iPhone vs Blackberry – What Really Matters

Written on July 13, 2008  |  by RP Mickler  |  Leave a Comment Leave a Comment  |  Bookmark and Share

Comparing the Blackberry 8800-series to the iPhone has become all the rage this week because of the iPhone’s 2.0 release. In keeping pace with other technology bloggers, I’ll take a stab at this, too, but I’ll be focusing in on what really matters to the small business user and skipping over the frills that only a techhead can love.

1. GOOD! Turn-by-Turn GPS. iPhone, in its last incarnation, lacked this feature whereas Blackberry has enjoyed it for years. The latest incarnation of the iPhone supports Turn-by-Turn GPS.

2. BAD! Cut and Paste. Based on the information I could find, the latest iPhone still does not support cut and paste functionality which is a little odd, but, is critical to many business people.

3. GOOD – MAYBE? Enterprise Integration. The latest version of the iPhone does use a license of ActiveSync to hit an Exchange Server without requiring a RIM Enterprise server. This is great news for the small business. However, it does not support Task/To-Do objects. Some would even argue that the RIM desktop sync is a more sophisticated solution than ActiveSync, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate or relevant.

4. BAD! Blackberry battery life still kills the iPhone’s 3G model. Under standard talk conditions, the iPhone is good for 7 hours and 4 minutes; Blackberry 8800 for 10 hours 24 minutes.

5. BAD! The Blackberry comes with removable batteries. The new iPhone still doesn’t. This may not be a big deal for the casual user, but for business people who live and die on the road, this is an essential need that isn’t answered by the iPhone.

6. BAD! Voice dialing support isn’t available under the iPhone. Again, if you live and die in your car, voice dialing features are a necessity.

7. BAD! No search features under iPhone. You can search files and email on your Blackberry.

8. BAD! No teather capability exists under the iPhone. The 8800′s can be used as a DUN-connector to PPP into your carrier for Internet connectivity. The iPhone can’t.

9. BAD! The soft keyboard of the iPhone makes it difficult to do anything fast; the metrics would indicate that it takes a lot longer to use the soft ketyboard than the 8800′s full QWERTY keyboard.

The end-result kind of reminds me of the old PC vs Mac debates of 15 years ago. The iPhone is pretty, easy to use, visually stunning, and a clever machine. The Blackberry, on the other hand, is still more functional, integrated into the Enterprise, and utilitarian, yet visually terse. My thinking is that RIM will have difficulty in maintaining their lead in the Enterprise so long as Apple keeps closing the gap between their product and the Blackberry; ie, RIM has more to lose. Although I don’t think I could recommend a small business leap into the use of the iPhone as a business-class device, there may come a time in the next couple of years that recommendation may change.

R

Gregory says:

Commented posted on: July 24, 2008

I fully agree. I exchanged my BB Curve last week for a new iPhone 3G. While the iPhone is a “cool” device, provide a certain wow factor and has great web surfing capabilities, it certainly lacks some key business functionality I came to love (and expect) on my BB

Andy Gaspard says:

Commented posted on: July 30, 2008

Great analysis, however here is also some interesting information. The new firmware released by apple has a great set of new features that should make the blackberry folks a bit nervous. As the technology matures, the new firmware has given the iPhone a facelift in technology capabilities and features. The exchange integration with the new phone tied with RPC over HTTP on the exchange server provides all the same features found on the blackberry exchange integration, without the need for a Blackberry Enterprise Server or costs associated. Further more the community at large have created custom firmware for the iPhone which enables it as a very powerful tool that boasts such applications as nMap, FTP, SSH, etc. To a normal user none of this may matter, and everything you mentioned does matter however I think that as the code gets better these features will be fixed and the best part is, I won’t have to get another phone. I can just apply a new firmware and/or software update just like adding a new O/S to my system to take advantage of the new features. :) As my testing concludes I will most likely be getting rid of my blackberry and going fulltime with my iPhone.

Now if only Cisco would fix its glitch that is making IT people nervous all over the world to allow iPhone wi-fi. see Here http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Duke-Resolves-iPhone-WiFi-Outage-Problems/