Interested, yes. But not at the expense of having to deal with AT&T.

Now that the BB Thunder will release soon, I have an excellent alternative.

Add me to the list of people who doesn't care for the iphone. Non-replaceable battery and the ergonomics of the thing are absolute dealbreakers for me. Blackberry 8830 here does everything the iphone can do with the exception of streaming. RIM says that's coming with OS 4.5, whenever they actually get that shipped out. Otherwise, I have an 8GB card in the phone, 2+ seasons of TV shows and ~300+ songs on there with plenty of room to go. Sound quality out of this phone has been amazing for both phone calls and media. The interface is usable without me having to look at it and I'm up to ~60 wpm touch typing away on its little keyboard.

Oh yes, and unlike the iphone, I have full EVDO + tethering for my laptop right out of the box. Also has a full GPS receiver that works while driving. Google Maps for the BB currently includes Streetview as well.

The only thing the iphone has that my little BB doesn't have is the hard drive. Considering how fragile iPod hard drives are, I can do without the extra storage for now.

iPhone Hype Revisited
 

True the iPhone is not perfect but there are manay wep apps being developed for it since the Cbase native apps require a lot of $$$. Check out 2go.travel or 2go.travel/iphone to see what is coming down the pike for serious travelers.

Also it may not be the phone, but the carrier. That's where I have issues.

I'll have had mine 3 months on Saturday so good time to take stock.

Overall, I think its a fantastic device and some real quality apps are starting to come through (development lead time meant most of the early ones were poor or gimmicky).

Battery life is just about acceptable, I certainly travel more frequently with re-charging capability than previously.

The browser is they key selling point for me. 3g speeds are good where I am and its a joy to use.

Biggest negative is the email. Its just a clunky interface and the touchscreen keyboard isn't great for those with chunky fingers. I suspect if I was using it for a lot of work emailing on the go I'd go for a Blackberry.

But as a personal entertainment & communications device, its unrivalled and way ahead of the competition IMHO.

it's interesting how many people comment about the non-replacable battery. most people only have one battery and generally trade in their phone for a new one in 2-3 years. they never actually get a second battery. the last time i carried a spare battery was when i used an analog phone some fifteen years ago.

are there over 4000 apps available for the blackberry?

the iphone can tether but it requires jailbreaking. there was also a tethering app available on the apps store for a brief time and it still works, for those who downloaded it.

the iphone 3g has a gps receiver that works anywhere, even while driving, and what's even more interesting is that the original iphone that doesn't have a gps will actually track movement based on cellular tower location. it's obviously not as good as the real gps in the iphone 3g, but it's better than nothing. also, google streetview is coming in the next release of the iphone firmware.

the iphone uses flash memory. it does not have a hard drive.

True, but it is nice to have the option. Given how many spare batteries are sold on Ebay and Amazon, there is clearly a market for them.

There are 1700 on Handango alone, and since Blackberry users are not tied to just one App source, I'd estimate that there are well over 4000 apps for it.

But numbers mean nothing, how many iPhone apps are actually useful? My experience is that there are just a handful of really GOOD apps, the rest is just plain junk.


Tower based GPS fixes have been out on other phones since 2003, it isn't something the iPhone invented. In fact, most of the data the iPhone uses for tower locating, is based off data provided by people using a Windows Mobile phone :D

Of course, the iPhone still lacks turn by turn directions...

how many are sold? then compare that to how many phones there are (billions).

the reality is, most people *don't* have a second battery, and when it comes time to buy a replacement battery, they upgrade their phone instead. while it may be nice to be able to swap batteries, not very many people actually do it.

there's a lot of junk for every platform. the good-to-junk ratio on the iphone is probably not significantly different than anything else. also, the 4000 apps only took three months.

two companies have announced forthcoming products.