3 Blackberrys, 6 years and time for renewal of contract and hence decision time on whether to switch to iPhone or not! Despite my unpleasant experience at Apple Store, my kids convinced me to try iPhone in the name of coolness. I decided to give it a try for my 30 day trial and here are my findings.
First some reasons on why I even looked for alternatives to Blackberry after 6 years of great friendship
- After switching from Microsoft Entourage to Gmail, Blackberry sort of lost its advantage and got really slow to use
- With 3 browsers on my Blackberry – one from AT&T, second from RIM and third one from Opera, neither one really worked well
- Any third party app I loaded slowed the system dramatically
My first two weeks with iPhone were miserable at best. iPhone is a great platform but certainly not the most intuitive.
First, what I liked about the iPhone
- One of the most beautiful displays – emails and web pages really come alive and readable much like a laptop
- Best browser of any phone I have ever used – and believe me I have used many phones
- Best conferencing interface of any phone – even my mom can use it
Why was I miserable with iPhone in the first two weeks
- Very difficult to get to the top of the contacts and hence find a contact quickly and call
- Inability to make calls while driving except to the recent calls
- Typing without the keyboard
- Limited battery life
I was ready to return my iPhone until I met some friends who showed me some shortcuts that made things better. So much for intutiveness! For example:
- Right flick that brings search button – a universal search that can search contacts, email or calendar
- Getting used to Voice dialing and calling out names in the way my phone understands – now with 90% success rate of calling someone from my contacts while driving
- Just type and not worry about correcting until much later
Now with 30 days of usage behind me, I am turning to be an iPhone fan not fanatics. It is far from being an ideal phone but considering its other good features, I decided to keep it. Oh, yes I do have a 3GS!
