Lawyers frequently ask me whether they should get an iPhone or a Blackberry. They usually know my bias for the iPhone, but are still interested in my reasons for picking the iPhone over the Blackberry, especially considering how common Blackberries are in law firms. I've always thought that I could answer that question better if I could spend a month using both at once to really get deep into the advantages and disadvantages of each.
That is exactly what Galen Gruman, an executive editor at InfoWorld did, and he posted this comprehensive eight-part analysis of the pros and cons. Any lawyer trying to decide whether to get Blackberry's flagship product, the Bold, or an iPhone should read this entire article. Even current iPhone and Blackberry owners should read this article to get a sense of what life is like on the other side. (Thanks to Ben Stevens and his The Mac Lawyer site for bringing the article to my attention.)
I won't summarize the article because I urge you to read the whole thing, but here are some of his observations that caught my attention:
"The bottom line is that the BlackBerry makes mobile Web browsing a painful exercise. You'll do it only when you have no other choice. No wonder that the iPhone accounts for the vast majority of mobile Web traffic -- it's one of the very few handsets that can actually use the Web."
"On a BlackBerry, the screen is hard to read, hard to navigate, hard to zoom, and often covered by the menus. The UI for input controls is inconsistent at best. Clearly little to no thought has been brought to the BlackBerry UI; it's just a Frankenstein collection of methods developed in isolation from each other. Apple's real UI advantage is not the touch interface (though it works wonderfully in a graphical environment), but something less tangible. It's the well-thought-out, consistently implemented UI that makes the iPhone unmatched."
"BlackBerry users don't seem to like touch keyboards, which the iPhone depends on. I became equally adept at writing e-mails on both devices, though it took me a couple of weeks to get up to speed on the iPhone's screen-based keyboard compared to a few days on the BlackBerry. Colleagues who've migrated from the BlackBerry to the iPhone also say it took them a while, and some are never as fast on the iPhone as on the BlackBerry."
When discussing the ability to handle documents on the two phones, Gruman talks about using Documents to Go on the Blackberry Bold and Quickoffice on the iPhone. We are still waiting for Documents to Go to show up on the iPhone -- DataViz recently said that the app was submitted to Apple, but I have to wonder whether they are now waiting for the iPhone Software 3.0 to come out (any day now) before releasing this app. I agree with much of what Gruman says about using Quickoffice on the iPhone.
In fact, just a few days ago, Quickoffice was updated to version 1.2, and the update includes some major new features that would seem to justify more than just a .1 upgrade. There are two huge improvements to Quickword. First, the app now includes auto-correction. Thus, while you are typing in a document, the app will automatically correct typos for you, the same way that the Mail app corrects typos while you are composing an e-mail. I've always considered the iPhone's auto-correction features to be essential to making the iPhone's touch keyboard usable. Second, you can now find text in documents. This feature is very useful. Now I can carry briefs, memos, etc. with me and quickly jump to a specific part of the document by doing a quick search. There are other small new features that are also welcome, such as auto-capitalization, double-tap to create a period, set paragraph alignment, etc., plus there were important updates to Quicksheet such as landscape editing and copy and paste of columns. Click here to see all of the new features.
Thanks for the tip to this article. I'm not surprised by his findings. Until the iPhone came out, I used a succession of Palm OS smartphones with the last being a Treo 755. I compared Blackberrys back then (because of the fact that large firms were giving them away like hotcakes to associates) and could never figure out the fascination. I ascribed it to fad; the same fad that saw most law firms adopt WordPerfect (including me) when the rest of the world was with Word.
A friend has a Blackberry Storm. It can't touch (pardon the pun) the iPhone in so many fundamental features AND they still haven't gotten the firmware off the ground.
Off topic, I am intrigued by the Palm Pre, partly out of nostalgia and a desire to see Palm survive. But it appears that the Pre is not groundbreaking like the iPhone was in 2007. The Pre appears to be an alternative to the iPhone, viable yes, but I was hoping for something that would would send tech off in a new direction. Like the iPhone; like the first Treos.
Posted by: Charles Jannace | June 03, 2009 at 05:50 AM
Sorry to bust you bubble but Blackberry is better at mobile communications than the iPhone. iPhone is a great multi-media phone and toy but for serious use the BB is still king. I can easily operate my BB with one hand, which I do frequently, not so easy though on the iPhone. The BB has many keyboard shortcuts that make using it quick and efficient, iPhone not so much. Searching through contacts on the BB is much easier than on the iPhone. Heck even the camera on the new BB is better than the iPhone. Only with the latest 3gs iPhone do you get voice dialing and the ability to attach a photo to an email. iPhone calender is basic and unable to display a week view. I even prefer the Blackberry form factor to the iPhone. No doubt the iPhone is nice and great for casual users and those wishing to look cool but most business users would be wise to go with Blackberry for the foreseeable future. And I did not even get into corporate security features. Don't fall for all the hype people, iPhones only make up 1% of all phone sales.
Posted by: Carl Church | August 19, 2009 at 10:04 PM