so I don't know what to honestly think of the iPhone4. I have been a blackberry user for two years prior to going to the iPhone4 this summer. I was promised that I would marvel at the wonder of the phone and never want to look back.
Well on one side of the world yes I LOVE the phone for many reasons:
(1) I can use it for movies and music
(2) The ability to have like a bazillion different apps for almost anything that I need or want and a lot of the apps really simplify my life (e.g., LoseIt, MealBoard, and Couch to 5K are my most frequently used apps) they keep track of my food, meal plans, grocery shopping and running program. Fabulous!
HOWEVER I have found some extreme limitations that frustrate the crap out of me and no one seems to mention them:
1. Multiple mailboxes but only one signature
As I said before the primary purpose of my phone is for work but I also have my mobile me and personal emails coming to my phone.
However, I have an extremely long signature for work (my name, business and other important details but then also a confidentiality statement) and I have this as my default signature. However, I do not want this appearing on my personal emails. Thus, my only option is to delete this every single time I send a personal email from my personal email account (can we say pain in the rear!?)
I have been told that if I use MobileMe or GoogleMail that I can probably fix this. well I don't think I should have to use a third party to preform this task that the BlackBerry readily did.
2. App Store Management
The way in which the app store is managed and organized is driving me nuts. I would love to be able to look and review the different apps using iTunes on my computer but alas the way that it is laid out in iTunes is extremely limiting and counter intuitive (surprising since everything apple is normal very intuitive)
I would also like to be able to cue downloads of apps. I am currently searching and downloading many apps. I do not like the fact that I have to press install and then wait for the app to install before continuing.
Last and not least you can NOT use iTunes gift cards on the Apple Canada app store - boo urns!!
3. Contact Management
I frequently send emails to the same group of people (on a more than daily basis) and it is annoying to have to retype their emails every single time that I have to send an email. On BlackBerry you could create a group in the contacts and then send and email to the group and it would automatically deliver to all the parties listed in the group. I have not been able to find such a feature on the iPhone.
4. Calendar Invites
UGH the vain of my existence - I have a beautiful MacBook Pro that runs boot camp and whenever I have an appointment that I want to put in my calendar and invite another person to I literally would rather boot up BootCamp and then open Outlook and send a calendar invite than use Calendar on the iPhone. There is NO option to send calendar invites.
Again, I have been told "there's an app for that" however as a smart phone I consider this to be a BASIC thing that a phone should do. I stand in court frequently with my phone trying to schedule something and the ability to send that invite or even ACCEPT an invite from someone else is a necessity. Frustrating beyond belief that I have lost that function of the iPhone4.
5. Calendar Views
AH can you tell that I have issues with the calendar?? (By the way all of the issues I am listing here - you guessed it blackberry has the options....)
There are only three view options in the calendar - "List" "Day" and "Month"
(a) I miss a weekly view. I do not like having to use month view and then click on the different days to see what I have going on - especially when at MAXIMUM only two appointments show at the bottom and then I have to scroll through to see what is going on and even then there is not obvious indication that there are other appointments past the two that are visible - so there has been occasion where I did not see them listed and when switching to day view...well see (b) below.... (I am not a fan of list view - I am very much a fan of lines and seeing the days beside the other so I can have a whole view of my week at once)
(b) I miss being able to see the entire day. Even when using Day view I can see only 8 hours of the day and no way to expand or minimize to see the evening at the same time.
6. Task Management
There is no way to sync tasks between iCal/Outlook/Entourage and the Phone.
Again "there's an app for that" well - this is a basic thing the phone should do (I mean the BlackBerry does it why doesn't the iPhone?)
Summary
if you are looking for a basic phone not for work purposes that does everything else under the sun as well then I would definitely recommend the iPhone4.
If you are a professional looking for a phone that will act as your life saver (manage contacts, email, calendars) and the apps are a cool secondary feature then I would consider buying something else and getting an iPod touch to get the benefits of the app. Especially when you consider that the phone is between ~$200 and ~$300 on a three year contract or about $900 (with MobileMe which is necessary to get calendar synching) unlocked or off contract.
At the end of the day I still love my iPhone4 (yes enough that I would be crazy enough to line up at 9 p.m. the night before it went on sale again...) but I am sadly disappointed that many *key* features have been missed
*sigh*
