Apple Thoughts: Ben Ackerman Switches to Bold, Finds Need to Share

"To better understand my gripes with the iPhone, it's important to know what I've replaced it with. It turns out, the crackberry masses with their love for all things hard keyboard that I dismissed with a smug "I can type just as fast as you on my virtual keyboard so nyah!" had it right all along. For the last 2 weeks, I've rocked a RIM BlackBerry Bold. And I've loved it. Let's just say if I didn't already keep my phone in my pants, that would be where I keep this one anyway."

This reminds me of when Cory Doctorow decided that he had to start using Ubuntu to set his content free. I never did get what that meant, seeing as you can produce your own content on a Mac quite easily and there's no DRM on it, but no one questioned his silliness. In this case, Ackerman has decided he need to tell the world he switched phones as if it's some great "pat me on the back moment."

You see, I'm not just an iPhone user. My second "work" phone is also a BlackBerry Bold. I find it impossible to take seriously anyone who says the Bold's keyboard compares to the virtual keyboard on the iPhone. There is no way on the planet earth that the Bold's keyboard is as good as the iPhone's. It just isn't. Period. I can type at least twice as fast on my iPhone, and I don't have to worry about mistakes, either; the iPhone's auto-correct is pretty damn good if you ignore it and let it do its job. As it is, I can't type a single sentence on my Bold without looking at the keyboard to make sure I'm hitting the right key.

It's nice that Mr. Ackerman has found happiness in the Bold, but frankly I'll take the iPhone's gigantic app catalog, huge screen, superior in every way media experience, awesome keyboard, fantastic web browser, and pretty damn solid e-mail client over my Bold any day of the week and twice on Sunday.