iPhone, Android or Windows Mobile??

[Archphoto]

If you dont have an iPhone how would you know that the games are pretty cough?

I didn't say that they were cough, just useless to me as I don't have a need for those types of apps. The same can be said for those games in the Android area - not cough, just useless to me - there's a big difference in my description and yours. :mrgreen:

I wasn't attacking any particular brand, just giving my point of view; from what I've read, the iPhone is very good for those who really are into gaming - in which case it would appear that that phone is the best choice for gamers.

My point was that none of the listed phones are *the* best - it's horses for courses. I didn't choose an iPhone - the OP might; it's entirely his/her decision. They asked for an opinion on 3 types - Windows, iPhone or Android and we have all given ours - in relation to the product we are using or intend to use.

 

[Timtammi]

If email is your core app then you can't beat Blackberry.

I run two companies and travel a lot both are IT related and email runs my work life. BB's seamless integration with exchange, great qwerty KB etc make tapping out emails and synchronising with the desktop seamless.

I currently have a Bold which is good but browsing is slow and the screen is too small to make it really workable. My husband has the new Torch and its much more Iphone-ish with a full screen on the front which operates like an iphone touch screen but then slides up to reveal the full qwerty keyboard and everything else BB.

I can't see myself ever going for a phone that requires a touch screen for typing emails, a proper kb is required in my book.

As others have said all the smartphones have their relative strengths, work out what matters to you most and go for the phone that excels in that area.

Cheers

Timmi

 

[drewbles]

If email is your core app then you can't beat Blackberry.

I run two companies and travel a lot both are IT related and email runs my work life. BB's seamless integration with exchange, great qwerty KB etc make tapping out emails and synchronising with the desktop seamless.

I currently have a Bold which is good but browsing is slow and the screen is too small to make it really workable. My husband has the new Torch and its much more Iphone-ish with a full screen on the front which operates like an iphone touch screen but then slides up to reveal the full qwerty keyboard and everything else BB.

I can't see myself ever going for a phone that requires a touch screen for typing emails, a proper kb is required in my book.

As others have said all the smartphones have their relative strengths, work out what matters to you most and go for the phone that excels in that area.

Cheers

Timmi

Having heard the 'oh but I need a proper keyboard' argument, I say 'try a touch screen (a good one) for a few weeks'.

I know a dozen or more people who held this argument, and swapped to various Android or iPhone handsets. They all swear by it now and would not go back to the Blackberry. The lack-of-haptic-feedback is cited as the main complaint, but people quickly adapt to a 'clicking' sound in place of it.

And with Apple integrating ActiveSync into iOS and providing excellent Exchange support, BB is slowly becoming redundant.

I read an interesting article online from a huge fan of BB showing how even he has lost the faith after their co-CEO couldn't really explain their future strategy. BB has a lot of catching up to do, or it'll lose out (the whole BB controlled email server thing I hate; it may be 'secure', but being forced to let another company host your email for you (baring the enterprise server which is hugely expensive) is not a good strategy IMHO even though it's worked for them).

If anyone is interested, the article can be found here: Editorial: RIM seems to be as lost as my BlackBerry -- Engadget

I've worked in IT for over 15 years now, and am one of the technical people. I hate BlackBerry handsets. The only lovers I know are the PHB's (management) from the days where it was the only decent mobile email solution. These days, too many other options for me to be locked into RIM's world

 

[Timtammi]

BB has a lot of catching up to do, or it'll lose out (the whole BB controlled email server thing I hate; it may be 'secure', but being forced to let another company host your email for you (baring the enterprise server which is hugely expensive) is not a good strategy IMHO even though it's worked for them).

We run both BIS and BES and we got a great deal on the small business version of BES, I think we got 3 or 4 licenses for a couple of hundred dollars.

Cheers

Timmi

 

[oz_mark]

And with Apple integrating ActiveSync into iOS and providing excellent Exchange support, BB is slowly becoming redundant.

I remember having a discussion with a colleague severeal years ago when we were planning a mobile strategy. One of our conclusions was that the BlackBerry approach was really an interim solution. It solved a problem at the time, but likely to be replaced by something else.

