After years of loyal service, I just switched from my Treo 680 (palm os) to an iPhone. My Treo was awesome: great email support, fantastic bluetooth stereo audio for music, eReader support for books, movies were pretty good, excellent keyboard, lots of apps (including the most excellent SplashID for password mgmt).

The downside: No wifi, no GPS, worse browser evar, palm is dying a slow and painful death.

So I switched.

I’ve had to deal with blackberry’s a-plenty over the years since nearly everyone I know uses them. They suck (IMHO). The browser is terrible and that thumbwheel or ball mouse would make me suicidal. It was eliminated immediately. The only contender for me was the new Nokia’s. They have native Python support and lots of other goodies. But coming in at close to $800 CDN I couldn’t justify it.

The iPhone is pretty incredible. The UI is deal maker, there are lots of (great) apps. The accelerometer is surprisingly useful. Lots of good … but lots of bad:

- iTunes Sucks! It’s not a PIM, it’s a music catalog and it’s locked down tighter than my wallet. Trying to sync eBooks, non-Audible audio books, odd files (like PDF’s), email contacts from sources other than Google, Yahoo or Outlook is nasty, and it has shitty Calendar sync support. iTunes sucks. It’s very hard to find 3rd party alternatives.

- The keyboard sucks. Very finicky. Hopefully they get Swype support soon.

- No Bluetooth stereo audio. Bluetooth is only for the phone (mono, etc.). Can’t change songs via bluetooth, etc. This one is killing me.

- Email is stored in the phone and not in the 8-16G memory section. This means it can only store about 250 messages. Power blackberry users will die due to this.

But that’s pretty well all that’s bad. SplashId is supported (thank god) and they have this amazing app called Remote that lets you control your iTunes music player remotely via Wifi … for having a party at the house, this app alone paid for the iPhone. Also, Apple seems pretty reactive to fixing stuff.

Good luck on your purchase!

You know that I’m a real proponent of Apple stuff – no PCs allowed in the house :)

So while Artem makes some good points, *some* of the pain goes away if you’re pairing the phone with an Apple computer.

In particular Artem mentions that iTunes is not a PIM. Very true. However if you’re using a mac, then it takes your contacts from your global address book, and it works great. Likewise with the calendaring.

Regarding the storing of files, he is also correct. There just happens to be a new app in the app store (called AirShare) that is FREE, and makes your iPhone look like a standard Samba file share, so you can drop files on there easily.

While I haven’t run into the other limitations he mentioned, I’m sure he’s right.

For me, it was an issue of which phone requires the least effort to keep in sync and provides everything I’m looking for. With the iPhone and MobileMe, everything is kept in sync “through the cloud”, and I rarely have to actually physically plug the phone into my machine.

I have been 100% satisfied with the iPhone, but ironically I’ve just started a new contract where I’ll have to carry around a Blackberry. :(