Friday, March 29, 2024

iPhone vs. Blackberry

In the smartphone market, two stars have a lot of fans and get constant publicity: iPhone and Blackberry. Of course there are on market also HTC and Palm, but Apple and RIM have quite large market shares, and the big battle on this market is for sure between these two companies, and especially between these two products. Q3 2008 was the historical moment when iPhone went ahead of BlackBerry, and this was because Apple sold 6.9 million phones, and RIM only 6.1. iPhone or BlackBerry is a pretty tough question for geeks, and it would be interesting to compare these two products and see what are differences, and find out which are the aspects that make one phone or another better.

I think it’s fair to compare the higher end BlackBerry phones (Bold, Curve, Storm) with the 3G iPhone. It would be silly to compare iPhone 3G with BlackBerry Pearl, which doesn’t cost more than $50. Basically this is just an overall comparison, between more aspects of these smartphones.

A very important thing is that iPhone and BlackBerry markets are starting to overlap. If the iPhone is the media consumer’s dream, with a lot of possibilities to play movies and music easily, it might not be the perfect product for a corporate user. A lot of companies have resisted the temptation of allowing the employees to use iPhone in the corporate network. Analysts speculate that currently, Apple is working on a corporate friendly product which will integrate a third party to handle the e-mail issue.

BlackBerry has been for a long time, the staple of corporate users who needed e-mail and calendar features, but RIM, recently has changed a little bit this strategy and added to the newer versions of BlackBerry some cool entertainment features. Now, RIM products have cameras which shoot both still and video images, they play music, and some voices say that RIM is working on BlackBerry 9000, which should have touchscreen and it might be very similar to Apple’s iPhone.In the matter of applications, I saw a very interesting utility created for BlackBerry. A smart guy wrote an application for his BlackBerry which would allow him to ignore some calls automatically, if they were from a particular number. The application allowed a good command on the smartphone, and even if the call still rang, it was immediatly ignored. Actually, BlackBerry doesn’t have very interesting applications. There are some free applications, but they seem to be second rate at best, and the prices are quite strange for the paid apps. On the other hand, iPhone is an application heaven. Developers are encouraged to create, design and sell their applications, and iPhone App Store has a lot of interesting apps; you can find a quite wide range of utilities for iPhone there. Many of them make life easier, and they allow you to do this in the palm of your hand. There is Urbanspoon, which randomly selects the nearest restaurants for you with the shake of the iPhone. I heard voices saying that iPhone applications can be easily compared to wives, because they tell you everything, from where to eat, to what to wear and how should you combine your blue T-shirt with that brand new pair of jeans. Due to the overhelming availability of applications and all the encouragement by Apple for developers to design their own applications, iPhone is pretty cool on this aspect.

In the physical attributes arena, I would say that iPhone has a minus, because it might seem quite fragile. Many tests proved that the iPhone is actually durable, and there are also a lot of protection products specially designed for iPhone, from cases to rubber sleeves. The touchscreen and the motion sensibility are pretty cool, and you can play games by tilting the phone or zoom with a finger slide. BlackBerry Storm doesn’t even come close to this, but the durability is the strongest factor of this smartphone. The worst problem with a BlackBerry I’ve heard until now was it got scratches on the back after it was turned on the table too many times. Maybe it was just a boring meeting, right? Even if it is run over by a truck, this little miracle smartphone holds its form, and avoids cracks. More than this, it doesn’t lose a key. This smartphone was designed for business and travel, and I tend to believe that the key factor is its durability. For sure, this section is won by BlackBerry.

I don’t think I have to explain more about gaming, because we all know the huge variety of games created for iPhone, and all the opportunities and manners we could play them, and we all know that BlackBerry has Brickbreaker. Well I think it’s clear. In this section, the prize goes to iPhone and its thousands of games in the App Store.

BlackBerry is far superior to iPhone, concerning the ease of mobile e-mail and the connectivity to Microsoft Exchange SErver. BlackBerry may have a slower CPU, but it is ok for the office applications installed on it. If this smartphone it’s secure enough for President Obama to use, I think it’s clear that in this aspect BlackBerry has a plus point. iPhone has larger storage capacity, a faster CPU and much more RAM. iPhone is the best anti-productivity phone. Lately, iPhone became compatible too with Exchange Server, and this is a huge step in integrating this product with the business. Each of these phones has its advantages and disadvantages on these sectors,so BlackBerry wins for security and business use, and iPhone is the best for personal use.

The bottom line is 3-3, and this means that they are both great products, but he we have seen a lot of people who own a BlackBerry for business stuff, and in the other pocket they carry an iPod Touch, for all the entertainment offered and for portable gaming needs. From its gaming to its thousands of unique applications, iPhone is the device everybody wants to carry even if they have a Blackberry.