I ALMOST SUCCUMBED.

21 November 2008

An interesting day in technology today…11/21/08. Blackberry dropped their new Storm touchscreen phone with obvious intentions of taking the wind out of iPhone’s success. Apple “coincidentally” releases their latest iPhone update, with version 2.2.
My intention all week was to get the Blackberry Storm today. In all honesty, I was getting tired of this “work-in-progress” experiment known as owning an iPhone. Regardless of how cool, slick and beautiful an iPhone is…no one can dispute that you are more productive on a Blackberry. Recently the iPhone was just pissing me off. AT&T was pissing me off more.  My friend E.W. at Apple was appalled when he heard this.
Here’s a snippet of our AIM conversation:
ME: dude i have some bad news
HIM: uh oh
ME: Friday. Blackberry Storm. I’m doing it.
HIM: oh christ
ME: haha…im keeping the iPhone as my main #
HIM: are they sending you one or something? i mean…WHY???
ME: but i am going to give the storm a 30day trial…Verizon has a 30 day return policy
HIM: right. just looking at it makes me uneasy
ME: just to keep my mind open man. you’re not at all curious??
HIM: oh everything out there we have here and we’ve used etc..
we are up on shit for sure..
ME: i’m sure using it everyday will be ok
HIM: they are def trying to step up. uv tried typing on it? there’s fundamentals w/ just design philosophies….the haptic feedback screen and push down click/screen isn’t anything new…it’s cool that they’re trying to push it on their end tho…but…it’s like reebok dude….some shit is yeah…ok, i can live with…looks ok. but, at the end of the day its just………reebok.
i mean what can i say. just completely different thinking between the two companies.
HIM: However they are Canadian.
ME: i wouldnt say they’re Reebok…they’re at least like Adi, no?
HIM: hmmm…yes. that’s probably better.
HIM: they’re stuff …as i’m sure it’s similar in clothing w/ you… cause you design it…that your eye just can’t get past details…that say alot that you can’t ignore that says alot about the care and time that was put into it and alot of that has to do w/ my prejudices w/ blackberry.
ME: you mean like their choice of Dom Casual as a system font?!
HIM: yes! shit like that!!
ME: hahaha
HIM: lets see if you can get past seeing that shit EVERY DAY.

So I went to my local Verizon dealership tonight and found that the Storm was sold out. But they had some fully working display models on hand to play with. I held it in my hand and went to the Calendar app to check it out. The first thing I notice is the word “NOVEMBER” up top, in all its Arial Bold wackness…all kerned out and goofy looking. E.W. was right. This was wack. The typing was weird. Granted it DID take me 4 months to get used to the iPhone typing, so I didn’t expect to get used to the Storm in 5 minutes. But I could tell that there is really no way to type fast on this Storm. Gizmodo confirmed the same thing. Plus, there is no way to sync the Storm to a Mac! Not even with a third party app like PocketMac. It’s just not possible. Which is pretty stupid considering they built this phone with the intention of taking iPhone customers away. So it turns out the Storm being sold out was a blessing in surprise. Plus with the new 2.2 software update, the iPhone feels great now. It’s zippier, smoother and snappier (not sure if it’s a placebo effect or not). And the new Google Maps app is SICK. Street View, Walking Directions, Mass Transit Directions are all great additions. And of course…no Dom Casual! The iPhone is not the perfect phone by any means. And AT&T still sucks, but for now, I am sticking with the mobile phone front runner: iPhone.