My typing speed on the iPhone and the BB are, in the end, just about identical. Have you used the iPhone keyboard for an extended period of time? It gets very natural.
I make more errors on the iPhone, but the iPhone's autocorrect is so much better that I actually have to stop and fix errors much less often. That makes up for the very slightly faster raw speed I get out of the BB keyboard.
And, because it's so much easier to arbitrarily move the cursor, editing is *much* faster on the iPhone.
Of course, none of that changes the fact that I'm 3x as fast on a laptop as I am on either handheld...
You have a major point. I don't tend to sync them to my computer.
For me, text entry on the iPhone is vastly easier than on the BB for one reason: it's much easier to move the cursor. I can point with my finger instead of awkwardly holding down the Alt key and scrolling at the same time.
I carry both a Blackberry for work and an iPhone for personal use. My iPhone is the furthest thing from a status symbol -- it's my life in my pocket. My Blackberry is just an annoyance.
I consider them roughly equivalent for email, largely because the Blackberry makes up for the awkwardness of its interface by having powerful filtering options and copy and paste.
For absolutely any other kind of use, from calendar to notes to Web usage to games to RSS, the iPhone blows the Blackberry away. Its screen is bigger and easier to read, its UI allows me to look up information *way* faster, its WebKit-based browser is actually usable in the non-WAP world, and it has much better graphics performance for games.
If you never get modded "flamebait," then your opinions are boring. Don't take it so personally.
To stay marginally ontopic, I have the opposite problem from most of the users on this thread. My company's IT department has standout customer service skills and loves to help. But with the exception of the actual IT manager, who is way overstretched and can't do everything, their technical skills don't match up with their service skills.
I don't have a MacBook. I have two previous-generation MacBook Pros. I don't think the OP's point particularly applies to MacBooks.
But I think if you don't need fast external storage, the new MacBook is a very up-to-date piece of equipment. It includes the fastest integrated graphics sold in a notebook, a brand-new chipset with the fastest FSB in a notebook, an LED-backlit display, and a brand-new, cutting-edge enclosure.
The point is that Apple is putting itself in an uncompetitive position by having its only laptop that is 1) desirable and 2) FireWire-equipped cost $1800 after student discount.
People won't try to use a MacBook. They'll buy a $1000 Dell or Lenovo laptop instead.
Maybe you don't need up-to-date equipment. Some of us do. Especially when more processor and disk speed, and more RAM, translate directly into more money.
For example, until laptops with 4GB RAM were reasonably available -- which first happened in 2007 -- I couldn't run two OSes at once without lots of unproductive swapping.
Beyond work, I like to be able to view current websites with reasonable speed. Much 2005 hardware won't do that anymore -- let alone 2002 hardware.
And today's features are useful too. I enjoy USB 2.0 and my MagSafe adapter. I don't think my purchase of machines in 2006 and 2008, both of which I still own, was wasteful at all -- especially since the machines they replaced are all being used by new owners.
If I didn't replace a system until it stopped working, I would be using a Mac Plus; my Mac Plus still works.
You've crossed the line from environmental awareness to punitive, pointless asceticism.
Stupid sellers... panicking just like everyone in the stock market. I'd certainly pick up a Santa Rosa MBP for $600 if I could find one in good shape.
If the machine is less than a year old, which many of these are, then just make sure to get AppleCare for it. If the first owner already has AppleCare, it can be transferred with the sale.
Then you'll be covered for three years. At least for me, that's about one year longer than I'm likely to use the machine.
It got awfully hard to continue with PPC when the fastest available mobile product was less than half the speed of competitive Intel offerings.
Even without considering the massive speed gains, the switch to Intel was the best thing that's ever happened to the Mac platform. Macs, being able to natively run all of the multitude of other x86 OSes out there along with OS X, are now the most versatile PCs in the world.
Without the switch to Intel, the Mac would still be in a 2%-3% ghetto.
Also, the idea that TiBooks "hold up better" than AlBooks is crazy. The painted parts get chipped within 6 months. The hinges inevitably fail. The AlBook/MBP design is much more robust.
Sadly, when college admissions are as hypercompetitive as they are now, it will be very easy for the university to defend against that lawsuit by claiming myriad other small reasons the candidate was not accepted.
