Granted, RIMarkable is a BlackBerry blog, however, we aren’t such BlackBerry fanboys that we wouldn’t let you in on a great iPhone sale when we hear about it.

Through then end of the month, Best buy is offerring $50 to $100 off the purchase price of an iPhone 3G for Best Buy Reward zone members with a two-year contract.  Regular members get $50 off and Reward Zone Premium Silver members get $100 off.  This means that you could get yourself an 8 gig iPhone 3G for $99.

I love my BlackBerry, however, a sub-$100 dollar iPhone is a heck of a deal.

[Via Best Buy]

Regardless of if you are an iPhone / iPod fan or not, 500 million downloads in a year and a half half a year is impressive…

Let’s think about that for a second. The BlackBerry is unquestionably the top smartphone out their right now, however, the iPhone may actually outsell the BlackBerry this quarter and Apple got to this point in less than two years. This is an impressive feat for even a company with Apple’s resources.

Knocking the price of the iPhone down to $200 was a brilliant move and had a bit of a Microsoft flavor to it if you ask me.

I don’t think that too many people that use both Macs and PCs would argue that the Mac has a superior OS, is more stable, and is easier to use than Windows, yet Windows still dominates in most homes where these very things would seem to matter most.

In the same vein, not many will argue that the BlackBerry, less web browsing, is far superior to the iPhone as far as everything messaging is concerned, simply just works all the time, and has changed how business users stay in touch and respond almost in real time to email.

I think that you could honestly say that the iPhone is to the BlackBerry what the PC was to the Mac 20 years ago in this sense. Apple isn’t going directly after corporate users just yet. They know trying to battle the BlackBerry on it’s home turf would be like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Apple is, however, going after everyone else, especially those that will become corporate users one day.

What Apple is doing is selling iPhone to consumers like mad and even though the iPhone is still little more than a novelty in most corporate IT environments, it will improve over time, especially when millions of new corporate users that already use iPhone personally are requesting it.

RIM seriously needs to look at lessons passed when setting their strategy over the next few years.

According to the Globe and Mail, the reason, at least in part, that the AT&T BlackBerry Bold hasn’t been launched is becasue the iPhone 3G is such a 3G bandwidth hog it clogs AT&T’s network to the point of not having enough resources to effectively launch the Bold.

The iPhone utilizes a “ping-pong” technology which must constantly access AT&T’s network in order to receive data and e-mails, placing a great strain on the telecom company’s cellular infrastructure. “We believe that AT&T is now realizing that it can have up to 20 BlackBerrys for every iPhone on its network. AT&T will need to spend as much as $1-billion (U.S.) to repair its network.

 
I know that this post is not about BlackBerrys or even how the iPhone is related to the BlackBerry, but, I find it hilarious, so, here it goes.

In an effort to “drum up interest” around the release of the iPhone 3G in Poland, Orange has hired dozens of actors to stand in line at 20 stores around the country.

It’s kind of sad that Orange feels that they need to resort to faking buzz around the iPhone. What’s even worse is that on some level it will probably work.

I know that this post is not about BlackBerrys or even how the iPhone is related to the BlackBerry, but, I find it hilarious, so, here it goes.

In an effort to “drum up interest” around the release of the iPhone 3G in Poland, Orange has hired dozens of actors to stand in line at 20 stores around the country.

[Source]

Personally, I would prefer that Apple keep their 90 days and just refund my $100, however, I don’t see that happening until a few class action suites have been settled.

I will say that Apple is very lucky that they are Apple. I don’t believe too many other service providers could withstand such an embarrassing launch.

[Source]

 
Best Buy will become the first U.S. 3rd party retailer to carry the iPhone in September. That’s right, starting on the 7th of next month you will be able to yourself an iPhone 3G in 970 Best Buy Stores and 18 dedicated Mobile locations.

[Source]

IT Guy said that he picked up on iPhone 3G the Sunday after they launched and knew before the following Monday morning that he wouldn’t be able to do anything more than allow web access to email as far are corporate applications go. IT guy said that he wouldn’t even be able to set up the email push which is now native to the iPhone.

IT Guy’s biggest concern… Security. His exact words were, “Apple knows everyone would be hacking these things and it seems like they didn’t even try when it comes to security”.

IT Guy said that he bought his iPhone 3G on Sunday morning and had the thing “jail broken” by Sunday night. Jail Breaking is the basically hacking your iPhone to allow it to do things that it wasn’t intended to do.

IT Guy asked me if I had ever heard of a jail broken BlackBerry. I said “no”, then he said “That’s why Apple won’t be moving in on their turf in the enterprise anytime soon.

Believe it or not, IT Guy said that he is going to hang on to his liberated iPhone 3G because it is cool to hack around with. He won’t be letting it anywhere near his corporate network though.

As many of you know, I got the first iPhone day one, and, after the initial fascination with it faded, I completely lost interest in it, as did my daughter who couldn’t text without looking at the keys like she could on her Samsung. It was a cool cell phone, however, I had no interest in jailbreaking it and there really was no software for it.

The only thing that I thought that first iPhone was really good at was web browsing, and for me that was only over Wi-Fi, because Edge browsing is so slow. I no longer even have service on the device and it has been relegated to nothing more than a gadget used to watch movies on long airplane trips when I don’t feel like pulling out the laptop.

I wouldn’t say that I was burned by getting the iPhone because it is the coolest cell phone not named BlackBerry that I’ve ever owned. It didn’t, however, grab me in the way that the BlackBerry did way back when I switched from Windows Mobile.

I am hearing that the addition of 3G and the number of really cool applications that you can get on the iPhone may make it worth checking out. The $200 for the phone isn’t so bad, but, I don’t want to throw $1200 bucks away on a service plan that I don’t use.

There is no doubt that my BlackBerry will remain my primary device, so, do all the applications that you can run on the iPhone make it worth having as a second device? Maybe if I started an iPhone blog, writing about the iPhone everyday would make me use it.

I may stop by the Apple Store this weekend if it isn’t too crowded. We will see if all the iPhone hype grabs me like it did last year.

It took Apple 2 and a half months to reach the the one million iPhone mark last year. No matter how you look at, whether you like the iPhone or not, to sell one million of them in under 3 days is impressive.

[Source]