Why i moved back from iPhone to Blackberry

After trying iPhone for about 2 months, I am finally going back to my Blackberry Pearl.
I gave iPhone a shot but even though its awesome, it is still not ready for corporate users.

Here are the issues that were deal breaker for me:

• No Support for syncing notes: I was used to taking my notes on my blackberry. I had a lot of lists and misc notes on my Pearl that I synced with Yojimbo on my laptop. If a friend recommended a good movie - it went on my list. My boss suggested something new in the hallway - it was on my list. With iPhone the whole concept does not exist !!
• International Coverage is clumsy (and expensive): I travel a lot to other countries and I was used to just having my blackberry work everywhere !! There was nothing to configure. No APN settings to messs around with. No extra charges. I land in a new country and my email just arrives as it always does. It just worked. Not so with iPhone.
  

There are a few other issues with iPhone that were not exactly deal breaker but irked me a lot anyways.

• Mail client is clumsy on iPhone: On Blackberry, it takes one click to read email or to compose one. On iPhone you click on email icon, then you click on your account's name and then you choose your inbox (3 clicks). It takes 1 more click (a total of 4) to compose a mail. This is frustrating as many corporate people live and die by their emails. Adding 2 extra clicks to my email check is like adding an extra 500 clicks to my work week if I am traveling. Totally not cool.
• There is no way to search your contacts on iPhone: This is pretty lame on Apple's part. First of all it takes 2 clicks to reach your contact list from the main screen (every phone I have used in my life does this job in 1 click - and blackberry takes zero clicks). Once you are on your contact list, there is no way to search for contacts !! I did not believe it when I first noticed it. Do they really expect me to BROWSE thru my 600 contacts to find the one I want to dial?
  
• No support for task syncing: Just like notes there is no way to sync tasks from my iPhone back to my laptop. If there was a good note syncing application - I probably wont miss it so much. But without it - this annoyed me a lot.
• No blinking light for new mails: My Blackberry blinks an LED when it has a new email. Nothing too disturbing - just a subtle way of letting me know that there is new email waiting for me and if I want I can get to it (just like my email client does). I searched very hard but could not find a way for my iPhone to do the same.
• Exchange issue has been beaten to death so I wont harp too much about it. Basically, you get Exchange over IMAP. With iPhone, you do not get over-the-air syncing of calendar, tasks or contacts that you get with BES.
  
• Blackberry is smart with email: There are other ways in which Blackberry does a better job with email. If I get a big PDF from my sales guy on blackberry which I need to forward to my boss - I do not need to wait for the entire 1 MB thing to download before I can forward it. I can just look at the header (or the body of the email) and forward it. Blackberry does all the heavy lifting server side. There are other similar smart things that Blackberry does with email which will take Apple quite some time to catch up with.
  
• Other misc issues: I also did not like a few other things. iPhone is a tad heavier than my Pearl. There is a distinct lack of choice for carriers for iPhone (its not even legally available in most of our international office locations). There is no support to view PPT files attached with mails.

I must say, iPhone does have many impressive features:

• The quality of the video on this thing is amazing and even though my Pearl can play music there is a huge difference in the quality of the two
• The way Apple has integrated with iTunes and YouTube is also very apt. I found myself watching a lot more YouTube because of my iPhone.
  
• The browser is a lot more useful with its finger-gestures and better support for javascript and portrait mode.
  
• And, yes, overall, iPhone is a very finished and good-looking product.

However, I do not think its ready for the business market just yet.

Don't get me wrong. I do think iPhone is a game-changing product. It has redefined not just the bar but the rules by which mobile phone industry measures itself. The list of innovations that have gone into this small product is astonishing.

In the next 2 years, I will not be surprised if we see many more phones (some from Apple and some from other vendors) raising the bar even further and adding even more features. Perhaps, some of them will take good care of business users as well.

keeping your life in sync with blackberry, GTD, os x and exchange

I see lots of posts on the net around how to manage your life using blackberry and OS x - specially if you have Microsoft Exchange in your office. I thought I should pitch in with my "perfect" setup.

My requirements were:

• Should work natively with OS X (no parallels etc for me)
  
• Should work with Microsoft Exchange. In particular, calendar syncing and free/busy status should work both ways (I should be able to see the free/busy status of other people and they should be able to see mine)
  
• Should sync seamlessly with my blackberry (calendar, contacts and notes)
  
• I want it all to be reliable and trust-able. I dont want to deal with beta software or solutions that "almost" work.

After spending about 6 months of trying out various tools, I now think that I have a solution that does all of this and does them very reliably. Its not a cheap setup but, hey, its one-time investment !! Here, it goes:

First, the list of tools that I bought

• Microsoft Entourage 2004 (for mail, work calendar and exchange connectivity)
• Kinkless GTD (GTD-based task management) - requires Omnioutliner Pro
• Missing Sync for Blackberry (for blackberry syncing and a note taking application that syncs)

Now, here is how I set them up:

• Calendar : I use Entourage to work with my calendar. (I could just as easily work with iCal) and my sync flow is: Exchange <--> Entourage <--> Missing Sync <--> Blackberry
• Tasks : I use Kinkless GTD to work with my tasks. I also take notes on my blackberry so I need to have any new tasks that pop up in my head when I am working on my blackberry show up in my kGTD inbox. My sync flow is: Kinkless <--> iCal <-- Missing Sync <-- Blackberry. I do not currently sync my tasks with Exchange.
  
• Contacts : My sync flow is: Exchange <--> Entourage <--> AddressBook <--> Missing Sync <--> Blackberry
• Plaxo Contacts :I also use Plaxo for keeping current with some of my contacts so I have an additional branch to my sync flow above Plaxo <--> AddressBook which then sync with the rest of the contacts as above. I use Plaxo's Addressbook add-in for this purpose.
  
• Notes : Missing Sync ships with a great notebook that you can use on the OS X and that syncs with BB. I use Yojimbo which is much more versatile and sync with BB notes as well. My sync flow is pretty simple: Yojimbo or Missing Sync Notebook <---> Missing Sync <--> Blackberry
  
• Photos : I end up taking lots of photos from my blackberry. These are synced one way to iPhoto and then I manually update to Google Picasa that acts as my Photo backup. Picasa <-- iPhoto <-- Missing Sync <-- Blackberry .
• Music : I realize that with the music support on my blackberry I do not need to carry an iPod. I just use Missing Sync to keep my music in sync on my blackberry. iTunes Store / CDs etc --> iTunes --> Missing Sync --> Blackberry
• Mail : I have a personal IMAP account along with work Exchange account. Both just download to Entourage and Blackberry.
  

As you can see, this set up not only meets all my needs but I am also able to use my blackberry as my only portable device (for my photos, music, mail, notes, calendar, contacts and task taking). When I am on my computer, my photos, music, mail, notes, calendar, contacts and task list are back in sync with my OS X.

Some tips that are useful when creating a similar setup:
* Entourage works with iSync but always sync with a special calendar called "Entourage". My missing sync calendar settings make sure that all my calendars sync to blackberry including Entourage.
* A simple Task setup would just sync everything from kinkless to blackberry. however, I just want the ability to note down any new tasks that pop up in my head on my blackberry and the ability to have them pop up in kinkless "inbox". hence, I created a special calendar called "blackberry" in ical and have missing sync only sync this calendar for my tasks with blackberry. this way, my tasks in iCal never get transfered to Blackberry but any tasks created in blackberry get back to kinkless

Happy Syncing and let me know if you have questions about this set up !!