Review: IPhone User Tries to Go Back to BlackBerry
2014-12-30 08:02:32.203 GMT
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
New York (AP) -- The BlackBerry's blinking red light used
to haunt me.
Just when I thought I could relax, enjoy a nice dinner or
go for a run, my BlackBerry would start blinking again,
signaling a new message. I was an addict. Typing with one hand,
hiding the BlackBerry under the dinner table? No problem.
Walking down the street while composing messages? Easy.
That was four years ago.
Today, I'm a loyal iPhone user, having just bought my
second phone from Apple. I get my personal and work email on it.
I also use it to tweet — maybe too much — and share photos of my
travels on Instagram. My airline boarding passes and hotel
reservations live on my phone. As a travel reporter, it's an
indispensable tool for my work — not so much for the email but
for all the apps that help me manage my trips. It feels like a
mobile office for me.
This past week, I went back to my BlackBerry ways to test
the company's latest model, the Classic.
For BlackBerry, this device is a return to its roots: It's
made for those heavy corporate users who love the physical
keyboard and have resisted the touch screens adopted by millions
of iPhone and Android users. The Classic has strong security
features, restores the beloved navigation row and sports a
battery that won't be drained by lunch.
I can see how the Classic is a great device for loyal
BlackBerry fans.
My friend Heather Montminy practically jumped out of her
chair to try the Classic when she saw me testing it during
dinner last week with our respective spouses. Montminy is a
lawyer who has been using a BlackBerry for 12 years and carries
two phones: an iPhone for her personal use and a BlackBerry for
work.
"I'm excited for any new BlackBerry. I was really concerned
that they were going to phase out the keyboard," Montminy says.
"I feel like I can get a business email done much faster and
more efficiently."
She says she's not great at typing on a touch screen and
often finds herself making mistakes and having to go back and
fix them. That might be fine in a message to friends but not on
an important work email.
But after four years on the iPhone, I don't think the
Classic is for me. I also don't believe it's going to sway back
anybody who has abandoned the BlackBerry.
To be honest, I've become very good at typing emails on my
touch screen. And I'm no casual user.
I send and receive a whopping 500 emails a day. Many are
public relations pitches that only require a word or two in
reply. But for many others, I will easily respond with a few
paragraphs on my iPhone. In fact, I will often write large
sections of my stories on my iPhone while riding the subway or
sitting on planes prior to takeoff. The only big downside for me
is copying and pasting.
Going back to a physical keyboard this past week turned out
to be cumbersome. Yes, I liked that while in another program,
the BlackBerry gave me a little banner up top announcing the
sender of a new email. And, to be honest, that blinking red
light was, in a strange way, comforting. But I wasn't typing any
faster with the physical keyboard.
Beyond that, photos aren't as good as what I can take with
the iPhone. Both phones produce 8 megapixel pictures, but images
taken with the Classic weren't as sharp.
More importantly, BlackBerry lacks several apps I've come
to depend on. The Classic will run some Android apps through
Amazon's app store, but it's a subset of what's available for
Android. It doesn't even run everything that would run on
Amazon's Fire phone. Apps need to be tweaked for the phone's
3.5-inch screen (The display is smaller than most phones because
the physical keyboard takes up much of the bottom).
There's no Instagram, no Uber car service and no ability to
easily pull up my airline boarding pass. With my iPhone, I can
get my boarding pass and add it to Passbook. It's there as I get
to the security checkpoint — no fumbling around email folders or
hoping there is a strong enough cell signal to download the
image fresh.
Maybe if I never got a taste of the iPhones and all the
apps available for it, I'd be first in line for a Classic. But
BlackBerry took too long to modernize its system, and in that
time, I've gotten used to the touch screen.
2014-12-30 08:02:32.203 GMT
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
New York (AP) -- The BlackBerry's blinking red light used
to haunt me.
Just when I thought I could relax, enjoy a nice dinner or
go for a run, my BlackBerry would start blinking again,
signaling a new message. I was an addict. Typing with one hand,
hiding the BlackBerry under the dinner table? No problem.
Walking down the street while composing messages? Easy.
That was four years ago.
Today, I'm a loyal iPhone user, having just bought my
second phone from Apple. I get my personal and work email on it.
I also use it to tweet — maybe too much — and share photos of my
travels on Instagram. My airline boarding passes and hotel
reservations live on my phone. As a travel reporter, it's an
indispensable tool for my work — not so much for the email but
for all the apps that help me manage my trips. It feels like a
mobile office for me.
This past week, I went back to my BlackBerry ways to test
the company's latest model, the Classic.
For BlackBerry, this device is a return to its roots: It's
made for those heavy corporate users who love the physical
keyboard and have resisted the touch screens adopted by millions
of iPhone and Android users. The Classic has strong security
features, restores the beloved navigation row and sports a
battery that won't be drained by lunch.
I can see how the Classic is a great device for loyal
BlackBerry fans.
My friend Heather Montminy practically jumped out of her
chair to try the Classic when she saw me testing it during
dinner last week with our respective spouses. Montminy is a
lawyer who has been using a BlackBerry for 12 years and carries
two phones: an iPhone for her personal use and a BlackBerry for
work.
"I'm excited for any new BlackBerry. I was really concerned
that they were going to phase out the keyboard," Montminy says.
"I feel like I can get a business email done much faster and
more efficiently."
She says she's not great at typing on a touch screen and
often finds herself making mistakes and having to go back and
fix them. That might be fine in a message to friends but not on
an important work email.
But after four years on the iPhone, I don't think the
Classic is for me. I also don't believe it's going to sway back
anybody who has abandoned the BlackBerry.
To be honest, I've become very good at typing emails on my
touch screen. And I'm no casual user.
I send and receive a whopping 500 emails a day. Many are
public relations pitches that only require a word or two in
reply. But for many others, I will easily respond with a few
paragraphs on my iPhone. In fact, I will often write large
sections of my stories on my iPhone while riding the subway or
sitting on planes prior to takeoff. The only big downside for me
is copying and pasting.
Going back to a physical keyboard this past week turned out
to be cumbersome. Yes, I liked that while in another program,
the BlackBerry gave me a little banner up top announcing the
sender of a new email. And, to be honest, that blinking red
light was, in a strange way, comforting. But I wasn't typing any
faster with the physical keyboard.
Beyond that, photos aren't as good as what I can take with
the iPhone. Both phones produce 8 megapixel pictures, but images
taken with the Classic weren't as sharp.
More importantly, BlackBerry lacks several apps I've come
to depend on. The Classic will run some Android apps through
Amazon's app store, but it's a subset of what's available for
Android. It doesn't even run everything that would run on
Amazon's Fire phone. Apps need to be tweaked for the phone's
3.5-inch screen (The display is smaller than most phones because
the physical keyboard takes up much of the bottom).
There's no Instagram, no Uber car service and no ability to
easily pull up my airline boarding pass. With my iPhone, I can
get my boarding pass and add it to Passbook. It's there as I get
to the security checkpoint — no fumbling around email folders or
hoping there is a strong enough cell signal to download the
image fresh.
Maybe if I never got a taste of the iPhones and all the
apps available for it, I'd be first in line for a Classic. But
BlackBerry took too long to modernize its system, and in that
time, I've gotten used to the touch screen.