...let see - Blackberry - do a search for downloadable apps = there's freaking TONS!!!

...now search for iPhone (ehhem) = you will find JACK!!! with the execption of games, movie stuff - how cute!

Many of the features that smartphones/crackphone/what have you were not really available UNTIL the 8800 series - SUCK IT!

granted the 9000 is lacking in breakthroughs and innovations - from a tech spec/hardware standpoint it's comparable to the (made for kids and "business" types who like to look at pretty pictures all day) iPhone, but I have trouble believing that a company that has set the pace for over a decade will just let their technology slide to the way side because MAC created a new toy.

jbette15

dude, u replied with guesses?

I'll give you one thing. pound for pound the iphone is the best personal device in the market today. but alas,it ends there. so please puff puff pass...

1. go research the ROI for handset makers and mobile operators on personal vs corporate devices and accounts.

2. go wait for vodafone to roll out LTE in the US for VZW to maybe get an iphone. no sim no sake!

3. go learn about the intricacies of activesync/exch2007/wm6.1 - pay special attention the new device mgt console aka BES from MS.

4. go test the freakin iphone sdk together with that activesync lite and try to get corp email on it securely.

go ahead, i can wait.

keysereble

I don't really have beef with the iphone... my beef is in the fact that Apple builds products that they think you need in the configuration that they think fits the consumer. I am going to generalize here for a second and say that Apple has defined there market as being for the tech trendy designer that wears square rimmed glasses and shops at Banana Republic. Guess what? That's not me, so if I can get the same thing from another company, I will.

Apple does a lot of things good, (Ipod, osX, mac book pro). But there are a lot of things that I think they do wrong (Mac Pro, Mac book Air, appleTV)

I think in the end, I just have some underlying issues in being told that I have the same needs in a phone as some (person to remain anonymous) in a black turtleneck. But hey, that is my opinion...

holvey

the only similarity is that it is metal. it is not rounded like the iPhone or 9000.

justinpe

Yeah, I'm sure everyone is copying Motorola and their awesome designs.

Wait, that came out AFTER the iPhone, and the edges aren't rounded like the iPhones or the 9000. Nice try though.

Why do people get so offended when the products they love so much are accused of copying Apple?

justinpe

marc_wtih_a_c

[www.slashgear.com]

I wonder what the price of the 9000 will be when it is released. The biggest knock against the I phone is its price for a gadget that is best suited for fun and games. Not only are businesses not going to front the cost for a device that works best as a music player and plays "console quality games", but businesses are going to stay away from putting Itunes on company computers.

holvey

Let's do a side by side comparison of your LG 8300, the BB 9000, and the iPhone.

Now, let's play "One of These Things Is Not Like The Other" from Sesame Street.

Sorry, not sure how else to explain something that seems so obvious.

justinpe

I've seen both the Pearl and 8800 in person and they don't even come close to resembling the iPhone. The metal is just on on the sides and and not as rounded. To say that the 9000 design does not resemble the iPhone is pretty absurd.

justinpe

Oh yeah the Blackberry Pearl and 8800. You people seem to think that Apple is the only one to ever have metal accents.

Super_Moose

I was just making a point...

I still haven't found a good smartphone that does what I want.

Verdigris

The exclusiveness with ATT isn't the only thing hampering the iPhone, but getting 28% of the smartphone market with one carrier that has less than 1/2 of the overall US smartphone market indicates they are doing pretty well. They're obviously accounting for >50% of ATTs smartphone market...so no reason to think they wouldn't do so with Verizon too.

@Verdigris:

RIM may have crackberries beat in business use now, but I suspect that will change when the SDK and push email come out for iPhone. Sure, there will be some people who are attached to their physical keyboards, but there will be plenty of others who like the screen real estate and can type on the virtual one just fine.

That being said, Apple still has a lot of work to do...most notably with the email client itself before business users will really snap it up. You need to be able to search email for one, and I'd like access to my entire mailbox to search (even if that needs to connect to a server and will take longer)...not just the last 50-100 messages.

