[pjhenrygd1216]

The iPhone is the most unstable phone I've ever had. Don't get me wrong, I do like the phone, but its nowhere near being as great as every reviewer has said. In all honesty, it may have pioneered the design of smartphones, but there are better ones out there. The only dealbreaker this has going for it is the best music player due to its large capacity.

Everyone I've talked to who uses the Storm enjoys it. I've yet to really see any people in person who agree with the critics.

[pjhenrygd1216]

Bugs on the iPhone? Users demand for software fixes. Bugs on any other phone? Users return the phone immediately. I've noticed this pattern repeatedly. People are willing to give a free pass to the iPhone, but nothing else.

Disclosure: I have an iPhone 3G. It crashes more than my Windows PC.

[SkateNY]

Each of the new Blackberries has a failure rate that doubles the failure rate of the iPhone. That's only one reason why people hate them. Don't like my post? Don't believe me? Google it.

[molex]

Yes because it is mostly peole whose phone was paid by their employers amd they couldn't care less if they drop it in a toilet.

[ymaxy]

You really think that people are retarded, don't you? You gave the rest of BB's high reviews because they are not competing with the touchscreen device such as the iPhone. If Ferrari people were reviewing the Cadillac Escalade, they would give it great reviews as well. Besides, according to RIM the Storm was not out to steal people from the iPhone crowd. That's why i can't stand you Apple people - you lie and mislead consumers. The truth is, Storm is a fine product that is backed by an excellent network. Yes it has a few quirks just like the SECOND generation iPhone had when it came out.

[SkateNY]

Look, the fact is that, compared to the iPhone, BlackBerries are tremendously unreliable. I don't what you or I feel about either platform. Facts are facts, and only people with psychosis tend to deny them.

Apple's iPhone has half the failure rate of RIM's BlackBerry in the first year of use, a study carried out by a mobile-phone warranty firm has found.

http://news.zdnet.co..._22-247962.html

[jameskatt]

The Storm is an "O.K." smartphone.
It is not close to being an iPhone-killer.
Thus it will always be compared to the iPhone and will always be second-rate.
But at least, Verizon customers can get something similar.
After all, when one can't get a BMW, a Chevy can still get you to go places.

[pjhenrygd1216]

The iPhone has approximately 3-5% less failure rate than RIM. You're bragging as if thats some huge accomplishment. Did you read it correctly? The Apple's iPhone has more than half the failure rate of the Blackberry. Its 63% on the optimist side of things (as its only a projection, so they don't really know) and 77% of the failure rate on the pessimist side of things. Its probably more likely in the middle. So, if you wanna brag about a 3-5% difference, be my guest, but its really not all that much of an accomplishment. Definitely not something I'd call a "tremendous" difference. Also, this is the hardware failure of their phones. RIM has a 14.3% failure rate compared to iPhones 9-11%. Seriously. What intelligent mind would call that a tremendous difference?

[SkateNY]

Time to grow up.

Apple's iPhone has half the failure rate of RIM's BlackBerry in the first year of use, a study carried out by a mobile-phone warranty firm has found.

http://news.zdnet.co..._22-247962.html

[pjhenrygd1216]

Did you even read the article you continually keep quoting the headline from? Did you read my post? My post was entirely about that article. You're just going to continually quote the headline though and just keep telling yourself that 63% = 50%. Or even that 77% somehow equals 50%. Did you even take a math class? Also its a 14.3% error rate compared to a 9-11% error rate. Thats not a significant difference. Please READ the article you keep copying the headline of. Headlines are not summaries. I think someone else needs to grow up... or at least reach the age where you're required to take a math class.

[SkateNY]

You're all over the map. How did you get so disoriented over this issue? Sorry to burst the bubble of you obviously insular world view, but the difference between a 9-11% failure rate as compared to a 14.3% failure rate is not only statistically significant, but also significant in terms of costumer experience. RIM has been producing BlackBerries for quite some time whereas the iPhone has been available for only about 18 months. That's quite a comparison when one considers that RIM"s product failure is about 50% greater than the new kid on the block, the iPhone.

"The iPhone is the most unstable phone I've ever had." Good for you. Relative to iPhone owners, you know where this puts you? In the minority. Rather than insulting my math skills, you might want to look at why it is you're so intent on making a point that is both statistically and clinically irrelevant.

