seanlong.orgposted on: March 03, 2008
In my previous post I mentioned that I was expecting to miss a few of my old BlackBerry's features with the switch to the iPhone.
First I thought I would miss the ability to just start typing at the home screen and having the address book show any matching entries. With the iPhone I found that the favorites list covers 95% of the numbers I would normally just start typing on the BlackBerry. The BlackBerry is a bit easier but who is to say Apple will not add a similar feature with a firmware update.
Secondly I worried about the speed (or lack of) of AT&T's Edge network, I have found that the speed is not that big of an issue. When I am out and about I mostly am checking text based items; email, news feeds and the occasional google search. When I am not moving about I often have access to a WiFi network which is much faster than EVDO on the BlackBerry.
Third I was worried about the call quality, back in 2003 when I last had AT&T (before the merger with Cingular) the service was horrid. I have found the call quality and coverage to be very good, call quality is on par with Verizon and coverage is probably 98% of Verizon's. I have noticed that the iPhone coverage indicator is a bit conservative, many times it will indicate zero bars of service and calls will work just fine.
Lastly, voice dialing. I truly miss this while driving, here in California it is going to be illegal to talk on the phone without a headpiece starting in July. I am not sure what the law states about dialing a phone while driving but I think that is the riskiest part. Below are the required steps to make a call on each phone:
- On the iPhone I have to slide my finger across the screen, enter my four digit pass code, tap the phone icon, then either click one of my favorites, search for the contact or dial the phone number. Finally when the phone starts dialing I have to click the on screen button to use my bluetooth headset.
- On the BlackBerry (or any other phone with voice dialing) all I had to do was press the button on my headset and I would hear, "Say a command", I would say "Call home", the phone would say "calling" and that was it, no step three.
The company that provides voice dialing functionality to most phones is VoiceSignal, on their homepage they have two demo videos of voice activated apps running on the iPhone. One video shows the iPod functionality of the phone being controlled by voice commands and the other demonstrates voice activated search. I am hopeful that VoiceSignal is working with Apple on adding this via the upcoming iPhone SDK, I am willing to pay up to $20 for this feature.
All in all I am still very happy with the iPhone and wouldn't want to go back to the BlackBerry.
