BlackBerry Rules the Smartphone Roost
BlackBerry users rejoice: we are still currently on top of the smartphone heap for now. iPhone is #2. Why does this provoke me to do a bit of cheering and hoist Kara Swisher’s Jolly Rogers? Well, realizing that it’s as temporary as my belief that the New England Patriots were going to go 25-0 (halfway into the next season) instead of somehow falling short in the SuperBowl, I think it’s important to pause and consider why. ( Mary-Lynn, are you listening?)
People want their email. It’s the main request for mobile devices. We BlackBerry types have used email for years. We wanted the Internet and cameras (just showed up in Berries a year ago). But the rest of you seeking smartphone features wanted email.
Note: my BlackBerry Curve supports 10 email accounts on one phone, so I get my primary mail service (Gmail) plus my corporate, plus 8 more.
Buttons
Yes, I’ll grant that the iPhone is sexy, and that for a while, it sucked conversations out of the room because once one came out, everyone would stop what they were talking about and go into how hot iPhones are. But here’s one: my phone has buttons. I can type words the first time, without asking Apple to guess what I’m saying. (Given some of the more arcane curse words I sometimes type, I don’t want Apple guessing). This becomes useful when typing under the table in meetings.
Everything Else
Okay, the iPhone is a media killer. It’s half iPod on its mother’s side. You win there. It’s a better browsing platform. Even now that I have wifi, the iPhone has a much nicer browser. The widgets you can put on an iPhone are amazing. You’ve got all that, and I won’t take that away.
So the question becomes: what do you want from your phone? After voice, what comes next?
Tell you what I want to do on my BlackBerry Curve: edit the menus. There are options there I will *never* push. Can I remove them? I haven’t found out how yet.
And before you get all “you hate Apple” on me, I’m writing this on a black Macbook, which is seven feet from a white Macbook, which is 15 feet from a Mini, 20 feet from an old iMac, and 30 feet from an Apple TV.
What’s your phone of choice?
