I’ve always had animosity towards the iPhone, but never hated it per se.  I’ve always posted article on Twitter about how much the iPhone lacks or pales in comparison to the BlackBerry (which, of course, I love), but they’ve always been trivial because they are biased by the author (again, of course).  But today, a whole slew of iPhone versus BlackBerry topics came up.

It started with this morning, when on CNN they talked about “feature envy” that regular cell phone users suffer when they see users with smartphones.  They said that a Gartner review listed the iPhone as the #1 consumer smartphone, with LG and BlackBerry tied for second.  I completely believe in this survey: the iPhone is an extremely popular and sought-after phone, and it is a “smartphone”.  Unfortunately for the iPhone, it’s not the smartest smartphone…it’s just generic consumerism that make it the most popular.  What a BlackBerry power user–or even someone with a half a brain–can do with a BlackBerry blows the iPhone out of the water.  Sure, the iPhone has 75,000 applications, but are they useful?  Can they exchange data seamlessly with each other?  Or are they in there very own little universe–an “app-verse”–all by themselves, only sporting info and pretty, sleek graphics to itself?  This is generally in the case.  I’d love to see an iPhone–NOT jail-broken–be able to do what I do on my personal BlackBerry, not even on my work BlackBerry.  The iPhone can’t hold a candle to the multi-tasking, multi-data-flow BlackBerry.  It can’t efficiently manage four work email addresses, four calendars, and countless workflow management applications…all of which seamlessly exchange data with each other without so much as a single skip.  I can literally manage the ski shop, the golf course, and my home computers and networks from my BlackBerry.  On top of that, I can regulate all the data and business transactions for each one of those functions from my BlackBerry in real-time.  That’s something the iPhone can’t do.  Oh yeah, then all that personal junk too, from that device (which the iPhone does very well).

Shortly after that, I read a Boy Genius report and Lifehacker article about how AT&T and Apple were going to put the hammer down again on iPhone users.  AT&T is talking about data rate caps, and how the latest OS update for the iPhone further restricts a bunch of things we BlackBerry users take for granted.  I’ve been in these shoes before, however, and can relate to iPhone users…but I can’t justify their existence.  When I first got my BlackBerry, Verizon crippled the damn thing.  No GPS, no fun applications like Pandora.  But consumer actions do have consequences, and after numerous emails (from myself as well) and some FCC complaints, Verizon smarted up and let BlackBerry users go hog-wild with their devices.  There’s now NOTHING we can’t do on them.  The world is our oyster.  So nowadays, I can’t stand to see what AT&T does to it’s premier customers…the iPhone users.  The restrictions that they as a company perform and would like to perform is unholy, but not new.  And the fact that Apple maintains such a strict, communist-style control over a device that the consumer owns seems completely shady.  Having to hack your phone to free yourself partially from these restrictions is silly.

Lastly, a friend at work asked me about the iPhone.  I told him pretty much the same thing as what I mentioned above.  I added on to that with some personal quips about the iPhone.  For one, it’s completely trendy.  Now many may think that me saying that is hypocritical (and you may be right), but it’s completely true.  Look at how much the media mocks the iPhone, such as in SNL or Leno.  And how many complete toolkits and douchebags do you see sporting the iPhone as a status symbol and not as a powerful hand-held computing device?  A lot is the answer.  On the flip side of this, the iPhone has also undeniably had an effect on our culture, but my shared view is that it’s mostly negative (iPhone users == douchebags).

Would I ever talk anyone out of an iPhone?  Only if they needed something more for the multi-tasking, tech-saavy people.  For moms, dads, douchebags, I-like-pretty-pictures, and high-performance texters/Facebokers, this device is nuts-on what you need.  It’s an amazing device with media capabilities that simply crush even the best BlackBerry.  But it’s not a tool.  It’s a toy.  If you want a phone that’s a toy with lots of games, multimedia capabilities, and tons of useless apps (like to find an apartment?!  How many fucking times are you going to use that thing?  Once maybe?!  Come the fuck on), then get an iPhone.  You won’t be upset.  But if you want a device that can completely keep you connected with everything in your life–personal and business–in real time, you need a BlackBerry (maybe an Android phone, soon!).  There’s little valid comparison between the two on that level.

Oh yeah, and when have I had to update my BlackBerry for a security issue?  Fucking never, that’s when.