The ABA's Law Practice Management Section recently asked me to write the "iPhone" half of an iPhone v. Blackberry series posted on their website. If you are interested, you can read my article here, and the Blackberry article by Lee Rosen is here. Lee writes about his personal experiences with both the iPhone and the Blackberry Bold; he ultimately decided that he didn't like either one and returned to his older model Blackberry.
These articles prompted attorney Midland, TX attorney Dale Strauss to respond by writing a defense of the Blackberry Bold, featured as a guest post on the great The Mac Lawyer website. Dale believes that the Blackberry Bold outshines the iPhone 3G on battery life, e-mail, file storage, notes and tasks and he prefers using a keyboard over a multi-touch interface. Dale makes some good points, and especially for those people who think they really need a physical keyboard and for whom e-mail is really all they need to do with their smartphone, the Bold is a great choice.
Of course, it will not come as a surprise that for others, I think that the iPhone is the right choice. For those who want to take advantage of a virtually unlimited app store that lets one do almost anything one can imagine with a smartphone, use a far superior web browser, use a smartphone to easily sync and play songs, photos or videos, take advantage of a larger screen (which is only possible when a keyboard doesn't always take up half of the face of the device), and do all of this in a device that is small and sleak with a best-in-class user interface design, then the iPhone is the clear winner. Nevertheless, I am glad to see that the iPhone prompted RIM to improve the Blackberry, prompted Microsoft to improve Windows Mobile, prompted Palm to change the direction of the company with the upcoming Pre, and prompted Google to further refine its new Android operating system. As the competition improves, Apple will have all the more reason to improve the iPhone.
[UPDATE on 3/1/09: Mike Elgan at Computerworld has an interesting post on why he switched from the Blackberry Pearl to the iPhone, and there is one overwhelming reason: third party apps.]
By the way, the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA presents the annual ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago. This year's show is only six weeks away, and as I have previously written, if you are an attorney interested in technology, this is a great way to get your CLE hours. The "early bird" discounted registration deadline is right around the corner (February 28th).