The real loss for the universities is that admissions decisions are being made based on irrelevant bullshit (if "holding a beer" and not "making a total drunken idiot of yourself" is really the criterion), not the wealth of actual useful information the candidates provide.
And, since no one under 21 except you ever drinks, the fact that you broke that law is obviously a reflection on your character and your academic potential.
Precisely. I wish I hadn't already posted -- a mod up of your post would have done more good.
If someone posted a picture of himself having sex on the Internet, that may reflect on his judgment. If someone posted a picture of himself and his buddies at a party with beers, that just means he's like every other human, teenage or otherwise, on the planet.
Hypersensitive moralists of any stripe need to get over themselves.
In other words, if you ever want to do anything but be a bum, you have to live life like Ward Cleaver.
A world were "holding up a can of beer at a party" is something that should disqualify anyone from anything is not a world I want to live in. There are several pictures of me holding a beer or a glass of wine on Facebook. They don't reflect anything remotely negative about me.
Yes, people should use judgment (i.e. not let pictures of themselves naked, etc. onto the Internet), but I shouldn't have to be held hostage by people's crazy hangups. People don't always just sit in their houses and read the New York Times.
If you have WiFi in your house and your workplace, you can probably get a cheap phone and minimal $30 plan to replace your smartphone and $100 data plan. That's all I'm saying.
Everyone's mileage varies, as demonstrated by the endless iPhone vs. Blackberry threads on every mobile site in creation.
But for me, the autocorrect really is the secret sauce. I make ridiculous numbers of mistakes and only a small fraction of them remain by the time I'm done with the sentence.
Another aspect is that touch OS X is very good at taking a "messy" finger press that may move or cover multiple keys and establishing which key the user actually meant to press.
I know nothing about mobile UIs, though, and have no clue whatsoever exactly how Apple implemented these things. Honestly, that's always been Apple's strength -- they often figure out whatever little tiny detail is necessary to make a UI just feel better than anyone else has before.
It's still hard to do from in your pocket, but you don't have to use the slider. Just double-tap the Home button when the touch is locked and you get music controls.
Note this works only on the touch, not the iPhone.
Now if they'd just reinstate Shuffle by Album, which has been on iPods almost from Day 1 but is still inexplicably missing on the touch and iPhone, I'd be a much happier touch owner.
This is what I thought when I only had an iPod touch. Then I got an iPhone 3G and started texting with it away from home.
It's surprisingly good. I can type with it at 1/3 to 1/2 my speed on a full-size desktop keyboard. The key is to have faith in its autocorrect feature and just keep typing... 95% of the time the correction is right, and the rest of the time it's faster to just correct at the end of your text or paragraph.
Now that the iPhone has good international input methods, it's really not a problem that it doesn't have the market share of Moto or Samsung... Macs hardly have the market share of HP either.
Pure tablets haven't caught on because text input from them is a chore at best, and most of what most people do with a computer is text input.
I suppose it's possible that better virtual keyboards and haptic feedback may improve the situation, but not enough for me... without a breakthrough, I'd rather have a powerful MacBook Air-like machine than a tablet.
I live in Washington, DC. My iPhone 3G has nearly flawless 3G reception with very fast data rates in DC.
Recently I've traveled to Albany, NY; Seattle; and Portland, OR. The reception was very good in Albany, although I dropped back to EDGE a couple of times. It was excellent in (north and downtown) Seattle, with no problems.
But since arriving in Portland I've had problems nonstop. I've had 3G calls drop; web pages stop loading over a 3G connection; and "No Service" instead of an EDGE connection when the 3G connection is lost. It was so bad, I turned 3G off and won't turn it back on until I leave Portland. Fortunately, I have WiFi in most of the places I'm visiting here.
Slashdot Mirror
Because laptops under ten pounds are for chicks and homosexuals.
Real men can carry the weight in their Ford F-450s.
</sarcasm>
My typing speed on the iPhone and the BB are, in the end, just about identical. Have you used the iPhone keyboard for an extended period of time? It gets very natural.
I make more errors on the iPhone, but the iPhone's autocorrect is so much better that I actually have to stop and fix errors much less often. That makes up for the very slightly faster raw speed I get out of the BB keyboard.
