Regular RIMarkable commentator Amish sent in an interesting email that I thought that I would publish…
I was just talking to a friend that is a die-hard Apple fanatic that made an astonishing revelation when I asked them how the like their iPhone 3G. They told me that that it sucks when it comes to text entry so they took it back will continue to use their BlackBerry 8830 until the Bold comes out.
Now, this particular friend probably would have gotten the BlackBerry Bold when released anyway because he is the type that carries once device for personal use and one for business, so, I was really shocked when he told me that he actually took his iPhone 3G back. He said that the iPhone is just too hard to type he he found that after the first couple of weeks that he had it he did little more than surf the web with it.
“I can already surf the web on my iPod Touch and it doesn’t cost me 80 bucks a month to do it. I’ll stick with the BlackBerry until they improve the virtual keyboard or put a real one on there. I would gladly give up screen size for a keyboard.”
It seems like I am hearing stories like this more and more…
There’s no doubt that for power text entry that a physical keyboard still rules. For email the BB is still king.
That being said, I still like to have an iPhone 3G in addition to a BB for personal fun use. The 3G is great where I use it, and far more useful than WiFi where I have to find a hot spot, and nearly as fast. I like to surf the web a lot for personal use, and for that the iPhone 3G cannot be beat. Add in the iPod feature and the games, and the iPhone is the best phone for fun.
Now when it comes to work and email, the BB is still preferred and I would not have any other.
So it comes down to a matter of preference. But for the average consumer, who may not need to answer dozens of emails on their phone, or who have a work supplied BB, the iPhone will still rule, esp now that it has 3G.
Again, I cannot state how much nicer that 3G feature is compared to EDGE, or even compared to WiFi.
Seams the Virtual Keyboard is as debatable as suretype Vs. Qwerty. People who sport the prayerberry poise all day will certainly dislike the virtual keyboard. I personally made the jump from a 8830 (not so great for typing itself) to the 3G and im pretty happy. The screen real estate is great for charts, and for me my email responses are never more then a few words to the team leaders below me so typing is almost a moot point for me.
I wonder how many people typing is essential for in the smartphone market. Are smartphones information devices for most (like me), or a means to rattle off emails to people. My gut, after thinking of all the desk jockeys of the world is the former more then the latter.
it all comes down to personal choice, imagine that! I have just started using opera mini on my curve and i love it. i feel like i can easily browse to any site and get the info i need. of course it is not as good as iphone’s safari, but it gets the job done. needing a communication device first with email, sms, messenger, phone, the BB does it all better and more efficiently for me. i use my iphone as a touch, mainly when i’m on vacation.
I have a similar story. I bought the first iPhone last year when it came out but found that I just couldn’t text on it like I could on my T-Mobile SideKick. I think I kept the iPhone for about 3 weeks or so and ended up taking it back. I would have gone back to the SideKick, but I had already switched my number over to AT&T and it would have been a hassle trying to get it back over to T-Mobile so I replaced they iPhone with a BlackBerry Curve and then I got a Touch for my birthday last August.
I am an Apple guy. Don’t even own a PC and most of my friends are the same way. Only one of buds kept his iPhone though. They all use SideKicks or BlackBerry Curves because they are so much easier to text on.
A big part of the problem is that Apple won’t implement the landscape keyboard outside of Safari.
When you use Safari (the web browser) on an iPhone, you have the option to type on the wide and spacey keyboard that stretches horizontally. Especially great if you have larger fingers.
Yet when it comes to text, email and notes, Apple forces us to use the smaller, more cramped vertical keyboard. They won’t even let us view email in landscape or anything. It’s really perplexing, I mean that’s what the accelerometer is for.
From day one there were people all over clamoring for Apple to let them use the landscape keyboard in every application (a quick Google search will confirm this) and over a year later Apple has failed to respond with a seemingly simple software enhancement. I’ve sent numerous requests through the iPhone feedback portal.
Now it looks like RIM will beat them to the punch with the Thunder. Though there’s already a few iPhone clones who allow universal use of a landscape keyboard, they still suck to type on for one reason or another. I gather that RIM will have put some serious thought into it.
It wouldn’t be an end all be all solution but it sure would be a lot more comfortable to type on an iPhone.
Liew,
I am going to go out on a limb and guess that you are fairly young… In college or maybe even in highschool. I bring this up because I think that demographics come into play a lot with if you like the touch screen or prefer a physical keyboard.
I cannot remember where I read this but the iPhone is more popular among older users and has the second highest average age coming in right behind the BlackBerry. You would expect BlackBerry users to be older because of its huge footprint in the enterprise, however, you could easily expect the iPhone to be popular among teenagers and young adults when actually this group is one of the most vocal about not liking the lack of a physical keyboard.
You guessed correctly. I am about to start my Sophomore year Georgia. You could be on to something with the demographics because me and most of my friends text way more than we ever talk on the phone. It’s way cheaper and allows you to keep you minutes down.
I think that you are on to something with the demographics. Unfortunately RIM is going to market the wrong device to young adults. Some of the other BlackBerry sites are saying that the BlackBerry Kickstart is going to be heavliy marketed towards college students but the problem is that they will hate that funky keyboard with two letters on each button more than they will the touch screen on the iPhone.
RIM really should have come out with a upgrade to the BlackBerry Curve and pushed that to the younger crowd. If they did that around the time that the iPhone was released and set a $50 price tag, they would have cleaned up.
Having had an iPhone 3G for three weeks and a year’s experience with the 8820 (and several years with Blackberry), also having been an evaluator of Nokia smartphones, including the N800 tablet, and having had a Pocket PC in the past (such as Dell Axim) I have to say the iPhone 3G is a great “one-way” device — for accepting and viewing information with little ergonomics suitable for sending information. My error rate on the iPhone keyboard runs around 50% (big fingers) and I also like to be able to position the cursor interstitially (between letters) accurately. Love the browser viewing and Facebook photo features but go back to my Blackberry every time I am serious about sending information from a mobile device. In a way the iPhone is more like the Nokia 800/810 tablets were intended to be but Apple got the user interface right for setting up – and upgrading – the device and receiving information. (But the stylus on Pocket PC’s and N800 certainly provides more productive information entry on a touch screen.)
But having seen the Blackberry Bold – especially how the screen handles Office documents, knowing the Blackberry enterprise infrastructure and with the access to iTunes, it will be a big winner for bi-directional information exchange as well as personal entertainment for both business users and prosumers.
iPhone virtual keyboard may be not nice.
I have BB Curve (and own other previous BBs) and didn’t find it any easier. Yes, you may able to feel the keys without looking at it but still hard to use.
Someone really need to come up with something entirely new input method.
Rather than thinking different size, shape, touch, feel kind of keyboards.
BTW, PlamPilot ‘grafitti’ failed after it was the coolest thing for awhile. I still remember those short hands input.