ON THE BLACKBERRY/iPHONE BATTLE

TRENCH WARFARE

Maybe it's the fickle gadget junkie in me, or maybe it's just me being jaded about my 3G iPhone after my problems with it the last few days.  But when I saw this picture of the coming new Blackberry Bold from RIMM in "bedside mode", my gadget gaze has now shifted to getting one on first opportunity (not that I haven't been focused on the upcoming Blackberry models). 

The picture is part of a post on Blackberry's recent annual shareholders meeting, by Jim Courtney of Skype Journal.  This application, though simple, is as cool as anything I've seen on the new iPhone.

Here's another tidbit from that post that I found interesting, especially for those with extensive music collections in iTunes:

"Blackberry's new Media Sync creates a direct connection between your iTunes music collection and the Blackberry. (and will also be made available to all Blackberry devices with a media card - Pearl, Curve, 88xx - through both a firmware and desktop software upgrade)."

For a long time now, I've carried both a Blackberry and an iPhone, with the former being my primary business phone and email device, and the latter being my primary web browsing and media device.

Being a primary device, I find that I still use my Blackberry more than the iPhone to take pictures, given that it has a better camera with flash, something even the new 3G iPhone still lacks.  But I have NO music on my Blackberry, something I turn to the iPhone for on a long flight.

There are many users like me, who compartmentalize their professional and personal lives in a similar fashion, and use separate devices for each life.  Or as Jim Courtney puts it in starker terms:

"The iPhone is left with two markets: younger generation consumers who want an expensive toy and Mac aficionados who can use the iPhone as an extension of their Mac experience."

Both RIMM and Apple have long-realized this and are increasingly beefing up their products and services, so that RIMM has more media, personal fun oriented features, and Apple has more business and professionally oriented features like "push" wireless syncing.

But it looks like for the next 12 to 18 months anyway, it's going to be a bit of a stalemate.  And both sides will have interesting enough features to keep their core users hooked on their upcoming offerings.  But neither will just yet have enough to make broad and deep inroads into the other camp's core functionality.

In the meantime, many of us gadget geeks will have to continue to carry around both devices.

Comments

[Lou Paglia]

it will be interesting to see what comes from the release of the Bold but just went from the Curve to the iPhone and it isn't even a comparison. The Bold will have to a huge leap forward.

[Jim Anderson]

Ihave a Blackberry 8310.With a 4g media card, Ihave over 400 songs. I am using a stero bluetooth headset Motorola S9.I put the media player on shuffle and listen most of the day with it running in the background. I have no need for an iPod.
The browser sucks. I am looking forward in obtaining the Bold 9000 with a faster download than iPhone 2.0 using 3G.

[Jim Anderson]

Ihave a Blackberry 8310.With a 4g media card, Ihave over 400 songs. I am using a stero bluetooth headset Motorola S9.I put the media player on shuffle and listen most of the day with it running in the background. I have no need for an iPod.
The browser sucks. I am looking forward in obtaining the Bold 9000 with a faster download than iPhone 2.0 using 3G.

[alwazer]

Thank you
The article is quite remarkable
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[Steve]

I personally have avoided the iPhone in anticipation of the Bold. Besides some minor features, the iTouch can perform some of the neat features the iPhone can. So why not have both. The Bold is still a respectable and solid piece of hardware that, in my opinion, delivers better value to the end consumer.