After a little more research and hand-wringing, we popped over to the Apple store this weekend and walked away with an iPhone. I was leaning towards the BlackBerry Bold until I figured out that I’d have to pay the business data rate to have access to my business email, which would have negated much of the savings that motivated me to move to AT&T in the first place. I think the centralized administration and big-brotherly nature of the BlackBerry architecture provides an advantage for businesses that need to manage a herd of devices, but for little ol’ me, that stuff sounded like a pain in the butt.
After a couple days in my pocket, I think I like it well enough. Phone-feature-wise it’s probably not as good as some others, though I must say the voice quality is a big step up from my Q. That may just be GSM vs CDMA, though. The web browsing, however, blows just about everything else away, and having an iPod in there as well sure is nice. Apple clearly traded off features for a “humane” interface, and I find myself forgiving some gaps in functionality because it’s just so much fun to look at. I’m getting used to the keyboard, and I think after a few more days I’ll be as fast as I was on my old phone.
The thing is about as grippy as a wet pumpkin seed, though. I actually like it better in the case.
JLS.CX
You and me were never meant to be part of the future
On a related topic, are you still happy with FiOS? Looks like we’re getting it at the new place. I’m a little nervous about VOIP now–we had Vonage (over Comcast) for a few months and Kathleen never stopped complaining.
FiOS is still a win in my book. The router (Actiontec MI24, IIRC) is a bit weird, and I had to get mine replaced a few months ago because the power supply failed, but the Internet and TV have been solid. We went with copper-line phone service, which is part of the FIOS package. I think eventually they’re going to offer a digital phone service over the fiber, but last I checked it’s not available yet.
I am also a VOIP skeptic. We recently switched over to VOIP in the office. Lots of features, but the voice quality for external lines is pretty crappy. We haven’t gone VOIP at home, and I don’t see myself doing it any time soon.
I hope ours will come with a regular line. It is hard to figure this out from their website.
My first exposure to VOIP was in grad school. As a benefit to students, we were able to sign up for a low-cost calling card. It was never described as VOIP, but I strongly suspect that’s what it was. I wasted a bunch of time trying to send faxes with that calling card, impossible of course.