[pjhenrygd1216]

I'm all over the map because you first responded to my issues about software with an article about hardware. If you force me to respond to things I didn't begin in the first place, its going to appear I'm all over the place. My iPhone being unstable has nothing to do with the hardware, but the software. Plenty of people have problems with applications crashing on them or causing the phone to freeze. Many applications even come with notes saying what to do if the iPhone freezes or how to try and fix software issues. If developers are seeing a need to address it through the software giving little notes (as opposed to being forced to search for it on the internet after the fact), its a clear sign the OS is indeed unstable. People just don't complain as much about their Mac software failing because its not the trendy thing to do. I highly doubt you'll ever see any study ask people how often their iPhones crash or some other app crashes on them. And don't say if a third-party app crashes that its Apple's fault. Apple is the one forcing all apps to pass tests to get approved. If they can't do a good job, they shouldn't try and censor it to begin with.

My whole point in any case has nothing to do with the details but the general picture. People have no problem waiting for fixes for their iPhones, but no one wants to wait for an update for the Storm (even though they were faster than Apple originally was). Also, I've never seen reviewers so all over the place on this phone on any other product. A lot of reviewers say its a good business alternative for the iPhone, but then you'll get Pogue basically saying its the worst phone RIM has ever made. That seems extremely polarized. Given the fact that I have a Mac friend (still thinks Macs are better than PCs) that owns the Storm and can't stop talking about how great of a phone it is, I'm guessing that it can't be all that bad to be considered the worst phone that RIM has ever made.

Hardware failures, particularly when talking about ones that take place during the warranty period are not my biggest priority when looking for a phone. I want a phone that, if not a defective one, actually works as its supposed to and doesn't have glaring bugs that people are scared to talk about because they get blasted worse than any RIM user has ever blasted Pogue.

[SkateNY]

So many words to say so little. You're whining. You like your BlackBerry? Great. Leave the rest of us alone...please.

[pcSimon]

To bugsy3333, I am lucky enough that I do not own a Storm. But an angly user had shown me how bad a Storm (maybe just a particular one, if you like to say) could be before she returned it.

To pjhenrygd1216, There is nothing to do with the iPhone. Whether iPhone is buggy or prefect, the bugs exist in the Storm, at least for now. My points is, the Blackberry fans are acting ridiculously to the reviewers and they think anyone who criticises the Storm is an Apple fans.

Reviewers: Storm is buggy.
Fans: You are nuts. Because iPhone is buggy too.

That makes sense?

[kwpilot]

I ordered a Storm but after I read all of the negative reviews I cancelled the order. I decided I'd wait until RIM worked out the bugs which I'm confident they will. However, Verizon didn't cancel the shipment and the Storm arrived a few days later anyway. So I tried it out paying specific attention to the criticism about the the delayed rotation of the screen locking up and...well that's about it. Frankly, mine hasn't locked up once completely. It's slowed down as I was using the GPS function and working with two different email accounts and tried to make a phone call but my desktop won't even do that. Sure it would be nice if the screen moved as fluid as the iPhone, but even if the Storm was intended to take on iPhone the Storm is still a better business product. I'll buy my kids an iPhone because it is an outstanding media device, but I need the ability to do the things the Storm does well like edit PP, Word, Excel docs. I'm not crazy about the clicking screen and I don't really get why RIM thought it was something people wanted. But now that I'm used to it I dont' even think about it.

I'm certain RIM and Verizon accepted the risk to release the Storm a little prematurely to have it available for the holidays. The Storm has some growing to do, but iPhone did as well when it was first released. Frankly I'm starting to wonder how many Apple employees are posting criticims because I don't hear all that many specific issues. Many simply say it's crap without validating their argument. I'm surprised so many people are emotionally motivated by a communication/entertainment/organization device anyway.

[sfoalex]

Have you ever spent enough time on a product to accept both its faults and its triumphs? Every product out there has to work within its limitations. The product designers, software and hardware engineers have to work together to create the user interface and the complexity or simplicity that transforms that device into something useful and perhaps even enjoyable.

I remember the first few days I owned a Treo 650. The buttons were so very small to me. The touch screen could be used to dial numbers, but I couldn?t press the numbers too quickly or else I found that the device failed to detect one of the virtual keys I typed. Or perhaps I didn?t press that screen keyboard in an optimal way. There is a certain coordination that goes with using computers, mice, and cellular phones. My muscles and my coordination had to adapt to it.