And, because it's so much easier to arbitrarily move the cursor, editing is *much* faster on the iPhone.
Of course, none of that changes the fact that I'm 3x as fast on a laptop as I am on either handheld...
You have a major point. I don't tend to sync them to my computer.
For me, text entry on the iPhone is vastly easier than on the BB for one reason: it's much easier to move the cursor. I can point with my finger instead of awkwardly holding down the Alt key and scrolling at the same time.
I carry both a Blackberry for work and an iPhone for personal use. My iPhone is the furthest thing from a status symbol -- it's my life in my pocket. My Blackberry is just an annoyance.
I consider them roughly equivalent for email, largely because the Blackberry makes up for the awkwardness of its interface by having powerful filtering options and copy and paste.
For absolutely any other kind of use, from calendar to notes to Web usage to games to RSS, the iPhone blows the Blackberry away. Its screen is bigger and easier to read, its UI allows me to look up information *way* faster, its WebKit-based browser is actually usable in the non-WAP world, and it has much better graphics performance for games.
If you never get modded "flamebait," then your opinions are boring. Don't take it so personally.
To stay marginally ontopic, I have the opposite problem from most of the users on this thread. My company's IT department has standout customer service skills and loves to help. But with the exception of the actual IT manager, who is way overstretched and can't do everything, their technical skills don't match up with their service skills.
I don't have a MacBook. I have two previous-generation MacBook Pros. I don't think the OP's point particularly applies to MacBooks.
But I think if you don't need fast external storage, the new MacBook is a very up-to-date piece of equipment. It includes the fastest integrated graphics sold in a notebook, a brand-new chipset with the fastest FSB in a notebook, an LED-backlit display, and a brand-new, cutting-edge enclosure.
The point is that Apple is putting itself in an uncompetitive position by having its only laptop that is 1) desirable and 2) FireWire-equipped cost $1800 after student discount.
People won't try to use a MacBook. They'll buy a $1000 Dell or Lenovo laptop instead.
Maybe you don't need up-to-date equipment. Some of us do. Especially when more processor and disk speed, and more RAM, translate directly into more money.
For example, until laptops with 4GB RAM were reasonably available -- which first happened in 2007 -- I couldn't run two OSes at once without lots of unproductive swapping.
Beyond work, I like to be able to view current websites with reasonable speed. Much 2005 hardware won't do that anymore -- let alone 2002 hardware.
And today's features are useful too. I enjoy USB 2.0 and my MagSafe adapter. I don't think my purchase of machines in 2006 and 2008, both of which I still own, was wasteful at all -- especially since the machines they replaced are all being used by new owners.
If I didn't replace a system until it stopped working, I would be using a Mac Plus; my Mac Plus still works.
You've crossed the line from environmental awareness to punitive, pointless asceticism.
Stupid sellers... panicking just like everyone in the stock market. I'd certainly pick up a Santa Rosa MBP for $600 if I could find one in good shape.
If the machine is less than a year old, which many of these are, then just make sure to get AppleCare for it. If the first owner already has AppleCare, it can be transferred with the sale.
Then you'll be covered for three years. At least for me, that's about one year longer than I'm likely to use the machine.
Maybe I'm hanging out with a bunch of snooty elitists, but way more than 5% of the Mac notebook owners I know have MBPs.
I have no real data -- just "what I see around me" data -- but I expect the proportion of MBPs within total Mac notebook sales is more like 25%-33%.
It got awfully hard to continue with PPC when the fastest available mobile product was less than half the speed of competitive Intel offerings.
Even without considering the massive speed gains, the switch to Intel was the best thing that's ever happened to the Mac platform. Macs, being able to natively run all of the multitude of other x86 OSes out there along with OS X, are now the most versatile PCs in the world.
Without the switch to Intel, the Mac would still be in a 2%-3% ghetto.
Also, the idea that TiBooks "hold up better" than AlBooks is crazy. The painted parts get chipped within 6 months. The hinges inevitably fail. The AlBook/MBP design is much more robust.
Sadly, when college admissions are as hypercompetitive as they are now, it will be very easy for the university to defend against that lawsuit by claiming myriad other small reasons the candidate was not accepted.
The real loss for the universities is that admissions decisions are being made based on irrelevant bullshit (if "holding a beer" and not "making a total drunken idiot of yourself" is really the criterion), not the wealth of actual useful information the candidates provide.
