iPhone vs. Bold

06Nov08

Well I’ve had many many friends and colleagues ask me what I think about these 2 devices. I did a lot of homework on both devices in order to formulate an opinion and in the end concluded that I’ll just both go out and buy both and experience them both first hand.

After about a month I’ve drawn some conclusions – know now that there isn’t a clear winner – it’s going to be a “it depends” answer.

So it comes down to your habits and your priorities. When I answer questions like this for clients I often use an analogy so why stop now? I think the experiences are best described through the analogy of a girlfriend.

The Bold: Perhaps you started dating her in the 90’s or perhaps you just hooked up recently; either way you should know that the Blackberry has gone through an evolution. From a chunky and somewhat awkward geek in high school to a very lean, athletic hotty today.

Moving along with our analogy, that smoking girlfriend you have today will never forget the gaucky, head-gear sporting Level 18 Elf with 15000 hit points she once was in the 90’s. She knows she’s hot now but will remember her roots as someone who wasn’t always hot and she’ll act accordingly. Her improvements will always be incremental and never epic. She will always be reliable and will first consider the right thing to do THEN the fun thing to. She might get loaded and crash once a month but the next morning she’ll reboot like it never happened and reach out to all her friends and let them know that she’s ok and ready to receive emails like it never happened. Also, she won’t have “conditions” to maintaining a relationship with you because she knows that after a few months of bad eating, forgoing her retainer at night and general loose living, she could slip back to being good ole simple Sally from 1998.

I was a Blackberry beta tester in the mid 90’s and I’ve had one of every model since then (along with Treos). They’ve made getting the job done a priority, then looking good as a nice-to-have historically. That being said the Bold is a beautiful device and it ties things together just a little bit nicer than the Curve. I won’t get into speeds and specs because I think that the average consumer shouldn’t care….so the screen is beautiful, the interface is prettier and the extras are all there. If you put it up against the iPhone all the features that should be on both devices are there.

The iPhone: You know when you’re playing pool and you sink a very sweet shot that you never intended on even trying; if you just walk around the table and play it cool like you always planned on doing it, you’ll look like a pro. Well that’s the effect the iPhone has on it’s user. Sure there are plenty of them out there but much like other Apple products, the user seems to somehow “be in the know” or “enlightened”. Let’s go back to our analogy.

The iPhone gets the job done and does it beautifully and elegantly. It’s got some missing features (depth) like cut ‘n paste and the ability to invite attendees to a meeting but you overlook them because she’s so damn hot. Both our girlfriends dance well, eat with nice manners, hold their own in conversation but it’s when you test them that the differences begin to show.

If it’s Friday afternoon in January and you’re stuck at Laguardia trying to get on a flight  – you know that Sally will answer your call and do what she can to help you because she’s just that kind of girl. On the other hand, there’s a good chance that Irena (iPhone) will answer your call but she might not…she’s always been hot and she might choose this moment to do something else…because she can…and you might just have to suck it up. Or she might choose this moment to barf (crash), that’s how she stays so thin.

At the beginning of this post I talked about an “It Depends” answer. So, if you’re a road warrior and you want a device that will never fail you and a battery that will listen to you talk for hours – The Bold is your girl. If you’ve got an extensive library of media and accessing that is your priority, you’re willing to deal with the odd pouty tantrum and you like looking a little bit cooler then go with iPhone. The iPhone has a more productive developer network so you’ll have to wait for her to try on all kinds of ‘outfits’ until she finds the right one and you’ll just have to be patient – sometimes you’ll waste money on something she’ll never wear but when she gets it right – yowza! The Blackberry network of apps ain’t bad and given that you don’t have thousands of options you quickly realize that the app you get is pretty damn good anyway and probably close to what you were originally looking for anyway.

The Bold – Hot nerd with growing pains…

Versus

The iPhone - Always been hot and always will be - very reliable but she's got options

Tough call but know that you’ll be happy with either choice and likely never regret your decision. Both devices do the same things they just approach it differently.

Hope this helps.

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Tags: apple, blackberry, bold, comparison, hot nerd, iphone, iphone apps, jessica alba, pda, smartphone, tina fey