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Why I switched from a BlackBerry Pearl to an iPhone
13 comments- TAGS:Apple, Blackberry, iPhone, pearl
- IT TOPICS:Mobile & Wireless
When the Apple iPhone first shipped in late June of 2007, the hype was deafening, but I wasn't having any. Even the most superficial cost-benefit analysis showed that iPhone couldn't hold a candle to my beloved BlackBerry Pearl.
Sure, the iPhone had a bigger and better screen -- much bigger and much better -- and an awesomely innovative and usable user interface. But the flaws were many: too big, too slow, no keyboard, no copy-and-paste, lousy battery life -- and the device was just too big.
My BlackBerry Pearl, on the other hand, had days, not hours, of batttery life. It had a cramped keyboard that required some learning, but it was a real keyboard that enabled me to type really fast. And I could do all the normal BlackBerry stuff in a form factor smaller than any other smartphone in the world.
Well, time passed, and both RIM and Apple shipped new versions, both very similar to predecessors, but tweaked and improved in a large number of small ways.
Apple also launched its App Store. And that turned out to be the Pearl-killing factor.
No, it's not that Apple offers applications. It's *how* those apps are offered and how they install and how they perform.
Note that I have been a smartphone-with-applications fan since the Treo 180 shipped seven years ago. That phone took advantage of literally thousands of applications that already existed for the Palm line of PDAs. BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones have had applications for years.
Then Apple came along and schooled everybody.
It turns out that the iPhone 3G is merely a pretty good cell phone. But it's by far the best apps platform. The big, high-quality screen combined with an enormous group of highly motivated developers using Apple's incredible development system results in a collection of applications that I found irresistable.
One by one, the most important desktop PC applications and Web-based services I use have iPhone apps that offer vastly superior user experiences than on alternative platforms. Examples include Evernote, reQall, SmugMug and others. I'm also a heavy user of Twitter and Facebook, and the experience of interacting with these services via Tweetie and the Facebook iPhone app is conspicuously better than on the BlackBerry or other platforms.
Sure, the iPhone's battery life is still horrible. And many of the original flaws still exist. But the quality of apps, the user experience, from browsing the App Store to installing to using applications on the iPhone is so good that I was compelled to give up my Pearl.
I've also discovered -- after actually using an iPhone all day, every day for a couple of weeks now -- that Apple's phone gives me a clarity of mind, and a sense of freedom that I haven't experienced on any other phone. It's fun to use the point of addiction -- again, thanks to the App user experience.
So farewell, BlackBerry Pearl. You were a marvel of miniturization and smartphone power that never let me down. But nothing can do applications like the iPhone.
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