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I am probably not the typical phone user.  I rely on my device for a ton of things throughout the day and night, anywhere from email, maps, news, shopping, entertainment, and, of course calling people.  My Blackberry 8800 and then Bold served me well in all these functions – I used their integrated email, Google Maps, Viigo, Amazon App, the camera, UberTwitter, Facebook, and more, all at least once a day.  When the iPhone initially came out, I thought it was a cool toy, but nothing that could replace my daily needs.  Once the SDK was released, I started to grow a bit envious.  Cool apps were developed left and right.  I needed to buy an iPod Touch to help satisfy my gadget needs.

A couple things kept me excited about Blackberry – their App Store and OS5.  I thought here was a chance for Blackberry to demonstrate their full potential.  The Bold was a fairly powerful device when utilized to it’s max (see Google Maps, Vlingo, Amazon, Shazam apps), so it seemed like it could be somewhat competitive.  The problem is that Blackberry was originally built as a messaging device, targeted at enterprises, with lots of security built-in.  They did a good job of building a platform around it, but it wasn’t scalable.

Then the App Store came around – which tried to imitate Apple’s.  Soon after, OS5 pictures leaked out.  Here was a chance to even the playing field – and they didn’t come close.  The app store made installing apps easier (though you needed to know how to download the App Store app ironically), but OS5 looked just like 4.6, 4.2, etc, with some additional features.  They’ve tried to woo developers (see Blackberry Fund), but it hasn’t really worked.  The reason is not lack of devices- there are many more Blackberries in the market than iPhones.  It’s that from everything I hear and see, it’s not easy to develop on Blackberry.  From the poorly documented API, large number of models, different versions of OS’s, etc, it’s just tough to manage.  And it doesn’t seem to be getting better (BGR wrote a great piece on this).

The one advantage I always thought I’d have over the iPhone was phone service quality.  But once calls started dropping (quite an understatement), I decided to give the Palm Pre on Sprint a try.  Knowing I could return the device within 30 days, I went out and bought a Pre.  My quick review-  it’s great product but needs to mature (and it will, in time).  webOS was awesome – they did a great job with the “cards” and multi-tasking.  I really liked how the mail and notifications popped on the bottom.  I liked how most things worked, although at times it felt a bit too cute.  Problem came down to the keyboard.  I did not like the keys – felt way to plasticky.  And I especially did not like how it slid out.  Everytime I needed to do something I had to flip out the keyboard – I felt like I was going to drop it and it just slowed things down.  It actually made me crave a virtual keyboard.  That’s when I decided to get the iPhone 3GS.

I’ve had it a couple days now, and I can’t imagine going back.  It’s weird, because I was once a hard core Blackberry user (convinced friends and family to get one).  But now – I’m going the other way.  If you can get over the lack of a physical keyboard (which isn’t terrible unless you write a ton of emails) and the non-removable battery (which wasn’t much worse than my Bold, though I carried a backup), there’s no comparison.  And while I still have nostalgia for my Bold keyboard and its build quality (mine survived a beating), if you crave features and functionality, the iPhone is the way to go.  Sorry, Blackberry.

FYI – I am long Apple, and have been for almost 2 years.

I don’t like cell phone contracts.  But maybe I should.  I recently bought a Blackberry Bold on AT&T and signed a two year contract.  Turns out that AT&T’s 3G network (as most AT&T subscribers can tell you) is beyond atrocious.  I should have returned the phone within 30 days, but I didn’t.  Now I’m in a quandary with no recourse, or so I thought.

The early termination fees (ETF) are there to inhibit switching, and they work well.  However, the contracts can actually work in your favor.  Most phones are subsidized around $100-$200 if you sign the contract.  Check out the below table, and you’ll find that over time, the ETFs become lower than the subsidized amount – i.e. it behooves you to buy a phone on contract as long as you don’t cancel within a couple months (depending on the carrier).   There are caveats (activation fees are meant to even it out, though these are sometimes negotiable), but at least we have the flexibility.

Ultimately, I still believe that cell phone service would be vastly improved if 1) we got rid of contracts altogether and 2) they shared a similar technology platform.  The carrier technology would then be a commodity (much to their chagrin) and service + cost would win customers (instead of devices, which is where the iPhone has done an extreme disservice to service quality-conscious customers,  as we have shown our buying choice can be based entirely on phones).

Problem is CDMA and GSM are both prevalent, however the evolution to LTE will help even the field (whenever that happens).  Contracts create (illusory or not) a feeling of stickiness.  If a carrier truly felt that they were good enough, they would allow customers to change whenever without ETFs.   Thing is, if contracts were eliminated, phones would be more expensive (though one could argue the market would be more efficient since platform barriers would be eliminated).  However, monthly plans would decrease, assuming that carriers currently make up subsidies over the life of the contract.  It’s an interesting conundrum.

