Thursday, January 22, 2009

Why I Hate the iPhone!

There are those of you out there who are excited to see the title of this post. Some of you, maybe not so much.

To all those iPhone users out there let me say this.

I hate your phone and everything it stands for.

I have had a BlackBerry for quite some time now. It does everything.

Let me take you through a typical day with my BlackBerry.

7am: My BlackBerry's alarm wakes me up. I hit snooze for about 20 minutes.

7:30am: 1 of the 4 different e-mail addresses alerts me to today's headlines delivered from the New York Times mobile site.

8:30am: I am in the car to work. My BlackBerry's charging and it resting for the long day ahead. If inspiration hits me, the voice recorder is there to capture my thoughts.

9:00am: Work e-mails start to trickle in. By 9:30am I have 42 unread e-mails in my Corporate e-mail box. I delete the stupid ones and the forwards of forwards and respond to 3 important e-mails. New product launches, sales updates, and action plans. All of this before I step foot into the office.

10:30am: My BB messenger wakes up. My wife is telling me she is on her way to work and to have a nice day. I respond back.

12pm: I have answered 30 e-mails already and I haven't logged into my computer at work yet. I have sold 2 BlackBerrys in the morning just by using it at work.

1pm: Lunch. I sit down at lunch, turn on some tunes and log into my RSS reader [Viigo] and check for blog updates. 3 new blogs to read. I read them all. Then check on the headlines on CNN mobile and New York Times Mobile. Both have BlackBerry quick launchers

2pm: 3 facebook messages come in. 1 myspace message. I ignore them and wait to get off to answer those.

3pm: My BlackBerry calander tells me that I have a conference call in 30 minutes.

5pm: I hang up my BlackBerry after the conference call. I get more e-mails from my personal e-mail accounts [3 total on my BlackBerry], and countless e-mail from my work e-mail account.

6pm: Time to go home. I text my wife and see where she is. On her way home, so am I.

6:15pm: Call from my daughter's Mom. There is a cheer thing I need to be at on Thursday. She sends me the calander invite and I accept it into my BlackBerry.

7pm: Arrive home. I get hourly updates on sales numbers from my BlackBerry. I check in on my team and make sure all is well still.

8pm: I write a blog. I can't get to a computer so I write it from my BlackBerry.

8:30pm: The wife and I decided to go to dinner. What's close? I Pull out the BlackBerry. I boot up the GPS system. I search for Eating and Drinking Places around my location. 10 places show up. I get the numbers from the GPS program. I call ahead, see how busy they are, and the wife and I are out the door. This is a new place in a part of town I'm not familiar with. I hit navigate on the GPS program on my BlackBerry and it gives me directions [like a Garmin would] from my phone.

9pm: Go home, set the alarm, and go to bed.

Now, my BlackBerry can do more than what I described, but that's how I use it on a daily basis. Keep in mind, between every major task I do with it, I also use it for small tasks like phone calls, and I text message all day. My customers now text me with their issues, so I can address them, but not stop what I am doing and take their call.

My all time texting record. 7500 in one month. My daily e-mail traffic is about 100 e-mails total between work and personal e-mails.

The BlackBerry can do a ton of things.

Here is a comprehensive list.

  • Phone
  • Calander
  • Address Book
  • Text and Picture Message [SMS and MMS]
  • Assisted GPS [check your mobile carrier for availability]
  • E-mail Box [up to 10 different e-mail addresses at once]
  • Task Manager [Think virtual post it notes]
  • Internet
  • MP3 player
  • Video Player [plays most video formats]
  • 2.0 mega pixel camera [not great for photography, but great at clicking and sending in a pinch]
  • Voice Recorder
  • Expandable memory card up to 8GB [16 GB when it becomes available]-This is important for the Camera, MP3 player, and Video Player
  • Documents to Go [can translate most word processor files, spreadsheet files, and slide show presentations like all the Microsoft Office products]
  • Tethering [It can interface with your laptop or desktop computer and turn into a modem to gain access to the internet from your PC or Mac---think WiFi hotspot just for you, where ever you feel like]
  • Downloadable Quick Launch Buttons like ESPN mobile, NYT Mobile, CNN Mobile, Fox News Mobile, NBC Mobile, Weather Bug Mobile, White Trash Bingo Mobile [sorry shameless plug for my website], I can go on......oh yeah, best thing about all of these is that they are free
  • Downloadable Programs like FaceBook Mobile, MySpace Mobile, Yahoo to Go, Google Apps, Weather Bug App, RSS Feed Programs like Viigo, Slacker Mobile [Streaming Radio] and these too are mostly all free too

The funny thing is, the iPhone can do mostly all of these things too. Except MMS messaging, Tethering, Downloading Quick Launch Apps, and expandable memory.

It's not the phone that bothers me. It's the snobbery that it's users have. I can be showing a smart phone and an iPhone user will come by and say, the iPhone is better. Or an iPhone user will come by and ask to see a phone. I will go through what it does and how awesome it is and then they will say, well my iPhone can do more. Against a BlackBerry? You wish!

I don't give a shit about you or your iPhone. Truth be told the iPhone cannot even take its battery out. It can't even send a simple picture message. It has WiFi capabilities because the carrier they chose to use for distribution has the smallest 3G network in the industry, it needs WiFi to work because chances are, you're not going to be able to use the internet otherwise. If I run out of memory I have to start deleting crap off it to cram more stuff into it. 8GB or 16GB, 2 options.

The world doesn't revolve around the iPhone. I hate you and your catchy advertising. I hate you and your slick design. I hate you and your 1 button. I hate all[Most] your snobish users! My iPhone this and my iPhone that!

I'm tired of the iPhone being the new 'Gold Standard' for smart phones.

The BlackBerry has been around longer, and it does everything the iPhone can do[Everything you can do, BlackBerry does better], but oh yeah, the ruler of the free world carrys a BlackBerry. Sorry iPhone. You're slick, but not secure enough to be used by the President of the United States! The BlackBerry just might save the world!

I guess I am just annoyed that out of nowhere a product comes out that completely catches America's attention and because Steve Jobs tells them its new, they eat it up. The iPhone isn't new, its just hip. The iPhone isn't breaking any barriers in the cellphone world. It's just riding on the coat tales of the iPod which is another useless piece of garbage if you have a BlackBerry. If you want an iPod with a phone on it, great, get the iPhone, but other than that, its just a BlackBerry in tight jeans.

If you, Mr iPhone, were dropped on the tarmac of an airfield your glossy glass screen would crack and thus make you useless. Not the BlackBerry. Drop it, Kick it, and Abuse it. It'll keep working. If it doesn't, I can insure it through my wireless carrier. That's something else you can't do with the iPhone!

5 comments:

Adan said...

Not the most well thought blog I have ever made. I do hate the iPhone though.

Stupid iPhone users. I hate the snobby ones.

mouse (aka kimy) said...

I hate having the wants, but after reading this post, I must say I am having a case of wants for a BB....but I'm too cheap, so guess I'll stay in the 1990s a while longer with my technological assets.

Vickie said...

From a fellow blackberry user, AMEN! haha

Sourire11 said...

Hey thanks for all of the advice - it's good to hear from another Cleveland Parent.

Have you seen this yet?

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary

I never want to own any type of iDevice.

aFlemm said...

I love my iPhone, but I'm also a BB fan (the Bold is quite a phone), and live in Waterloo - where 43% of our local economy is RIM-based. I am sad that you hate me.

You may be able to send picture texts, but I can browse the web like a fiend!

Oh, and we do have 'quick-launch'.