1St off, when I bought the phone in WA, with a Nation Wide contract, they did not inform me that AT&T does not have any towers in Montana, nor will they ever. Nor did they tell me I always had to be conected to an AT&T tower to use my phone for the internet.

2nd, I have had my phone with them for 5 years and only now do they have a problem with my "Off Network" charges. I live in Montana, almost ever place I go I'm bouncing off other towers. That is why I pay the additional internet fee, so I can use the internet.

AT&T states that there isn't anything for me to do, but to stop using any of Apps or internet. AT&T said that I am costing them too much money when I use the other towers and if I continue to do so, they will cancel me without notice. So now I have a $200 iPhone that is useless. I hate AT&T- you suck.

All this within first 7 days of the phone - I think Apple's QA is going down the drain

1) iphone keyboard sucks.
2) there is no way to delete mail only on the handheld.
3) (biggest gripe) no way to check number of unread messages without logging in.
4) No new message red LED.
5) Battery life is bad - need to carry yet another cable charger (rather than use existing USB charger used for GPS,Bluetooth headset).

I do like the toy (gadget) portion on iphone - but as a business phone, it has a long way to go.

First, my argument on the BB's WiFi capability encompass the many ways of which you can use your BB in different places/areas. Some phone service providers charge out the ass for data usage plans or their internet speeds suck ass (T-Mobile I'm looking at you), local Wifi becomes a viable option.

Another neat feature we techheads use instead of Aircards that are no longer tied to unlimited data plans is using the BB as a modem. We may not get the blazing speeds of an aircard, but we are also not being charged $50+ each month for only 5GB download. There are many ways to fool the service provider to think you're using internet on the phone when you're really using it on your Notebook.

Second, since you're in IT and have a BB, you know why it is good to have a BB. I don't use the options to edit documents and spreadsheets all the time, but for a quick edit or to quickly add something to the document instead of lugging my notebooks everywhere I go is a great feature to have "just in case".

I was going to make another option pointing out the battery of the BB versus the iphone, but I tried to pinpoint the functionality that would be more business-related than just "features" of the BB.

As for the G1, decent phone but Google needs to learn a thing or two from Apple. I have had many users of the G1 complain about problems with the phone and it being on the T-Mobile network is my major gripe with it. The OS is the most important and best thing about the G1 phone, take it away and you have just another iphone clone. We'll see what Palm has in store with their Pre, should be interested especially since they are going after the King (BB) too.

Like you said, input and e-mail have been BlackBerry's bread and butter since the 90's. But...WiFi? Not too sure what you meant by that, the iPhone has WiFi and works just as well as any other mobile device. This kind of drags away from your point anyway, the beauty of mobile devices don't have anything to do with WiFi capability (at least from a business frame of mind). Additionally, who tethers their BlackBerry? With the rise of aircards over the last 10 years, I have yet to see anyone in a business environment rely on a phone for internet access on their laptop...unless of course they're a geek and just enjoy that sort of thing. Not to mention the majority of BlackBerry's on the market are EDGE (no thanks!). Aircards can pull down data at >200K/sec and are obviously a much more reliable internet tool if you need access on the road.

Furthermore, the iPhone *does* mesh with Microsoft Exchange; just setup ActiveSync! Like you, I would prefer the BlackBerry for that sort of thing but I truly think it's more of a comfort zone than anything...that is of course if you're leaving the QWERTY keyboard out of that specific argument . Another question for you on that topic: Who edits spreadsheets and word docs on their BlackBerry that isn't a complete nerd? Again, this is a post about business! Remote access to a productivity suite is 99% of the time limited to your laptop, I suppose there are exceptions but they're definitely in the minority.

I'm probably writing a novel at this point but I thought I'd share the inconsistencies that I see with the iPhone from a business perspective - I promise you they are simple:

-Battery Life, BlackBerry kills every device (except bold/storm) on battery life. It lasts forever, on standby it can last over a week, seriously. Both versions of the iPhone have not made this a priority, nor have they allowed the heavy users an option to expand the battery. Terrible choice if you want to hit real business customers who are constantly traveling.

-Not cost effective, when you roll out a BlackBerry to a large group of people it is extremely cheap, relatively speaking. At the end of the day, after you paid for all your iPhone BS, you've probably spent enough money to buy 2 netbooks which are FAR MORE cost effective than a mobile device that you're only going to use for e-mail. RIM has the right idea: "we deliver emails to your phone, k?". Simplicity yields results, pretty colors on a fragile device that dies in a few hours of use is of no value to a company. I love to hear people try and argue this.

-Reliance on iTunes. This one makes me laugh every time, no over-the-air updates? Are you serious? What does Apple expect IT depts to do...roll out iTunes via AD in a locked down environment? Give me a f*cking break. Aside from that, if you DO get iTunes you have to plug in your phone and download a massive 200+MB image and P.S. you're unable to use your phone the entire time. I'd love to see how long that would take in an office with throttled bandwidth. Don't call me guys, I'm updating my iPhone!

In short, the iPhone is a fun little device for personal use. I see why people like it, I bought one and used it for about a year...but it has tons of other flaws that I won't bother mentioning here. A great phone for me personally is the G1. It's great for personal use and AMAZING for business ...specifically because I run my small entity through Google Apps so it's truly a win-win. Anyway, bye!

I am a little jealous of the apps available for the iPhone, but I think I can live