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Smartphone Showdown: iPhone vs Blackberry vs. Windows Mobile
By crooky | July 23, 2008
A good friend of mine (Reg Nordman from Rocket Builders) e-mailed me the following question yesterday:
“Would you ever buy an iPhone? A Blackberry? Why?”
Since this is a question that a lot of my colleagues ask me, I feel compelled to answer Reg’s question in a rather public fashion. Reg didn’t ask about Windows Mobile devices but I think they should be on the table for comparison as well. I’m also going to talk about open-source phone solutions such as Android.
Note: I am coming at this from the perspective of a small business owner/consultant, not an average consumer or an enterprise user.
I have owned three Blackberries in my time, one Windows Mobile 6 phone (the HTC Touch) and an iPod Touch (which is essentially the same thing as the iPhone except you can’t make calls on it).
1. The iPhone
yes, it comes in knit
After using several of my friends’ iPhones and after jailbreaking my iPod Touch, I can say with confidence that aside from the ability to make calls and a slightly faster processor, there are no differences between the two devices.
The iPhone has several nice features:
- really awesome web browser
- accelerometers that can tell which way you have the device tilted
- multi-touch interface that lets you do things like stretch photos out using your fingers
- lots of third party apps like Google Maps, a tetris clone and 500 mini-games
Do you see a theme emerging? The iPhone does cool stuff. Are they particularily useful stuff from a business perspective? No.
Here are the shortcomings of the iPhone:
- really crappy text input
- mediocre contact management system
- oddball e-mail system (unless you’re already a mac user)
Text input is an absolute nightmare on this thing. I may be exaggerating because I have fat fingers but it’s hard to type. On my old blackberry, I could whip off a blog posting and post it in almost the same amount of time I could do it on my laptop. I’ve tried to do it using my iPod touch and a WiFi connection - it sucks. It took twice as long and my fingers were aching by the time I was done.
The phone part of the iPhone is nothing spectacular. It makes calls. Just like every other cell phone on the market. The iPhone is also very expensive and in Canada, the rate plans are atrocious for this device.
My conclusion from a business perspective: the iPhone is a nice toy that makes you compromise on key business functionality. How often do you need to take pictures, surf the web or listen to MP3s for work? You might do those things while you’re supposed to be working but unless you’re a DJ, I doubt you really need to do those things at work.
Update: August 1, 2008. There’s a great debate raging over on Digg today about whether one should forgo the iPhone in favour of an iPod Touch and any regular phone. As someone who owns an iPod Touch - I think there’s an argument to be made there.
2. The Blackberry
the Blackberry Pearl (left) and Curve (right)
There are many iterations of the Blackberry on the market. I’ve owned three - two with a compact QWERTY keyboard like the Blackberry Pearl and one with a full QWERTY keyboard like the Blackberry Curve.
Right out the gate, I can tell you that if you do a lot of e-mail, forget the compact units like the Pearl. They’ll drive you insane. They use a predicative text algorythm to try and guess what you’re trying to type but it doesn’t always get it right. It’s faster to use the full QWERTY keyboard.
Here are the great things about Blackberries:
- rugged (I had one that got run over by two high octane go-karts on a buddy’s stag and even though it broke into several pieces, I snapped everything back together and it still worked)
- good integration with standard office applications such as Outlook
- good ability to handle attachments
- third party applications
Here’s what’s not so great about Blackberries:
- sometimes not intuitive on how to dial a call, usually no ability to call places like 1-800-EAT-SAND because the number keys don’t correspond to letters (any smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard has this problem - it’s not a Blackberry specific problem)
- they’re not very sexy
- they’re addictive like heroin (so I hear)
I don’t know what else to say. Blackberries are at their core a business device. They’re made for business applications and rapid text input. The web browser on the Blackberry sucks but it’s good enough to look up an address on Google or something like that. Blackberries also have third-party apps for business like the iPhone such as Google Maps.
My conclusion is that the Blackberry is the 800lb gorrilla that has defined the smartphone category (sorry, Treo owners) and devices like the iPhone just can’t compare for business use.
3. Windows Mobile Devices
HTC Touch (left) Plam Treo (right)
I currently own an HTC Touch. It, like the iPhone, has no keyboard and relies on a touch interface to input data and manipulate files. I hate this phone.
Some of the problems are to do with the touch interface and others are to do with the shaky operating system. This phone constantly drops calls when the operating system crashes in the middle of a call. That’s pretty embarassing, let me tell you.
There are a wide range of smartphones that run on Windows Mobile including the Palm Treo, the Samsng Blackjack, the HP iPAQ, all of the HTC smartphones (like the Touch and the Diamond) and the Motorola Q.
Many of these phones have QWERTY keyboards like the Blackberry and the only difference is the operating system - in this case, Windows Mobile.
Here are the great things about Windows Mobile Smartphones:
- Excellent integration with Windows if you’re a PC user
- a huge library of third party applications including home-brewed applications
- Good contact management system (it runs a light version of Outlook)
Here are some not-so great things about Windows Mobile Smartphones:
- They try to do to much and it muddles the user interface
- They crash occassionally when you’re in the middle of a call
- The e-mail system is not “push” like the Blackberry - it has to go to your mail server and check for mail periodically instead of getting it instantly. I have mine set to check every five minutes - hasn’t been a problem so far.