 

[Paddy55]

Having heard the 'oh but I need a proper keyboard' argument, I say 'try a touch screen (a good one) for a few weeks'.

I know a dozen or more people who held this argument, and swapped to various Android or iPhone handsets. They all swear by it now and would not go back to the Blackberry. The lack-of-haptic-feedback is cited as the main complaint, but people quickly adapt to a 'clicking' sound in place of it.

And with Apple integrating ActiveSync into iOS and providing excellent Exchange support, BB is slowly becoming redundant.

I read an interesting article online from a huge fan of BB showing how even he has lost the faith after their co-CEO couldn't really explain their future strategy. BB has a lot of catching up to do, or it'll lose out (the whole BB controlled email server thing I hate; it may be 'secure', but being forced to let another company host your email for you (baring the enterprise server which is hugely expensive) is not a good strategy IMHO even though it's worked for them).

If anyone is interested, the article can be found here: Editorial: RIM seems to be as lost as my BlackBerry -- Engadget

I've worked in IT for over 15 years now, and am one of the technical people. I hate BlackBerry handsets. The only lovers I know are the PHB's (management) from the days where it was the only decent mobile email solution. These days, too many other options for me to be locked into RIM's world

+1 Well said, Drewbles

 

[simongr]

I've worked in IT for over 15 years now, and am one of the technical people. I hate BlackBerry handsets. The only lovers I know are the PHB's (management) from the days where it was the only decent mobile email solution. These days, too many other options for me to be locked into RIM's world

How do you manage the security aspects? We are a large corporate and are assessing what to do about iPhones (both corporate supplied and personal connecting to the corporate exchange servers) but I keep getting challenged on the security issues.

Any thoughts?

 

[Mal]

We are a large corporate and are assessing what to do about iPhones (both corporate supplied and personal connecting to the corporate exchange servers) but I keep getting challenged on the security issues.

Just get your CEO to ask your CIO to DO IT NOW! (It happened at my org recently)... The solution is absolutely borked from a security perspective (and I won't go into details except to say that any security issues were steamrolled).

Might work where you are...

 

[anat0l]

Oddly enough I'm in the same decision boat here.

Main thing is that I'd like to be able to take advantage of the data that I have. I have a huge amount of data accumulated through rolling over in my Optus Prepaid Turbo Cap (about 2 or 3 GB now), but as it stands I'm barely using much of it on my packet data. (Though I have a bigger problem keeping my MyCredit balance low enough so I can keep recharging and rolling over each month).

iPhone just screams out not because it looks good and everyone has one, but utility-wise it has it all. Connects everywhere (multi-band plus good coverage on advanced networks, which means easily covers Korea and Japan... plus wifi), aGPS, camera.... it's all good.

The only ones that maybe get close to competitive is HTC and Samsung. The advantage of HTC is that their range runs Android (some Windows). Android being open source means that it's easier to get some apps free of charge, or I could probably put those programming skills that I learnt in uni to good use (cf. iPhone where I'd need to pay the developer fee = sucks big time).

Of course, going on a plan with iPhone is a real challenge, since almost everywhere (at least on the internet) is "sold out" of iPhone 4. One begs to think when the next iPhone will be out (and what will it have)....

So I'm reading this thread with interest as well...

My other main problem is whether I should continue with Optus (particularly my Prepaid Turbo Cap offer) or switch carriers / switch to a post-paid plan. I know it all depends on use patterns, but if that was the case then there really is no reason for me to switch, except I could get a new phone on a post-paid plan (at a reasonable "installment" cost along with the plan cost) although there may be issues porting my existing number to any new calling offer or carrier. Some people note the quality of networks in metropolitan and rural/remote areas, as well as the quality of roaming capabilities...

 

[simongr]

Just get your CEO to ask your CIO to DO IT NOW!

The CEO tried that and IT said no :shock:

 

[futaris]

I just installed Google Maps Mobile 5 on Android.

It adds a lot more useful features that make it more usable...

