For almost two years now, I've had my iPhone 3G. Before that, I had a Blackberry Curve which I loved. It was compact and light and allowed me to do the two things I most needed to do to be productive:
- Make calls.
- Respond to emails in a timely fashion.
I DON'T CARE WHAT THEIR ADS SAY—AT&T SUCKS
Raise your hand if you have an iPhone and have suffered dropped calls.
(Wow, that's a lot of you!)
For two years now, I've suffered through dropped calls (multiple times a day) and failed calls when I tried to call those dropped people back.
I've even not answered calls, because I knew I was in a place where the coverage was bad. Like inside my house.
I learned to text--not call people--if I needed to communicate.
I've had to deal with lack of coverage in puzzling places, like, literally right in front of Steve Jobs' house. (I'm serious, he lives in Palo Alto and I went to an event at someone's house who lives next door and I parked in front of his house and had zero bars. Can't he do something about it? Shoot, Cheney built his own cell tower out in the Wyoming brush. Not that Jobs is Cheney, but they are similarly robotic now. Can't he put up some towers in the heart of Silicon Valley? )
And worse—this is the clincher—I've put off responding to emails because it was easier to wait until I got back to my home office rather than hen-peck out my response on the touch keyboard. If I can't respond on the go, what is the point of having a "smart" phone?
Why do we put up with this nonsense? I've been on the phone with AT&T many times over the past two years complaining about the lack of coverage and dropped calls and have never been able to get a straight answer about what they are doing to fix the problem. I live in the heart of Silicon Valley, for cryin' out loud. There is no excuse for this.
IPHONE APPS ARE BRILLIANT. IT'S TRUE.
Yes, I all-caps LOVE the iPhone apps. LOVE. Like, I have 6 pages of them on my phone and I would say I am a heavy app user. I use social media apps like Tweetie and Foursquare. I track my runs (C25Kapp), my periods (Ptracker), and my Weight Watchers* points. I take fun photos with Camera Bag or Hipstamatic. I have at least 30 games that my kids and I love to play. Have I made it clear enough that I LOVE iPhone apps? And hey! CityMama is even available as an iPhone (and Droid) app, too!
That's why I got an iPad.
And a Verizon Blackberry.
With the iPad 3G, I can still use the apps I love (though not all are iPad-sized yet), and I don't have to worry about making a single phone call. (I did use Skype on my iPad to call my husband's phone and that was pretty cool.)
For about $15/month I have a 250MB data plan which I think will suit me just fine since I'll mostly be using wifi. Yes, still on AT&T, but at least I don't have to deal with their phone BS.
My iPhone is now an iPod—I can still use most of the apps, listen to music, watch movies, and play games.
WITH MY BLACKBERRY, PRODUCTIVITY (AND PROFESSIONALISM) ARE BACK
With my Blackberry+Verizon I don't have to stand next to a window in my house to make a call. I have coverage in places where my calls used to drop. I don't have to preface every conference call by saying, "If I drop you, I will call you back." How unprofessional is that?
And best of all, I can respond to emails and texts right away because my thumbs fly over the QWERTY keyboard. My work pace is crazy. If I'm going to be away from my laptop during the day, I need to be able to respond to my partners and our clients in a timely fashion. For me it all boils down to productivity and with the Blackberry (on Verizon) and the iPad (on AT&T), I think I've found my winning combination.
BUT WHY NOT A DROID?
I considered a Droid phone, I really did. They are really cool. In the end it came down to two things:
I didn't like any of the keyboards. They are too flat. I like the raised Blackberry QWERTY keyboard. The new Incredible has a touch pad keyboard so forget that.
The apps are great and they are adding more and more every day, but that's what I have my iPad for.
IF YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT MAKING THE SWITCH
I wrote this post in case you are "business person" with a Blackberry thinking of switching to an iPhone. I recommend you really think about how much emailing and texting you do. If you are a heavy emailer, IMHO, the iPhone isn't for you. You will see a slow-down in your productivity and you will get frustrated. If the apps are what appeals to you, get an iPod Touch or an iPad.
Finally, Bunny made this observation after we spent nearly an hour at Worst Buy getting my new phone:
Why does it take SO LONG to get a phone at Best Buy? It takes 5 minutes to buy a phone at the Apple Store.
Apple does do a lot of things right. Making a phone that can actually be used as a phone isn't one of them.
