I was very, very tempted to document a comparison of my brand new blackberry curve against my wife’s new iPhone.  If I had the time, perhaps I’d doc such a thing.

We both got new phones.  I opted for the bargain BlackZBerry Curve 8310 while my wife was coveting the iPhone for months…

I am left jealous and disappointed in my device.  While mine would have been a slam dunk on its own, it is simply crushed by the experience of the iPhone.  Now, take the difference in price into consideration - Blackberry Curve $100 after rebate / iPhone $500.     Read on…

Presentation

The first thing i noticed was packaging.  The iPhone was like unwrapping something special, something exclusive.  My wife compared it to an American Express Black.  I’ve never seen such a thing but apparently its something special.  Lordy, I hope we never get one of those…  The iPhone is presented in beautiful packaging and presentation.  You feel as though you’ve received a gift.  The blackberry?  Lots of white stickers, crappy baggies and cheap plastic. 

Capability

The second thing I noticed was, well, the device.  The iPhone is fantastic!   Its easy to sync, easy to understand, easy to use.  In fact, a pleasure to use.  The blackberry is a pain in the ass.  I still haven’t been able to transfer my contacts from my Razr.  My wife’s razr has long sync’d using her iBook.  Slim, shut up.  Google maps is a tie.  Both devices equal opportunity.  The bottom line is that the iPhone is user centric while the Blackberry is balckberry centric.  If you think about the hours of wasted time trying to f&#$ with the BB while the iPhone user gleefully completes her task and then moves on to music, $400 well spent.

Moving On Then

Jason Hoekstra mentioned the Microsoft Multi-touch in contrast to the iPhone.  He has a good point.  Today I thought of one killer app that could make a large format multi-touch display launch to the moon.  The fax machine!  Who in the hell still thinks fax machines have their place in the world?  We all have scanning capability but you have to scan then configure then send then watch then report then print…  argh!  I still struggle with fax machines.  It is due time for a machine that one can lay a piece of paper on, scan it in and then, on the surface, deliver it somewhere.  Of course, Mark Jones (where is your blog, man?) pointed out that MacBooks have a new app that allows you to scan bar codes using your built in  camera phone.  Anyone else realize how simple, relevant and disruptive this could be?  Toss every laser scanner in the trash and start using camera phones to scan bar codes.  Next, toss every damn fax machine, scratch that, BURN every damn fax machine in a giant inferno of fuel oil and gunpowder, dancing around the bonfire in a celebratory exorcism of ancient and inadequate technology as we replace something that doesn’t work with something that we all already own.  Hmmmm..   Should I refrain from posting this?   Nah!  I will personally pay the persona who develops the software necessary to use a cell phone camera as a fax machine replacement $1000.  I hate them so.

My point is that these technologies are so long in coming that we’ve become complacent in their reception and, when they finally arrive, we say, "wow, nice, cool."  But we fail to stop and consider what star trek episode is actually within reach because your iPhone let’s you flip through your voice mails out of order and create an effective user interface from pixels on a handheld device.  Yeah, the tabletop computer is too expensive to care about right now but, think about it…  Imagine checking your voice mail on that device, setting the temperature of the thermostat, sending some music to your car stereo, ordering a pizza and then picking which movie to stream to your wireless HD TV.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Technology Future. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.