 

[simongr]

That looks like a really nice function - especially for those times when you lose internet coverage it can still track where you are.

For me though the main issue using google maps or similar when travelling is the data usage charges. It essentially renders my iPhone unusable in most countries...

 

[drewbles]

How do you manage the security aspects? We are a large corporate and are assessing what to do about iPhones (both corporate supplied and personal connecting to the corporate exchange servers) but I keep getting challenged on the security issues.

Any thoughts?

I'm (un)fortunate that i've only rolled out small deployments. The last big company I worked for (AT&T) was pre-blackberry days (2000-2004) so we didn't really have such a thing as mobile email back then.

Since then, most companies i've been with are small so it's largely a non-issue. Have an SSL certificate for the mail server issued, takes care of SSL to/from the mail server ensuring it's secure.

For phone security, the iPhone allows remote wipe with either Find My iPhone or via ActiveSync/Exchange.

Apple also have a corporate iPhone deployment tool to allow you to manage a fleet of phones. It's based on having the phones to provision up though, not over-the-air (you install provisioning profiles onto the handset to make them behave how you wish).

Up until iOS 4, it was also the only means of securing a handset with more than just a 4 digit PIN. As of iOS 4 (and still with the provisioning utility) you can set complex passwords to lock the phone. They also have standard functions such as 'delete all phone data if 10 wrong password attempts' and the like. I'm pretty sure this can be lowered with the provisioning utility as well.

End of the day, they're still not as 'smooth' as a blackberry to get into the corporate space, but they're not far off. As mentioned, I hate other parties storing/controlling my email, which is the premise of blackberry (and it's all in Canadia )

 

[Paddy55]

The CEO tried that and IT said no :shock:

Time for someone new to head IT :shock::evil:

Paddy

 

[markis10]

Time for someone new to head IT :shock::evil:

Paddy

That would be that actions of an insecure CEO who is not looking after the interests of the company, just their ego.

 

[anat0l]

OK here's a slightly tangential question:

If you had to buy a device outright - let's take an iPhone for instance but I assume it'll be the same for the other devices - then how would you go about purchasing it?

• Apple online?
• From an international retailer?
• In store in Australia?
• Get someone to buy it from another country, then send it here?

iPhone actually makes a surprisingly good example because the difference between Apple online and retailers is probably nil (if they are both in the same country).

Issues normally related to warranty procedures (e.g. buy a device in China and the service requires it to go back to the retailer in China) are probably minimal for iPhone since I assume each naturally has a worldwide warranty (just take it to an Apple Store / Genius Bar). Might not apply for other devices mentioned.

 

[Mal]

OK here's a slightly tangential question:

If you had to buy a device outright - let's take an iPhone for instance but I assume it'll be the same for the other devices - then how would you go about purchasing it?

• 
  
  iPhone is a bad example, as the phones are the same in every country (AFAIK ... some phones come out in different versions for different markets).
  
  But I have bought phones using the following methods:
  - In store (non contract).
  - AU online store (non contract).
  
  2nd one is usually better, but you need to be sure of what you're getting.
  
  I would generally avoid Ebay for phone purchases.

 

[JohnK]

Question for anyone who knows about mobiles in general.

On the Motorola Z3 I was able to copy all contacts from phone to sim or from sim to phone. It would appear on the Motorola V9xx that this feature is only available for one contact at a time which could take a while. I have no idea how this is done on the Nokia N97 mini.

I do not have a laptop with Bluetooth.

Is there an easy way to get the contacts from one phone to another phone without having to copy all of them individually? I prefer to store contacts on phone as that way I can use Australian sim card and Thai sim card on the same phone....

 

[oz_mark]

I can't speak specifically for your phone, but in the Motorola I have used there is be an option to 'Select Multiple To'

IIRC, it was something like Menu -> AddressBook -> Options (Select Multiple To) -> Copy Phone To SIM -> Options -> Select All -> Done.

 

[JohnK]

You are a legend oz_mark. My phone has 'Select Multiple to' and I looked at the first 3 options which are 'Send Message', 'Voice Message' and 'Delete'. I did not think to scroll down for another 3 options.