Touchscreen due in 2008

Touchscreen BlackBerry due February

Sigh. So, the reason why the iPhone is doing well is that it offers this revolutionary new technology called a touchscreen? Hasn’t Palm been producing touchscreen devices for ages? I can’t imagine what goes through the minds of technology executives when a competitor releases a product that makes their product look like 1990s-era technology.

Who decided that it was the touchscreen that is the killer feature on the iPhone? It’s nice, but given the choice between an iPhone sans-touchscreen (but with a similar interface/application stack) or a Blackberry with their crappy mail client, and even worse web browser, thanks but I’ll take the iPhone. I’m in one of those rare positions where I can comment on “high technology”, having used a bunch of the stuff in the field. Let’s line ‘em up:

1. Palm: my first Palm was a Palm 3e. Then I had a Vx, and then a Tungsten T before playing a bit with a Tungsten C. I’ve never used a Treo. Frankly, in the 5 years that I was a Palm user though, the technology was stagnant. The screens were never “amazing”, and I would always completely lose my stylus calibration after a year and a half of use (yes, even after re-calibrating, 24 hours later it would be screwed again). The apps were all meh, and left a lot to be desired in terms of stability (or maybe it was just the OS). After a brief bout of insanity earlier this year when I considered getting a new one, I’m happy to say that I’ll never own another Palm device.

2. Blackberry: my Canadian brethren! Alright, so push messaging is neat, but it’s a one trick pony. E-mail clients everywhere (including on the iPhone) can be set to poll a mail server every minute to check for new messages (if you’re into being constantly distracted). There is no message in the world that is so important that the difference between “instant delivery” and “every 60 seconds” delivery is a deal breaker. An if there is, use a phone!

I had my University-issue Blackberry 8700 for a year. In that time, I came to love and hate it. I loved being able to use Google Maps to figure out where the hell I was at any given moment. I loved the scroll wheel. I loved being able to send a message wherever I was. I hated having the bloody thing buzz every two minutes during the day. I eventually got to the point where it got put in a drawer while I was at my desk so that I could actually get some work done.

With an unlimited data plan, it was great, and I had a minor case of Blackberry withdrawal after leaving the U. I got over it.

3. iPhone: it’s pretty, it’s fast enough (not 3G, boo hoo), and the interface is intuitive. It lets me re-gain that “send an e-mail from anywhere” ability without having to put up with the “break my concentration every few minutes” . I probably prefer the little thumb keyboard from the Blackberry (but at the end, I think that some of my keys were starting to “go”). I haven’t used the camera for anything meaningful, but I do like having one handy just in case. I hadn’t even loaded music onto it until recently (and still haven’t used it for listening to music). For me, it’s all about e-mail and the web browser.

So Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Audiovox and all of the other handset makers out there getting spanked by the iPhone, introduce your touchscreens. Then, after you’re still not selling more handsets, try looking at the software on your device. Make a web page look like a web page. Improve your mail client so that it’s feature set trumps Pine for god’s sake. Stop focussing on trying to build a music player into everything — you’re not going to steal iPod market share. Just do what you’re supposed to be good at.