A month or so ago I was having a great Sunday lunch at the home of my business partner (Claire) and her partner (Richard) produced his shiny new iPhone and started to rave about it.  So I had a proper play and suddenly pronounced: ‘I want one’…

A few of my friends have had an iPhones for ages (Ed and Jon were early adopters – Jon is an original Apple disciple) and I didn’t get what all the fuss was about:

  • Yes the turning screen thing was interesting
  • Yes the Zippo app was fun (if you were at a concert)
  • Yes the flicking through photos was cool

But my BlackBerry Curve took photos, had a browser, could locate me on a map, let me read my emails and, oh yes, I could even make and receive telephone calls.  So I pottered along in blissful ignorance and even engaged in some low energy debates with some friends on the topic which went along the lines of…

  • iPhone advocate friend: ‘But the iPhone does X’
  • Me: ‘My BlackBerry does X as well’
  • Friend: But the iPhone does Y’
  • …you get the picture

As a result I got increasingly sceptical about the iPhone and more entrenched in my belief that these poor iPeople had been brainwashed by powerful and subliminal Apple marketing.

So on the Monday after my pronouncement of ‘I want one’ I ordered an iPhone3GS.  It arrived (in stunning packaging) a few days later and within a week I was up and running on it – I had a few problems with the SIM card and set up (02 inaccurate customer service advice to blame – although lady on call number three knew her stuff and got me all sorted).

It has been a life changer and I cannot believe that I resisted the shift from BlackBerry for so long.

Now I appreciate that stating that a gadget has ‘changed my life’ might seen a little over the top.  I acknowledge that by nature I am prone to being 100 percent for or against something (I like to think that I am a Ying ‘n Yanger – balance gets in there somehow!) but this beautifully designed bit of black plastic is genuinely amazing.  Why?

  • I have all my music on my phone (which has meant that I have listened to tracks I haven’t heard in ages which is ace)
  • I get to listen to my favourite BBC radio 4 showsas podcasts (this was the bit that I missed the most about dropping my car journey to work)
  • I now have a really easy to use way to update this blog, my company blog, run TweetDeck, manage my work email , plus my personal Google Mail (this is both convenient but also means that I don’t have to burn my legs with laptop resting on them all the time)
  • Whizzing around London just got easy: with one click I can check my train times (brilliant TrainLine app) and find a tube station with one click (Nearest Tube app).  If I get lost (as I did yesterday in the maze of roads in the West End) my phone tells we where I am in seconds and as it has compass so lets me know which way to walk
  • It can even save me time: on recommendation I downloaded a brilliant app which lets you take a photo of a business card and it scans and puts it in your contacts in 10 seconds

Basically, all these simple little things all come together in the palm of your hand – and it does it really fast – a sea change to the painful lurch of my BlackBerry.

So here is my analogy comparing the two phones…

BlackBerry: Is like a sweet old building porter, he is efficient and always gets the job done, but he’s really slow and does things in an old fashioned way.  He does know how to use the internet but if he needed to find you a decorator he would prefer to look it up in a paper telephone directory.

iPhone: Is a really good looking personal assistant, who is just on it and they just nail it every time.  They work effortlessly – no fuss – no huffing and puffing.  They get just get the job done and you get a buzz out of working with them, experiencing their energy.

Now things are not perfect in the world of iPhone:

  • It has crashed on me once already (I was playing music, downloading a webpage and trying to take a photo at the same time)
  • Keyboard typing is a bit tricky (especially if you have sausage fingers like me) – but if you turn the phone in a landscape orientation the keyboard gets wider and minimises the errors
  • …but hey, even a super PA has an off moment – it’s all easily forgiven

So if you are in the running for a phone change I would encourage you to take the plunge into the iPhone world – it’s really great (and strangely spiritual) here.

Amen :+)

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