Anyways, since I’m very seriously considering changing networks, I decided to look up all the return policies and ETFs, as I feel this is extremely relevant to what network I do end up on next.

* Another page on their website says 20 days. Phones activated in CA have 30 days.

** Only for contracts on or after June 28, 2008. No idea what is before that date.

*** Only for contracts after Nov 2, 2008. All contracts signed before subject to full amount.

I think I summarized a significant number of headlines.  I find these extremely unuseful.  I agree it’s a good idea to compare a new product to an old, incumbent.  However, what is not useful (to me at least) is to compare them in a black and white modicum.   It’s most prevalant with two products –  Google Search and the iPhone.  Every new company that has focus on search is compared to Google, and labeled as a Google-killer, or not.  Cuil was victimized by this.  Wolfram and Bing are newer examples.  For the iPhone, it’s the Blackberry Storm or the Palm Pre.

While most of these companies didn’t mind the publicity (at least before it started), it’s not fair for anyone involved.  the iPhone and Google Search were paradigm shifters.  When both came out, they transformed user behavior, and forced others in the market to follow suit.  The fact that we have to label something an x-killer means that it probably failed at killing x because it instantly reminds everyone of x.  Did anyone call the iPhone a Razr-killer?  Or the Google an Altavista-killer?

The other issue – not being a killer does not preclude success.  I would have a legitimate argument that Verizon is doing better than AT&T with the Storm.  Verizon sold 500,000 units the first month, and 1M units in the first two months (compare that to the iPhone 3G, which sold 2.4M in the first three months).  Verizon, for one, probably pays a significantly lower amount to RIM than AT&T does for the iPhone exclusivity.  Second, the margins for the network have to be MUCH better on Verizon.  Check out the recent AdMob metrics report – while  RIM represented 17% of smartphone sales, they only represented 9% of HTML traffic measured by AdMob.  Compare that to Apple – 8% of smartphone sales with 43% of the traffic.  The actual difference is probably worse – the report uses 2008 sales data as a proxy of  current market share.  Anyways, this defines success from the network perspective, not the consumer perspective, but I think it’s important that we keep that in mind (and as a consumer on AT&T’s network, I can tell you that more phone sales, especially iPhone sales, is ruining my experience and is about to drive me to another network).

One interesting article to check out – apparently we did miss that Google was a killer until it was already popular.

I use my phone a lot.  I’ve had a smartphone since the Palm Treo 600, and have grown more and more dependent on my mobile device since then.  I use it for phone calls, texting, google maps, reading news/rss feeds, MLB gameday audio, yelp restaurant reviews, and much more.  As the devices became more powerful, I found myself using it more and more often – even while driving.  Instead of looking up the location of a restaurant ahead of time, I’d just wait until I was closeby, and out comes the blackberry.  Instead of calling folks and telling them that I was running late, I’d text them.  Most of the time, I’d think nothing of it.  But then the LA-train texting accident happened (among other texting-related accidents), and I realized exactly how dangerous it was.  

Yet, even then, it still proved very difficult for me to stop the occasional driving text or lookup.  However, California recently passed a measure that makes it illegal to text while driving (a very, very smart law).  Enter voice-enabled mobile apps.  I’ve downloaded Vlingo, Tellme, Yahoo oneSearch, and Google Mobile, all of which are voice-enabled.  Google’s voice recognition only works for Google search queries, so it’s not very useful.  Tellme (recently bought by Microsoft) is solid for map lookups.  If you’re on the go, instead of typing “Pauline’s Pizza, SF”, you can say it, and it will display the results (which still requires a dangerous glance away from the road) and allow you to easily map it.  Tellme also allows for voice-prompted calls.  

Vlingo, however, is the best offering.  Their voice recognition, while still needing improvement, is impressive (Indian names do not work super well, I’m tempted to give all my friends very common English names in my phone book.  Or maybe I cannot pronounce Indian names correctly).  The program allows you to call friends, SMS text (accurately), google search, launch applications, and more.  It’s great – I can text and drive legally!   It would be useful if it would allow searches within Google Maps (my favorite GPS app), but I’m sure that will come soon enough.  Vlingo’s technology also powers Yahoo’s oneSearch application, which only allows for lookups – i.e. it’s quite useless (it should at least work with Yahoo Maps).

All the apps could use work in playing back audio results.  Vlingo will replay SMS texts before it sends them out (thus avoiding awkward misses in the voice transcribing), but it needs to support playback of queries and location searches to avoid dangerous glances away from the road.

Vlingo has been around for awhile, but they recently upgraded and it’s voice-recognition is now much more usable compared to the rest.  Yes, it costs $17 (they have a limited free version) – but that’s nothing compared to the enhanced safety (I rarely need to look at my phone now, it’s all voice-recognition).  All the other apps are free, so I highly recommend trying/using at least one of these if you own a car- you never know when you’ll need it.   Or you could just avoid using your phone altogether while driving.