Last weekend my son put my wife’s iPhone in the dog water. Needless to say, it didn’t survive. Since I had an old Blackberry 8100 I decided to give my iPhone to her and take the Blackberry until we could either replace or repair her damaged phone. This was a much harder transition that I had anticipated. I used the 8100 “Pearl” for about 6 months before upgrading to the original iPhone back in 2007 and had no issues with it. In fact, I thought it was a pretty nice device. However, after using the very user friendly and application rich iPhone for nearly 3 years, I came to discover that it was exceedingly difficult to transition back to the Blackberry.
I had no idea how much I depended on my phone for entertainment, work, scheduling and just basic tasks until it wasn’t there anymore.
It was also a bit of an eye opening experience to see some of the very rudimentary things that an iPhone just can’t or won’t do that I had forgotten. Even though I’m sure that these are documented and discussed ad nauseam all over the internet, I wanted to put them here as a reminder to myself.

iPhone:
Can sync with my calendar, work and personal email and with a jailbreak, both my google calendar and exchange calendar.
Display web content as a full web browser
Use google voice web page
Can’t integrate google voice within other apps.
Can’t change the sms tone to a user provided sound*(!!!!!)
can sync seamlessly with my mac address book.
Seems a bit fragile.
Limits apps to apple approved only*

*some of this is available with jailbreak, but it’s a hack and totally unsupported, makes upgrading the software more of a chore, etc.

Blackberry pearl 8100:
is SLOOOOOOOOOOW
Has no wifi
Using BIS, can’t seem to sync mail and mail flags correctly for both of my email accounts
Has an AWFUL calendar interface
can integrate most google apps, including voice, right into the menu system.
Can’t do more than one exchange account.
It’s feels indestructible.
It lets me install the apps that I want, no questions.

I am seriously considering a Nexus One for ATT but I’d rather not shell out the $550 to get it.

We sent the water damaged phone off to UBreakIFix.com to get repaired. I believe it will arrive back today (sent monday, arrived, was fixed and returned Wednesday). We’ll see how well it works now.
I’ll post a review of my experience with UBreakIFix.com once I get a chance.