I’ve been toying with the idea of getting an iPhone, but further research into the matter has proved rather unfortunate. There are a lot of things that are missing on the iPhone that is deterring me from switching from my BlackBerry (and Verizon). Even though it costs less than an equivalently-sized iPod touch (which I was thinking of getting to replace my aging iPod), here are some of the issues that I have with iPhone 2.0:

• No over-the-air synchronization between Google contacts and iPhone contacts
• No over-the-air synchronization between Google calendar and iPhone calendar
• No standalone Jabber IM client (which would support Google Talk)
• No open SDK
• No enterprise Bloomberg application
• Poor implementation of Google Maps (the BlackBerry version is much faster to navigate)

Granted, the BlackBerry lacks some of these (like the over-the-air sync of contacts), but it is pretty good in most other respects. It does lack a camera and, more importantly, the media player is rubbish. I won’t even get started on the pitiful storage capacity. While I am content on patiently waiting for some of the aforementioned issues to be resolved, I am actually not confident that all of them will be fixed. From what I can tell, Apple has no intention of releasing a useful version of their SDK that would allow developers to use lower level resources. That, in itself, really stifles the growth potential of the application base.

Will Android be my answer?

On Money Matters…

In an economy where companies are tightening their belts and the financial industry is facing huge losses, Bloomberg went totally against the tide and announced that they were going to pay employees more and established a new long-term incentive plan that promises even more! (The New York Times has an article here with mostly accurate information.) Now is an exceptionally good time to be a part of Bloomberg and I am certainly counting my stars that I am fortunate enough to be in my position. Go PLAN!

On a less personal note, I felt mildly vindicated when Apple decided to not release the iPhone in its Canadian stores. The rationale behind the decision was that Rogers (but more aptly known as Robbers) wanted to charge far too much for their plans (which Apple thought offered far too little). Ha! Take that, jerks! Down with Robbers!

On Consolidation…

As of this morning, I am starting to consolidate my email. My latest tally has me with 13 emails, 5 being used on a daily basis. The important ones are now being handled through my primary Gmail account, although I am still using Outlook to manage the synchronization with my BlackBerry. I, however, would love to find a solution for that last bit; I’d like to get rid of Outlook altogether. There are, however, some problems. First, I can’t upload my archived emails from Outlook to Gmail, so I won’t be able to have one consolidated source of all of my emails. Second, I cannot synchronize my BlackBerry contacts with the Gmail contacts. Third, Gmail has no notion of tasks or notes (which I use quite frequently on my phone).

Will Android be my answer? I really, really hope so! Or maybe someone (ahem, Keith) will develop what I need for my phone? Or maybe I should be a chump and get an iPhone? HMMMM!