Functionality as a phone

The debate of service providers does play into this a little.  I have been using a cell phone in the Los Angeles area since 1997, and have been with Sprint for the last 2 years.  For our needs, and where we travel in Southern California, Sprint has by far the best coverage.  I am sure someone is reading this right now thinking I am an idiot because they had nothing but issues with Sprint and love their current carrier.  So goes the choice of a cell carrier; it’s based on a least of evils.  That being said, during the two weeks I used the iPhone, I also carried my Blackberry.  What I found was that I had better reception at home (which is great), but worse reception (notice I didn’t say bad) when visiting our clients.  Currently, we have only one client whose location has poor reception with Sprint.  During the two weeks I used the iPhone, that number jumped to over a dozen.  Your mileage may vary.

How the iPhone functions as a phone is a different matter.  I have about 20 people I call several times a week including employees, clients, and colleagues.  Calling these contacts takes three steps on an iPhone and only one on a Blackberry.  Let me explain: I added these people as “Favorites” in my iPhone and set it to take me to my Favorites list when I double-clicked the home button.  Double-click, scroll the list of Favorites (I had too many to fit on the screen at one time) to the name of my choosing, and tap to call them. Sounds great and easy to use.  Now try it with one hand or while driving.  Not so easy.

On my Blackberry, I assigned these same 20 people to “Speed Dials”.  All this entails is pressing and holding a letter on the keyboard for about two seconds and it will dial the number.  Now for the best part: the 8830 has voicedialing built in and I have found the text-to-speech recognition to be about 95% accurate.  I have come across a few glitches, but have quickly learned to deal with them.  For example, it will sometimes pronounce a hard “C” as an “S”.  Even with its minor quirks, I have found it to be invaluable.

Searching for names in the Contact list is much better in the new 2.x iPhone software (which is available for the original iPhone too), but it’s still not perfect.  If I wanted to call “Charles” by searching for his name, it takes eight steps, but on a Blackberry, it only takes four.

iPhone step-by-step…

(1) Unlock the screen
(2) Tap the Phone icon
(3) Tap the Contacts button
(4) Scroll the list of contacts back to the top of the list so I can access the Search bar (The list stays at the last location between uses, so if the last name I called was “Frank”, the list would be at “F”)
(5) Tap into the Search field to access the keyboard
(6) Start spelling the name
(7) Tap the correct “Charles” (I have 7 in my address book)
(8) Tap the desired number

(There are some 3rd party apps you can install on the iPhone to tweak or adjust this process, but we’re just looking at the device as it is out of the box.)

Here is that same process on my Blackberry:

(1) Unlock the screen
(2) Start spelling the name
(3) Scroll to the correct “Charles”
(4) Click the desired number

Again, the Blackberry requires half the number of steps.  This may not seem like a big deal if you make ten or fewer calls a day, but on average, I make thirty per day.  That’s a lot of extra effort.  And when you consider the new hands-free law in California, the built-in voice dialing is much faster and safer.