- Annoying pop-up reminders for unread e-mails
I think my experience with Windows Mobile devices has been tained by the HTC Touch (my current phone). I have other friends who swear by their Treos and Motorola Qs. I still stand by my comment that there’s almost too many features on these phones and they tend to trip over one another. I’m not sure if the OS crash during phone calls is a hardware or a software problem.
My conclusion: I think Windows Mobile Smartphones are a serious competitor for Blackberries but they’re not quite there yet. I’d hesitate to pick one of these phones over a Blackberry because of some of the issues I’ve mentioned.
4. Android
You might have heard rumours that Google was going to start making cell phones. That’s not true. They are, however, working on a Linux-based phone operating system called Android.
I’ll let the guys at Google explain Android for you:
I’m excited to see what happens with Android. I wouldn’t be surprized to see some Android-based phones showing up in 2009.
*********************
Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for over ten years.
Topics: Business of Consulting, Technology |
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July 24th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
You can actually dial numbers like 800-EAT-DIRT from your blackberry. You press alt and the letters you need. Theres really nothing BB cant do, if you put your mind to it. :-)
July 25th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Damn it Tom! Where were you years back when I needed to figure this out?
July 31st, 2008 at 9:12 am
I was a dedicated Blackberry 8800/8310 user the past 2 years, and with new employment I was forced to switch to a WM6 phone, and got an HTC Tilt (AT&T). A very nice phone, but too much for it’s own good. It has great interface, full pop out keyboard, tilt screen (mini-laptop look!), can carry on a phone call and surf the internet at the same time(something no BB or iPhone can do), is 3G capable, etc. The iPhone can’t even run more than one application at a time! On the downside, in the past 2 months of being back on WM6, i’ve completely wiped and reset the device probably 5-6 times because of application corruption. I’m constantly finding myself soft reseting it daily due to application lock up, and battery life is very disappointing. Something I never had to worry about with my BB’s. Ultimately, the BB is the hands down best business tool, most secure, and reliable to have. If my company new how much time I spent fiddling and figuring out how to integrate it into my daily business, they would drop their jaw. I can only imagine how many non-tech users we have that spend even more time, or just put the phone away and don’t even use it. So to rank for business needs 1, 2 and 3, it would be BB, WM, and then iPhone. If for personal needs and entertainment, most people might reverse the order. With the upcoming Bold and Thunder (iPhone competition!) release slated this year (well, Thunder might not make 2008), RIM is really pushing them selves into covering all markets for all things, and for sure will put a lock on the Business market.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:09 am
I think the application lockup is the thing that pisses me off mroe than anything. Thanks for the input Patrick.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:26 am
The original iPhone can do everything while on a call that does not require the cell radio. So, it could browse the web on WiFi…
The 3G iPhone can use the cell radio for browsing while talking…
3G GSM phones can make calls and transfer data over the cell radio simultaneously.
I have never handled an iPod Touch, so I am not exactly sure of which apps from the iPhone it has included. Are you basing your dislike of the iPhone keyboard on something like the Notes app or something else? The few apps that don’t use the auto-correct/predictive features are much harder to use. The magic of the iPhone keyboard is when you type utter crap and it miraculously determines the right word. I used a Cingular 8525 for a bit over a year before getting the original iPhone. The 8525 has a physical qwerty keyboard and I was running WinMo 6. I can type just as fast on the iPhone…
September 8th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I actually have a jailbroken iPod Touch with all of the iPhone apps on it. I have used applications on it with the predicative typing feature. It still sucks. I got rid of my last BlackBerry for the same reason. Anything short of a full qwerty, tactile keyboard on a smartphone is half-assed for business.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:52 am
The BlackBerry is a usability nightmare. Its web browser SUCKS; Opera Mini on my Nokia 6300 is MUCH better.
Its only point going for it is that its email works well. Works, but the interface is so ugly it hurts. The fonts are ugly. The menus are cryptic. Message formatting is vastly inferior to Pine running on a 30 year old VT-100 terminal.
So it’s a good instant messaging terminal. It’s a very poor phone, and completely useless as a web browser.
Iphone might be inferior as an email tool, but its web browser is outstanding. Scratch that, it’s the only mobile one that’s actually usable.
My advice to BlackBerry would be to fire your GUI team, and by fire I mean firing squad. Or hire one to begin with.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:14 am
I have to disagree with you about BB’s usability. I agree that the web browser is pretty crap. However, like I said at the beginning of this article, I was reviewing these phones for business use, not for recreational/personal use. E-mail has to work 100% on whatever smartphone you use for business because that’s the lion’s share of what you’re doing during the day.
The phone features on BB’s are great. No different that any other smartphone on the market.
I don’t know where you are getting this idea that BB’s are poor phones. They’re not.
Yes, the BB GUI needs some tweaks but to call it a “usability nightmare” is a stretch.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:33 am
yup.. Operting System’s fight has begun….