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    November 11th, 2008

    ♬ Apple fall out of the tree and hit the ground

    Ohhhhhhhh watch out for that gravity storm
    It don’t give no warning signs
    Ohhhhhhhh watch out for that gravity storm…♬

    Words and Music by: Jimmy Buffett, Jay Oliver, recorded by Jimmy Buffett.

    My old cell phone is dying and as such, this started me thinking about a replacement. “Why just get another cell phone?” was the question that I asked.  Being laptop-centric, I have not had the same ‘pull’ towards a BlackBerry that others have felt, but still the appeal is there…

    So in thinking about the BlackBerry, I decided to think a bit wider (and with my recent Mac-focus), I was interested in comparing the new BlackBerry Storm (on www.Telus.com) with the iPhone (on www.Rogers.com).  While the web pages seemingly make it difficult at times to compare different products between different vendors (see a bit later in this post for more on this topic), this is what I came up with in terms of a comparison (any inaccuracies are my fault):

    iPhone v BlackBerry Storm jpg

    Now onto my experiences in trying to find out this information!

    Telus makes it practically impossible to find out any meaningful information on the BlackBerry Storm – the ‘Specs’ page is skeletal at best.  I found I needed to go to: http://www.blackberry.com/blackberrystorm/specifications.shtml to get any kind of meaningful info up on the Storm. Worse yet, the Telus web site is circular…you start clicking on links to try to delve deeper, only to end up back where you started after wandering a crooked path…

    Apple Inc. isn’t much better.  If you try to find out the applications that have been developed for the iPhone, the website says that you have to browse the App Store using iTunes.  Now – consider this – you are in an office environment where the IT department has locked down your desktop.  iTunes is *not* going to be an application that most businesses will support on the desktop.  So – what do you do?  Call them (1-800-MY-APPLE).  Well…the fellow who answers says:  “Just install iTunes”.  I counter with:  “I can’t – the desktop on my computer is locked down”. His answer: “Well, find a computer that has iTunes”.  I say: “This isn’t helping me. If you are serious about bringing in business users, why don’t you just list the applications that are available in a web page?”

    This exchange only highlighted to me that the Mac fellow in the “I’m a Mac – I’m a PC” ads needs to listen to his PC counterpart, at least in terms of meeting the needs of business users a bit more.  Unfortunately, it only reinforces the image that the Mac-world is still too consumer-centric for serious business users.  As a result, I think Apple had better watch out for the BlackBerry Storm…

    (Thanks to Steve Matthews for helping me sort out how to paste in the comparison table to the blog post!)

    This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Change Management, humour, I'm a Mac, Issues facing Law Firms, Law Firm Strategy, Technology, Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    3 Responses to “I’m a BlackBerry Storm vs I’m an iPhone”
    1. Bill Pope Says:

      I can feel your pain, with the poor service. Apple has the iPhone-application market pretty well tied-up, so I guess they can limit their sales to the iPhone store. It is too bad, though, that they won’t let you even look at the app store unless you go through the iTunes store.

      Looking at the feature-set comparison (for which I thank you immensely, by the way!), it looks like an easy decision: the iPhone looks like the better deal. Now, to decide if I should trade-in my Rogers cell phone and pay extra to buy-out the rest of my contract, or see if I can get by with the same cell phone and an iPod Touch. I’ve heard that the iPod Touch can (at least, from wi-fi areas) be used as a phone, and perform almost all of the iPhone’s other tricks, without being tied to a three-year contract.

    2. admin Says:

      Bill:

      It looks like most buyers of new smartphones are in agreement with you. Today (2008 11 17) The Globe and Mail reported ( http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081112.wblackberry1112/BNStory/Business/?cid=al_gam_nletter_dtechal) that:

      “Apple sold 6.9 million iPhones in its fourth quarter compared to the 6.1 million BlackBerries RIM sold in its quarter ending Aug. 30.”

      Furthermore, Kren Dyck (thank you!) has pointed out that BlackBerrys appear to have twice the failure rate of iPhones: http://advocatesstudio.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/study-blackberry-has-twice-failure-rate-of-iphone-latest-wireless-news-cnet-news/

      Cheers and thanks!

      Dave

    3. anwalt fuer Arbeitsrecht Says:

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