…but make it a good one. I’ll start with the announcement of the Android phone on T-Mobile. Since I’m already a T-Mobile customer, I could wait for that and hope it comes close to the iPhone…hmmm.

4 thoughts on “To iPhone, or Not to iPhone

  1. I’ve had an iPhone for almost a year and upgraded to 3G a couple of weeks ago. I’ve also had a blackberry. There is no comparison. Apple has managed to come as close to putting a laptop in your pocket as is technically possible. Bulleted feature lists are one thing but differintiates the iPhone (and all Apple products) is the “how”. The iPhone is so well done, it’s “features” just fall out in your hand. You’ll actually use everthing it has to offer without having to learn how to do it.

    This “phone” strikes me more as a computer that also makes phone calls. The integration of contacts, calendar, email, instant messaging, SMS, voice calls and web browsing is amazing. As a small example, I got your Twitter message through a Twitter app on my phone, touched the link in the message, read your post and am now writting this all on my iPhone.

    I haven’t experienced any of the cons you listed myself but I’m enjoying the hell out of the pro’s every day. If you decide to get one, I think you’ll find it’s not a better smart phone but a whole new class of device closer to a full blown computer than anything else.

  2. Went to the AT&T store today to play with one. I’m still stuck on the keyboard. Since I use a blackberry at work and I have one for my startup, I’m really used to the qwerty, tactile keys…I know most people get used to the on screen touch, but I wonder how challenging it will be for me to, 1, go back and forth between an iphone and my work BB, and 2, to be anywhere near as fast on it as I am on the BB.

    Thanks for the feedback Russ…much appreciated.

  3. You know what I’m going to tell you.

    I wholly agree with Russ. I’m marking up PDFs with my freaking phone. I’m more available on Facebook than ever before. I’m posting a lot more pictures to my family site taken with the iPHone because of the apps. It’s not the “phone” — it’s the apps. Period. I didn’t understand why I’d need Evernote — until I could take snapshots of documents and upload them from the phone and have Evernote perform its OCR magic. I’m still blown away by the magic of it all.

    Quit the bitchin’ and jump on board. I have a workaround for your Google Calendars and it’s not like the world needs to know of your calendar updates AS you make them.

    I’m synching tasks with the cloud with ToDo and RTM.

    It’s just freaking magical, and with the iPhone Admin skin, you can admin this very blog with your iPHone — fully featured. You could do it anyway because it has a real browser, but now it can even be optimized.

    Do it. Then with Twinkle, you can not only know what my sandwich is like — you’ll know where I’m tweeting about it, too.

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