iPhone for the Win — The Story of One Household

Earlier this year I posted on the battle in the smartphone market between Apple and RIM, makers of the Blackberry. It took a macro level look at the market and the players: http://tinyurl.com/55vutc

Today I’m posting on the totally micro level — my household. A few weeks ago my wife Gabriele and I both upgraded our phones, something that was well past due. I went with an iPhone 3G, and she went for the Blackberry Curve 3120. This weekend, she brought it back and exchanged it for an iPhone of her own. In our house, it’s iPhone by a knockout.

Some background — I needed email access for work purposes, Gabriele did not. Neither of us needed the ability to open attachments. Both of us placed a premium on a good mobile web experience. We wanted to be on the same network to simplify the monthly bill and take advantage of unlimited network minutes.

Gabriele really feel in love with how intuitive the iPhone is to operate. I was able to synch up my Yahoo mail with a couple of screen touches. It was also very easy to have my Outlook synched up, by the firm that handles Strategic Communications Group’s IT on an outsourced basis. The apps in the preloaded main menu were easy to use and immediately useful — stocks, YouTube, Maps, calendar. I’ve just begun to explore the App store and move all of my music to the iPhone.

Gabriele felt that the Curve was not intuitive at all. The QUERTY keys were tiny, and each did multiple functions. This made simple tasks anything but in her opinion. As one example, the back key did not delete incorrect characters; you needed an extra step to make that happen.

Phone coverage has generally been good as our previous carrier Verizon. There is one dead zone right around National Airport, we both lose calls there everytime we drive by. We hope AT&T can do something about that eventually.

We did not look at the new Blackberry Bold available on the Verizon network. Some might say that would have been a more fair comparison. If anyone reading this has one, please drop a comment.

Staying connected while mobile is becoming a mainstream expectation, for both work and pleasure. In the new age of ubiquitous connectivity, the device that delivers the best user experience wins. For us, that’s the iPhone.