But it's the SDK that's really going to show what this phone can do. In the long run, I don't see Blackberry's OS being flexible or powerful enough to be a true mobile computing platform, which is where phones are heading. Who knows though...

icposse2000

My LG 8300 has curved edges and chrome accents. Could the answer maybe be the fact that design in general for the last few years has been moving to soft curves and shiny accents? Nah, that would be far to logical.

tande04

Joseph

people are gonna think that you are a troll (like seriously 7 posts professing your love for the iPhone?)

B1663R

"The only thing handcuffing Apple's ability to totally dominate the market with the iPhone is their exclusiveness with ATT"

If i laugh i will die...

keysereble

The Blackberry 9000 is actually a rip off of the Moto Q9... for the metal bezel not the Iphone

The Iphone is ripping off push email from RIM in 2.0

RIM and Apple are BOTH trying to copy every 3G device out there and make a super fast mobile internet, which I find to be not such a bad thing.

holvey

Just noticed another interesting thing about that survey. The iPhone's on screen keyboard isn't even listed in the top 5 dislikes, where Blackberry users cite the keypad as the number two disliked thing about their device.

Looks like both are taking the disliked aspects of their devices head on by offering new features in the upcoming versions. Should be an interesting battle!

justinpe

HTML email is the only thing that really sucks on a blackberry vs. any other smartphone? Really? I could make a list for you if you want.

Also, if all business consumers want are email and a consistent phone, then why are Blackberries so popular? You can get non-HTML email on most free phones. I understand you don't get push email, but why would so many consumers pay hundreds of dollars for a feature rich phone only to use the email (non-HTML mind you)? Doesn't make much sense.

justinpe

mitchel_stevens

desmondhaynes

ColdAsIce

I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens. I've had the opposite reaction you described when showing my iPhone to business consumers. Especially those who travel frequently. Most of my clients are in real estate, and ALL of them have blackberries. When they see my iPhone they are blown away, and ask a million questions. 3 or 4 of my clients have switched to iPhones within the past 2 months, and that is before the new version. Think what it will be like when the iPhone offers even more features than the blackberry with the upcoming version.

The funny thing is that the only advantage the blackberry will have over the iPhone (after both release their new versions) is the physical keyboard, which ironically, is the 2nd most disliked feature behind the internet browser for black berry users (see link I posted above).

Depending on what Apple includes in the next iPhone version, it will be basically unstoppable. They will more than likely be priced about the same, but the iPhone will possibly have features that go way beyond what the 9000 is capable of (video chat, console quality games, GPS, and others)

I guess we will just have to wait and see though......

justinpe

justinpe has a point.

vote Obama

Verdigris

If you showed the iPhone to half of the people I deal with on a daily basis they would laugh it off.

Verdigris

justinpe

Also, blackberries were pretty sweet.. until the iPhone. RIM made the best devices around, but that's not true not anymore. And now, they are playing catch up with Apple, who hasn't even been in the market for a year yet. The catch-up game is made very evident by the new design and features of the 9000.

justinpe

Not a bad thing to have a few dedicated devices (just not a lot).

Have you guys read the preso? It sounds like they had to dumb down the presentation for the clueless MBA crowd or the mid-level managers who rose up from admin: we made the video and the camera icon the same... further explanation why, (seriously, you have to explain this crap to these tools), etc. O.M.G.

If that's the kind of crap they have to do just to move an icon around, no wonder it takes so long to get to market.

iomatic

Have you even seen pictures of the 9000? The Chrome/metal bezel around the edge. It is sleeker and more curvy than previous blackberries. Has larger screen. Black with metal bezel color scheme. You have to be smoking crack (berries?) to look at the 9000 and iPhone side by side and say that one did not copy the other, or at least inspired the other.

justinpe

I'm as keen as the next guy in jumping on the "inspired by the iphone" wagon when some company introduces a new touch screen phone but in this case what does one even remotely have to do with the other.

They've both got some black on the case? They both use icons?

tande04

3G & WiFi.

Web browser seems to be taking some notes from Safari on iPhone.

The design is clearly inspired by the iPhone.

RIM- stick with what you know. Crappy interfaces, clunky hardware, hard-to-navigate menus and sub menus and sub-sub menus.

Good luck though trying to imitate the phone that will spell your demise as the leading smart phone manufacturer. Maybe it will be good enough to give an Apple a run for their money, but i seriously doubt it.

justinpe