To My Readers Who Own Blackberry Pearls
Comments: 2 - Date: February 4th, 2009 - Categories: Blackberry Pearl, Tech Reviews
As I’ve mentioned before, approximately 100% of the search engine visits to my blog are from people looking for some information related to the Blackberry Pearl and how to sync it to Notes. Well, I have an update for all of you: I’ve switched. I’m now an iPhone user. It is now official: There will be NO MORE Blackberry Pearl posts here! Except for my final thoughts….
The two phones can’t really be compared to each other. The iPhone is closer to a computer, while the Pearl is good at being an email checker. I won’t bother waxing poetic about how great the iPhone is and how every application that exists on the BB has a way better equivalent on the iPhone, because I don’t want to make you jealous. :) Suffice it to say that it is awesome and I love it.
But to compare it to the Blackberry, I can give some insights. In terms of syncing with your address book and calendar, it is all pretty easy if you have joined the Mac cult and you use both a Mac and an iPhone. I don’t sync the iPhone to Lotus Notes because I got out of that habit when Notes 8.0 broke syncing to the Blackberry. I sync to the Mac’s Address Book and Google Calendar.
Here were some surprises for me:
- There is no built-in bluetooth syncing with your Mac or over-the-air syncing with Google applications.
- If you want to sync with Google Calendars, they may tell you at the Apple Store it isn’t possible, but it is with NuevaSync. Read this Apple Blog post to set it up.
- The iPhone’s Contacts easily synced with the Mac’s Address Book, but it did not intelligently merge any contacts.
Things I do miss about the Pearl:
- The instantaneous push email. I now have to actually touch the mail icon on my iPhone to find out if I got email. I miss the pulsing red light that tells me my phone needs me.
- The battery life is better on the Pearl. I have to charge my iPhone at least every 48 hours.
- My Pearl was comfortably dented and scratched after 2 years of wear, so I didn’t live in fear of scratching it more. I dread the day I drop my beautiful iPhone.
I would like to install Lotus Notes, Sametime, and even Connections on my iPhone, but am not sure when I’ll find the time to do it.
Comment by Sandy Kemsley - 4 February 2009 @ 6:50 pm
I’m with you on the things to miss about the Blackberry, having recently switched from my old Blackberry to a combination of an iPod Touch and a regular mobile phone (documented here http://www.column2.com/2008/11/mobile-experiments/). My Blackberry was dropped several times, at least once hard enough to have the back pop off and the battery fly out, and I can’t imagine the iTouch surviving that. I miss push email, a longer battery life and a keyboard on which I can touch-type, but the user experience on the iTouch is just so nice that it makes up for that. I also use NeuvaSync, although had some problems on the weekend and had to disable it (luckily, iTunes support syncing directly from Outlook to the iTouch) but will be putting it back soon since I miss the over-the-air sync.
Comment by Joan DiMicco - 11 May 2009 @ 11:54 am
6 months later…. and one thing I miss about my Blackberry is being able to see my next 2 calendar appointments on the front screen. I realized this weekend that I rarely take the action to look at my calendar on the iPhone and Sunday night have no clue what is in store for me Monday morning.
(Not that I’m switching back or anything!)