David Frith | June 17, 2008
SO what's it to be: a BlackBerry or an iPhone? That's the question facing many smartphone-toting business folk in coming months, following the arrival of the 3G iPhone in Australia on July 11.
Nokia, Samsung and HTC are jostling for a share of the business smartphone or personal digital assistant market, and have interesting new models on the way.
The main battle for possession of the executive pocket or handbag will be fought between Research in Motion and Apple, makers of the BlackBerry and the iPhone.
BlackBerry is the incumbent champion. Business people love its proven push email system, which automatically sends messages to those pockets and bags, wherever they are.
The previous 2G version of the iPhone, which wasn't sold in Australia, doesn't have industrial-strength push email, and as a result was largely ignored by enterprise buyers, but the 3G iPhone has been designed with the business market very much in mind.
For big companies with a large number of users connected over the Microsoft Exchange email system, Apple has licensed Microsoft's ActiveSync.
This delivers push email from any Exchange server, without some of the added costs inherent in the BlackBerry system.
For smaller businesses or home office operators who don't have an Exchange server, Apple is providing a new cloud computing system it calls MobileMe.
This automatically stores your email, contacts, and calendars on an online Apple server (that's the cloud) and constantly pushes them out to your iPhone, Mac or PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. The MobileMe service will cost $109 a year.
Keyboards may be a point of contention. The iPhone doesn't have one: you tap out messages on a "virtual keyboard" displayed on the touchscreen.
All current BlackBerries have real keyboards, albeit ones with tiny keys "flea-sized", as one reviewer has put it.
The iPhone appears a winner at web access. Its large high-res screen displays web pages superbly, and when connected by 3G or WiFi, delivers them at impressive speed.
Pricing will be another issue. It seems certain the iPhone will be cheaper than the current crop of BlackBerries.
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, announcing the July rollout of the iPhone in 22 countries including Australia, declared that the maximum price in "nearly all" of those countries would be $US199.
If that applies to Australia, the asking price here could be something like $225-$230. Translate the US pricing into Aussie dollars and you get $209. Add Australia's GST, and you're looking at almost $230.
The popular BlackBerry Curve and Pearl models sell in this country for a recommended $749 and $699 respectively, although few people choose to shell out that much upfront. Vodafone, for instance, offers both models for zero upfront and $79 a month on a two-year contract.
Vodafone and Optus may well offer similar deals on the iPhone, but the monthly charges should be significantly less. If that results in business charging towards the iPhone, you can expect to see BlackBerry prices tumble.
TOUCHSCREEN technology may be the trend of the day in smartphones, but Doubleclick is far from convinced it's the way to go on desktop PCs.
Hewlett-Packard plainly thinks it is. The computer maker's Australian subsidiary last week launched an all-in-one desktop that, like Apple's best-selling iMac all-in-one, conceals the computer workings inside the monitor housing, leaving desktops uncluttered.
Unlike the iMac, the IQ500 has a screen that responds to the tap of a fingertip.
"Without a keyboard or mouse, consumers can play music, create playlists, zoom in or out of photos and quickly check the weather or watch television," HP says.
The IQ500, due in July, has a 22in screen, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and, on one top-end model, a television tuner. Prices start at $1999.
This is hardly the first touchscreen desktop launched by HP. That would be the HP-150, launched in 1983.
HP at the time was convinced the touchscreen was the personal computing interface of the future, but it flopped badly. Users disliked it for two reasons: it forced them to take their fingers off the keyboard, and the screen quickly became smudged and sticky.
After Apple in 1984 introduced the first Macintosh, it soon became plain the mouse was a superior pointing device to the finger. HP quietly dropped the touchscreen HP-150 later that year.
How strange to see the concept return after all this time.
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4 Comment(s)
Why is there so much hype regarding the iPhone? Do yourself a favor and do some research into the failure rates of the devices. As someone who has several friends in the states with the previous version most were replacing their first within six months while one had to replace his four times within a year! Add to this the fact it has the same problems as other touch-screen based devices (very non-responsive), a serious lack of features found in older generation phones and at such a LARGE size its unpocketable why would anyone want one? Sure, so it can play music/videos and syncs with iTunes but how is that an advantage if your having to recharge it on a DAILY basis (do remember the batteries in these devices have a limited number of recharges around the 350 mark).
Having owned an apple itouch ipod, I can tell you that the touch screen based keyboard is virtually useless. Pressing the wrong key is quite common. If you actually want to respond to emails, then a black berry wins hands down every time. If you want to watch videos while on the plane, then a iphone is superior.
All Hail the iphone. This will revolutionise the mobile phone industry! Every Kid will want one, and every business person will too. I'd be very scared if I was blackberry, HTC, Nokia, Motorola etc....
Come on now David, if you are going to quote prices then do it properly, the US prices are on a 24 month contract with AT&T, speak: subsidised. Yes it may be the $230 as you have quoted but that won't be the RRP it will be the sub'd price.
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