Yes, I now have a Blackberry and an IPhone.

It’s kind of a sore spot, but basically I picked up my IPhone (with 2-year, heavily data-bundled contract) less than 24 hours before work asked me if I wanted a company BlackBerry. Doh. I actually resisted the idea of having 2 phones for some time, before business travel became prominent and having the company phone started to make sense.

Having the 2 phones hasn’t been too much of a hassle, and it’s been nice to lend the IPhone out to family and friends when they come to visit from Canada. When it’s not on loan, I mostly use the IPhone as an IPod during the weekdays to watch/listen to podcasts on the bus and sometimes surf the net. I always use the IPhone on weekends and on road trips for music, maps, and GPS.

It seems the BlackBerry can do all of that as well. The UI is much less user friendly, but much more option rich. I don’t want to make the Microsoft/Apple comparison, because I have been really impressed with the BlackBerry even though the menus are endless and more difficult to navigate.

The BlackBerry is extremely reliable. Where the IPhone trips up every now and again, requiring a read up on the latest bugs/updates/workarounds, the BlackBerry is always solid. And while generally I prefer software that doesn’t make me worry about configuration, the countless configuration possibilities have come in handy. For example, setting ring tone, vibrate, and volume settings for every possible type of notification is very useful, because I can make the different notifications very distinct. I also must admit that having a real keypad is much nicer for drafting emails. It makes it a nice fit for business, and for that reason using the BlackBerry for work and the IPhone for pleasure has been handy.

One annoyance I’ve had is the BlackBerry’s strange habit of turning itself completely off every so often. The only way to restart the phone is to pull and replace the battery. I’m sure there is a solution somewhere, but I haven’t taken the time to check.

All in all, it’s a good phone for business. I suspect the newer touch models are getting closer to the ‘1 device fit for both business and fun’, but the 8310 is not there (I’m sure most employers prefer it that way as well).

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Yep, bought an IPhone 3G just a few weeks after they were released in Australia last year.

I was definitely awestruck initially, but having never owned a smart-phone of any type before it really was a giant leap. There is something about having a personal computer that you can hold in the palm of your hands. Better yet, a ‘connected’ personal computer that you can hold in the palm of your hands.

To speak about the IPhone specifically, I have to say that the UI and general look and feel was perfect in every way. Besides basic phone features, I use my IPhone to send and receive email, view calendar appointments, access my address book, take photos, check the weather, check stocks, check facebook, and browse the web with a full-fledged safari browser. I also use the IPod features for all my media, including music playlists, videos, photo albums, podcasts, etc. Lastly, I use the absolutely amazing maps (with GPS) program to navigate to places of the unknown. The maps app now supports driving, walking, and transit options! Sometimes I am doing several of these things at the same time, and even if a phone call comes in I am given an opportunity to attend to it in the normal way, or via speaker phone, or via the provided hands-free headset.

The ability to download any number of custom applications makes some of those and many other tasks possible. Many apps are free to download, including all of the Google mobile apps that give me access to all of my online data.

The apps are all kind to my data package and I am a data hog. I sync to three email accounts and two calendars always, run the weather / stocks / facebook app daily and browse constantly and have never experienced expensive data charges. And even if 3G was an expensive option, it automatically connects to known wireless networks and prompts every time an unknown connection becomes available (also a great alternative to data roaming internationally). BTW, I can even VPN into the office if feeling so obliged!

Every thing is powered via auto sync whether it be through ITunes or it’s data connection, nothing needs to be entered manually.

Besides a few quirks here and there, I can’t think of anything more that I would want in a personal device. Honestly.

Over the Christmas break I was actually viewing the Sydney Opera House from every angle via Google Earth on my IPhone. Not kidding.

Apple has set the bar incredibly high and I don’t know how they are going to top it in their next generation of this fantastic product.

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Well, I finally gave in to a longstanding curiosity and purchased my first Apple computer a couple of months ago. I now agree, as any Mac owner will tell you: Once you go Mac you can’t go back.

Sadly, I ran the machine for about a month before I thought “Crap, I haven’t seen any virus scanning or firewall software running on my new computer. Surely, a trial of some sort would have been pre-installed, or the sales guy would have at least tried to sell me something …” I frantically looked for some sort of installed security software but couldn’t find anything. When I began searching the web for Mac security software, I found that while such software is available, there are no known viruses that can affect the Mac OS-X operating system! The only reason Mac owners would consider buying security software for a Mac would be to avoid accidentally forwarding Windows viruses to our poor, disadvantaged PC friends.

Honestly though, the laptop rocks. It is feather-weight at roughly 3 lbs, has a fantastic screen and back-lit keyboard that both adjust according to lighting conditions, a built-in web cam, 5 hour battery life, and easy to use operating system. The hard drive is only 80GB, but with the recent movement towards online storage I am OK with it. The collection of i-Applications are extensive and quite integrated and in many cases integrate with the ever-growing list of popular web-based applications I am now using. With a duo-core processor and 2GB of memory, the Macbook Air zips along pretty good as well.

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