And, since no one under 21 except you ever drinks, the fact that you broke that law is obviously a reflection on your character and your academic potential.
EPIC CLUE FAIL.
Precisely. I wish I hadn't already posted -- a mod up of your post would have done more good.
If someone posted a picture of himself having sex on the Internet, that may reflect on his judgment. If someone posted a picture of himself and his buddies at a party with beers, that just means he's like every other human, teenage or otherwise, on the planet.
Hypersensitive moralists of any stripe need to get over themselves.
In other words, if you ever want to do anything but be a bum, you have to live life like Ward Cleaver.
A world were "holding up a can of beer at a party" is something that should disqualify anyone from anything is not a world I want to live in. There are several pictures of me holding a beer or a glass of wine on Facebook. They don't reflect anything remotely negative about me.
Yes, people should use judgment (i.e. not let pictures of themselves naked, etc. onto the Internet), but I shouldn't have to be held hostage by people's crazy hangups. People don't always just sit in their houses and read the New York Times.
If you have WiFi in your house and your workplace, you can probably get a cheap phone and minimal $30 plan to replace your smartphone and $100 data plan. That's all I'm saying.
Everyone's mileage varies, as demonstrated by the endless iPhone vs. Blackberry threads on every mobile site in creation.
But for me, the autocorrect really is the secret sauce. I make ridiculous numbers of mistakes and only a small fraction of them remain by the time I'm done with the sentence.
Another aspect is that touch OS X is very good at taking a "messy" finger press that may move or cover multiple keys and establishing which key the user actually meant to press.
I know nothing about mobile UIs, though, and have no clue whatsoever exactly how Apple implemented these things. Honestly, that's always been Apple's strength -- they often figure out whatever little tiny detail is necessary to make a UI just feel better than anyone else has before.
It's still hard to do from in your pocket, but you don't have to use the slider. Just double-tap the Home button when the touch is locked and you get music controls.
Note this works only on the touch, not the iPhone.
Now if they'd just reinstate Shuffle by Album, which has been on iPods almost from Day 1 but is still inexplicably missing on the touch and iPhone, I'd be a much happier touch owner.
You wouldn't want to type on it
This is what I thought when I only had an iPod touch. Then I got an iPhone 3G and started texting with it away from home.
It's surprisingly good. I can type with it at 1/3 to 1/2 my speed on a full-size desktop keyboard. The key is to have faith in its autocorrect feature and just keep typing... 95% of the time the correction is right, and the rest of the time it's faster to just correct at the end of your text or paragraph.
Now that the iPhone has good international input methods, it's really not a problem that it doesn't have the market share of Moto or Samsung... Macs hardly have the market share of HP either.
As of Tuesday, it has a mic jack and a speaker. Apple has already said there will be Wi-Fi VoIP applications.
If you're always in a Wi-Fi environment and have a 2G touch, you may rarely need a phone anymore.
Pure tablets haven't caught on because text input from them is a chore at best, and most of what most people do with a computer is text input.
I suppose it's possible that better virtual keyboards and haptic feedback may improve the situation, but not enough for me... without a breakthrough, I'd rather have a powerful MacBook Air-like machine than a tablet.
And this is tagged "apple" why?
This is not about an iPhone just because it's about AT&T.
For me it's dependent on location.
I live in Washington, DC. My iPhone 3G has nearly flawless 3G reception with very fast data rates in DC.
Recently I've traveled to Albany, NY; Seattle; and Portland, OR. The reception was very good in Albany, although I dropped back to EDGE a couple of times. It was excellent in (north and downtown) Seattle, with no problems.
But since arriving in Portland I've had problems nonstop. I've had 3G calls drop; web pages stop loading over a 3G connection; and "No Service" instead of an EDGE connection when the 3G connection is lost. It was so bad, I turned 3G off and won't turn it back on until I leave Portland. Fortunately, I have WiFi in most of the places I'm visiting here.
No, it's based on the premise that usability is objectively measurable, which it is.
Variations around the edges don't change the fundamental point that, for obvious example, Photoshop is more usable than the Gimp.
Thanks for the link, but I want one with multitouch and just one large button so I don't have to move my thumb.