IncisiveGeek

In my previous post I mentioned that I was expecting to miss a few of my old BlackBerry’s features with the switch to the iPhone.

First I thought I would miss the ability to just start typing at the home screen and having the address book show any matching entries. With the iPhone I found that the favorites list covers 95% of the numbers I would normally just start typing on the BlackBerry. The BlackBerry is a bit easier but who is to say Apple will not add a similar feature with a firmware update.

Secondly I worried about the speed (or lack of) of AT&T’s Edge network, I have found that the speed is not that big of an issue. When I am out and about I mostly am checking text based items; email, news feeds and the occasional google search. When I am not moving about I often have access to a WiFi network which is much faster than EVDO on the BlackBerry.

Third I was worried about the call quality, back in 2003 when I last had AT&T (before the merger with Cingular) the service was horrid. I have found the call quality and coverage to be very good, call quality is on par with Verizon and coverage is probably 98% of Verizon’s. I have noticed that the iPhone coverage indicator is a bit conservative, many times it will indicate zero bars of service and calls will work just fine.

Lastly, voice dialing. I truly miss this while driving, here in California it is going to be illegal to talk on the phone without a headpiece starting in July. I am not sure what the law states about dialing a phone while driving but I think that is the riskiest part. Below are the required steps to make a call on each phone:

• On the iPhone I have to slide my finger across the screen, enter my four digit pass code, tap the phone icon, then either click one of my favorites, search for the contact or dial the phone number. Finally when the phone starts dialing I have to click the on screen button to use my bluetooth headset.
• On the BlackBerry (or any other phone with voice dialing) all I had to do was press the button on my headset and I would hear, “Say a command”, I would say “Call home”, the phone would say “calling” and that was it, no step three.

The company that provides voice dialing functionality to most phones is VoiceSignal, on their homepage they have two demo videos of voice activated apps running on the iPhone. One video shows the iPod functionality of the phone being controlled by voice commands and the other demonstrates voice activated search. I am hopeful that VoiceSignal is working with Apple on adding this via the upcoming iPhone SDK, I am willing to pay up to $20 for this feature.

All in all I am still very happy with the iPhone and wouldn’t want to go back to the BlackBerry.

Yesterday I finally got fed up with my BlackBerry 8830 (got it in August of 2007) that I decided to get the iPhone. Quite frankly the BlackBerry seemed to be going down hill, and fast.

The first problem I ran into was background noise being picked up by the phone’s microphone better than my voice in calls. I got a lot of people saying, “What? Can you repeat that?”.

The second problem I ran into was crashes resulting from charging the phone while the phone was on, I did not always notice the crash and would miss calls.

The straw that broke the camels back was yesterday when my alarm on the phone telling me it was time for work didn’t sound, luckily I was paying attention to the clock anyway. I just don’t trust the phone anymore, how hard can it be to have a properly working alarm?

The phone might have been fine if I did a reset but I just didn’t want to mess with it anymore. Even if I did a reset HTML emails would still look like crap and the built in browser would still be junk.

I am predicting that I will miss the following from the BlackBerry:

• The address book, probably my favorite feature on the BlackBerry, I love being able to start typing from the home screen and having the address book show any matching entries.
• The speed of Verizon’s EVDO network, which should be much faster than AT&T’s Edge network.
• The excellent call quality that Verizon has in this area
• Voice dialing, great for when the Bluetooth ear piece is in and I am driving.

So far I am really enjoying the iPhone, the hardware is top notch (I bought the new 16GB version) and the software is very slick.

I will report back any major findings in this phone/carrier changeover.