Arthur Freydin’s Blog

Online marketing, gadgets, business, and thoughts.

I’ve been using a BlackBerry 8820 for almost a year now and have found that it is perfect for my needs: email, calendar, texting, phone. Even with that aside, I can’t avoid the lure of new, prettier cellphones to potentially off-seat my trusty BlackBerry. I don’t know why I do this since I am fully aware that the BlackBerry does absolutely everything that I need it to do and then some. What can I say, I love gadgets.

Some of you may be aware of that strange iPhone 3G device that reared its head on July 11th. Naturally, I lined up and shared my story. Aside from the battery draining issues, I loved my new toy and wrote off the battery performance as a victim of its own creation. I played with the iPhone all damn weekend and found it an absolute joy to use. Come Monday however, it was an entirely different story. The iPhone 3G was clearly not ready for true business use since it lacked many business-centric features such as cut-and-paste (duh), calendar invites, no sub-folder sync, no extension dialing, and so on (I know that only BlackBerries really offer some of these features but keep reading, i’ll address it). So, no more iPhone for me and it’s back to the BlackBerry I went.

I’ve also tried a handful of Windows-based devices to no avail. While most of them offer a decent feature set, I find that all lacked in one or more major areas. Lets take HTC for example. Their devices can be downright gorgeous at times but are always hampered by the Windows Mobile OS. Windows Mobile introduces serious hang-ups, downright crashes, random restarts, and security issues. Because the operating system is the root of the problem, these issues carry over to Palm, Motorola, Samsung, and any other device that go with the WinMo route. Also, many of the Windows Mobile devices tend to go for a longer horizontal keyboard which makes single-hand typing impossible. I’ve tried alot of WinMo devices over the past few years and have never really had much luck with them.

The closest replacement candidate that I have seen is the Nokia E71. The device has gotten awesome reviews by almost every respectable online publication so I was naturally curious enough to try it. I purchased my Nokia E71 at Nokia’s flagship store in NYC and immediately tore it open once I got home. Having had uninspiring experiences in the past with the business features of QWERTY phones in the past, the first thing that I did was connect to my company’s Exchange server. The process was relatively smooth but, once complete, I already had reasons to miss my BlackBerry. A few of my contacts did not sync over, no extension dialing, no sub-folder syncing (or viewing for that matter), no way to invite attendees to meetings, etc. Also, the Symbian operating system used by Nokia phones just lacks polish entirely. There are strange abbreviations (mangment?), convoluted menus, grammar mistakes, and way too many features such as video calling that are just not available in the USA. Overall, the device looks and feels amazing but lacks quite a few key features that I have grown to depend on in my BlackBerry.

With all that said, would I still try other QWERTY (love typing that) devices in the future? Probably, but it is becoming more apparent that no one can replicate what RIM has done to make their devices the true king in business. I don’t care how many manufacturers decide to release a device that targets the BlackBerry marketshare; there is just no equivalent to a BlackBerry other than a new phone directly from them.

I was a huge iPhone fan since the first one came out and owned one since firmware 1.0. Unfortunately, however, I’ve never been able to use the iPhone for business since it had no enterprise features to speak of.

When word of iPhone 3G and firmware 2.0 leaked out, I was ready to hop on line (I had given my girlfriend the original iPhone and bought a BlackBerry almost a year ago) to pick one up. So I bought a white 16gb iPhone 3G. I loved it and had played with it non-stop for 3 days, completely draining the battery twice.

Once the initial novelty wore off, however, it was time to get to business. I hooked up Exchange and was off and running in no time. My contacts, calendar, and email synced up as promised with no issues. Right away, I noticed an immense battery drain. I also noticed all the things lacking on the iPhone that I have become to rely on in the Blackberry.

Now, I know what you are saying: “If you love the Blackberry so much, why did you switch?” It’s because I had faith in Apple. I believed that if they were to tackle a new enterprise market, they would do it right. Well, I was wrong. I know that Blackberry has had years of experience in the enterprise market and that Apple can’t just leapfrog all of that and introduce a superior enterprise level device. But why not? Isn’t that what Apple fans expect? Look at what they did to the consumer cellphone market after they introduced the original iPhone! Surely, Apple wouldn’t falter this giant step.

Well, they did. No inbox folder push. No capability to setup meetings. No way to see meeting responses. No folder collapsing. Abysmal battery life. No copy & paste. No capability to create folders. No auto-shutoff. No way to dial extensions embedded in phone numbers. The list goes on and on and I’m sure there are things that I have forgotten about.

I understand that an iPhone is not a Blackberry. But come on, the Motorola Q had better business features! I love the many extras that the iPhone has that my Blackberry didn’t, but it just isn’t enough to keep me on it. So, it is with great lament that I will be returning my iPhone and turning back to my Blackberry.

Here’s a quick walk through on how to use the AutoText capability and a couple of examples that don’t come included out of the box.

First, let’s discuss exactly what AutoText does. From Jeff Barr’s blog:

AutoText is a macro (text replacement) system with some built-in intelligence so that it can handle multiple languages and mixed case text. AutoText is responsible for some of SureType’s spelling correction features. For example, it automatically replaces “acn” with “can,” “ehr” with “her,” and so forth. Basically, the spelling correction dictionary is out in the open and … is also fully editable.

That sums it up pretty good and is a bonus because I didn’t have to type it out myself .

If you’re new to your Blackberry (god help you), here’s where you can find the AutoText settings and how to add a new instruction, step-by-step:

1. Go to your application screen (the one with a bunch of icons on it)
2. Open up the “Options” application (should be all the way down on the bottom and looks like a wrench)
3. Select the AutoText option
   Once in the AutoText screen, your Blackberry should present you with all the built-in instructions.
4. Hit the Blackberry hard button on your phone to bring up the context menu
5. Select “New” from the menu
6. Enter the word you would like to replace as you type in the first “Replace” field
   example: “teh”
7. Enter what you would like that word replaced with
   example: “the”
8. Click your trackball and select “Save”
9. Done!

Now, onto a few uses of creative text that didn’t come pre-packaged with your Blackberry.

• b4 = before
• goin = going
• hr = hour
• mins = minutes
• r = are
• sec = second
• sry = sorry
• thx = thanks
• u = you
• w = w/
• y = why
• yday = yesterday

One important point to keep in mind with AutoText is that it only automatically replaces what you have typed once it recognizes a space after the word to be replaced. For example, it won’t replace “y” with “why” but will if you type “y ” (there’s a space after the “y”).