iPhone

[Stonewall]

Hey Steve,

Well I guess I get to be first, bout damn time! Anyhow I have been an avid listener over at Mobility today and have followed you guys and your podcasts for a bit. Of the the crew you seem to be the only iPhone carrying member, and liking it. I'm looking to possibly make the Jump from Verizon - but this damn BB Storm has me holding ground until I touch it and play around with it. I have never used/owned a smartphone device (hard to believe to a 45 yr old businessman) so I haven't been tainted by BlackBerry or any device for that matter. But you have been using devices for a while Steve and would love to get your unbiased opinion.

My biggest concern outside of a phone is scheduling/calendar with email coming in 3rd and GPS fighting for 3rd.. Lets just say that all things are equal Steve, in regards to signal and coverage. As far as an all in one device, UI, ease to use how have you liked the iPhone Steve?

I will be making the switch to Mac here in Q1 of 09 as well as run a vista laptop and an XP Pro box. I know that there has been some buginess with MobileMe. But for what I do and how my calendar operates it seems that it "could" potentially be a great fit for me.

Then theres that damn Storm - I know enough about BB's to get myself in trouble. But they are stabile.

I just need to win the damn lotto. Thanks in advance Steve.

Stonewall

[Steve]

Stonewall,

Thanks for listening to the Podcast I really appreciate it.

When it comes to picking the right phone it all comes down to what you need to do with it. For me mail is the most important feature. Because of the nature of my job I need to be connected all the time. The iPhone has been great in this regard. My company uses Exchange. With the addition of Exchange support in the new firmware I can now get push email. Before I has to use IMAP which really was not bad, however I could not sync my contacts or calendar over the air, With that being said you have to be sure that your company supports this. `If your company does support this then you will love being able to get your meeting requests and appointments pushed to the iPhone.

The GPS on the iPhone is ok. I am not a huge phone GPS user. It is nice to have but nothing that I rely on. There are many other devices out there that do a much better job at this than the iPhone. If it is not a big priority then you should be ok with the iPhone.

Signal has not been a problem. Sure there are dead spots but all in all I have been very happy with the iPhone in this regards. I live in the country and on the edge of the coverage area and the iPhone has worked very well. In fact I can use the iPhone in my home office which is located in my basement. I have not been able to use other devices such as the Tilit, Dash, or BB Curve.

Mobile me is a great service. I don't use it personally but when I got the 3G iPhone I gave my old one to my wife. She wanted to be able to sync her mail, calendar and contacts over the air. I told her about the Mobile Me service and she signed up for the trial and ended up buying it. My wife had the BB Curve and now swears by the iPhone and Mobile Me. What I like about Mobile Me is that it is simple to use and easy to set up. My wife did this on her own and has not any any issues with the service. I think this is due to the fact that Apple has worked out a lot of bugs. If you go the iPhone route at least you have the option of trying the Mobile Me service before you buy.

You mentioned that you would be switching to the Mac. I recently have done this myself and am glad that I did. Granted there is a big learning curve and it can be frustrating at times but, for me, I find the Mac a better option. The OS is very stable and there are a lot of free and low cost applications that you can run on it. You also can buy software to run other operating systems on it. I am currently running VMWare Fusion 2 which allows me to run Vista on the Mac. Both operating systems coexist on the same drive and because it is a virtual machine I can use both at the same time. I can even share files and cut and paste from one to the other. With this software I get the best of both worlds without the hassle of having to boot into the OS I want to use.

I think that with regards to waiting on the iPhone until you get a look at the Storm is the right move. this unit looks pretty good and it might blow the doors off of the iPhone. I think that you might even be able to get one and use it for 14 days so you can get a feel for it. If it were me that is what I would do. Give it a good workout and see if it is the device for you.
The iPhone is a great device. I love the fact that I can listen to music, Podcasts, audio books, and do so much on a single device. Unfortunately there are drawbacks to the iPhone as well. Ultimately you need to pick the device that will suit your needs. There are going to be trade offs with whatever device you choose. It will depend on which ones you are willing to live with.

Again thanks so much for listening and writing. I hope that I have been able to help and please don't hesitate to contact me if you need any more help.

Steve

[Stonewall]

Good Morning Steve,

This is why I give my time to the members of the Mobility Today podcast. I have emailed or private messaged other people in other forums I sometimes visit and all I ever get are pat replies and brief answers. Thanks for taking the time Steve. I appreciate the feedback, both from the working professional standpoint, as well as from your wifes perspective. My wife is no dummy by any means, but she does leave the techy stuff to me. It's good to hear that the Mobile Me interface and set up is burden free. Well I have waited several month's now before snagging my first smartphone, so one more month to wait on the Storm should be a painfull cake walk lol. I am going to get it to atleast play with it and run it thru the ringer. Again Steve, thanks for your time and the best of success with MTM.