Hi

Late to the thread as I've been wrapped up in the Blackberry: Beyond Email tour.

Unsure how anyone can state how good or not the Bold will be as the only people that have them are at&t reps and RIM personnel. The limited access at WES didn't give a real test other then checking it out.

I'm fortunate to get pretty much every device that comes along and support close to 3,000 moible devices. No doubt people will want (umm expect) Iphone as I get calls every week about it. My take as a admin is totally different then a consumer but I also do like gadgets.

The iphone is a slick device, I've had the EDGE version since pre-launch and have OS 2.0 loaded on a couple. It's so amusing reading the digs on Windows Mobile yet the Iphone will be using the same crappy ActiveSync connection. So anyone who's used WM .. the email experience is pretty much the same .. don't expect it to work and having to kick start the sync and you'll love it.

I have no doubt Apple will attract a very large portion of the consumer market as they have the "hype" and most users in this segment want music, video and web with a little messaging. Throw in a couple games and some lightweight apps and they are pigs in mud. The funny thing is Apple is killing themselves being tied to one carrier here in the states. The growth will all be in other 3G areas (Europe etc) as the states have a LARGE segment in the CDMA world (Verizon, Sprint) so all those people that want a smartphone as their contract comes up .. are moving to a Blackberry. You know how many soccor moms I see with Pearls now?

RIM also has the advantage of having different models and lower prices, sure the Bold will likely cost more then then iphone but the Curve and Pearl are now $100 and under. So it makes interesring times. You can't say RIM only has X amount of users are a large # of those users have been added the past 2 years as mobility takes off. Without EDGE and now 3G iphone would never work, it requires bandwidth. Blackberry has (yes slowly) taken on more functionality and they are pretty comparable so it's a tough choice if you had to pick one.

Now I am sick of hearing all about the FANTASTIC SDK, yeah it's great if all you want to do is develop for iphone. Blackberry dev tools align with industry standards - Visual Studio, Eclipse, Java. Blackberry's error is not tooting their own horn and marketing it to death. Apple did one thing - they opened up a lot of peoples eyes to how large smartphone market is becoming and what is possible. I think once the dust settles you will find the major applications on both platforms as what developer wants to limit their income (even moreso with Apple taking a bite out).

I could go on and on but we are arguing about personal preference, what I want in a device is totally different then the next person. Just try whatever device out and remember 2 years is a long time to settle with a device you wind up disliking!