Recently I gave my mother my MacBook when I switched back to the PC. I thought using a Mac would be easy to teach her. As my mother tried using a mouse for the first time, I realized how coordination and muscles have to learn to work together. My mother missed icons when trying to click on them with them with the mouse pointer. Her hand shook enough so that a double-click was too slow to register the repeat. Instead, the Mac registered a single click once, which was an overly pressed and then held for too long button and thus the dragging of the icon a little, which then was followed by the intended repeat click. To the Mac it was thought my mother wanted to rename the icon. So the icon?s name is highlighted and ready for editing, which has no meaning to my mom. She doesn?t even know to pay attention to the fact that the icon?s name is now highlighted. Pretty soon virtually everything had odd names, and was positioned in random places around the desktop. This was frustrating for me as I found that I had to explain what had happened. You?ve been renaming everything mom. It simply has no meaning to a new user.

Simple things like using iTunes have logic to them. And only when you explain how it works to someone else who is a genuine novice do you truly realize how even the things you thought to be simple and intuitive are actually quite complex and require a lot of time to understand. There is logic in how a UI works and how we interact with it. Many of us more experienced users take this for granted because we are used to using a computer, an iPod or other MP3 players and yes, even a smart phone. We forget that we have a foundation to stand on. And it gets worse than this description. Soon we accept the process the phone requires and we ourselves begin to work within the phone?s strengths and weaknesses. We accept the way the phone works as ?the? way to work with a smart phone. The BlackBerry for example uses a 4 buttons for making calls, ending calls, opening an option menu within an application, and going backwards. It has special keys like one or two convenience keys. Windows Mobile has 8 keys where the BlackBerry has the 4. You can use START to find all your applications. Or you can make small icons on the phone?s desktop. You can arrange in them in such ways that it becomes easy to open a task manager to kill applications loaded into memory but no longer needed. Apple?s iPhone uses gestures to function, and there are no options keys. Each application has options right in the application in a fluid motion series of pages.

When I had a Treo I used to use Docs2Go all the time. I used Snapper email, and I used an Oxford dictionary. I played Bejeweled at the airport on the touch screen. I worked with the device to the strengths it had. Essentially, it was a small computer with a file system. Apps could be installed on the SD card memory in addition to the phone?s own built in memory. Files could be saved on that same SD card. Pretty soon, the Treo was my pTunes music player, my audible book player, and my email device, in addition to being my phone. It became my portable document viewer, graphic file view, and PDF viewer on the road. The only real problem was that It was prone to crashing. So really what all I wanted was an answer to that crashing. I wanted the Treo to become much more stability. Thinner and lighter would have been a welcome feature as well. The answer to my stability problems were solved when I switched from the Treo to the BlackBerry 8800. Immediately I was horrified at the loss of functionality. The BlackBerry has such a limited amount of memory and cannot use the SD card memory to install and store live applications. I had to give up my large 320,000 word Oxford dictionary I loved so much on the Treo 650. I couldn?t play Bejeweled because the BlackBerry 8800 didn?t have a touch screen. The BlackBerry didn?t have a file system either, so I could not store an email attachment in the BlackBerry or its SD card and then edit it or even attach it to a new email. All I gained from the switch to the BlackBerry was stability. It rarely needed to be rebooted. It didn?t randomly reboot. And it did send and receive email reliably. But I paid for that by losing all kinds of functionality that I truly appreciated in the Palm Treo.

There is an investment we make when adopting a smart phone. We have quite a few uses for smart phones. And if we find uses for it, often we become the devices and its manufacture?s advocate. We?re happy after all. It?s in our nature to share that, and even want acceptance in return. Acceptance is validation of what we do and say. It transforms many people from user to fan and it?s that sense of community that keeps us locked into a product and its community. Any descent from outsiders on our product of choice is not simply a disagreement. It?s against the fan personally. It?s against the validation and acceptance that fan holds in high regard. It?s against the community that the fan belongs to. Perhaps this sounds a bit much. You?d perhaps argue that you?re not a fan, and that you use whatever it is you use out of need and so acceptance plays little to no roll in that choice. However, if you are here and you are reading this than perhaps you are not objective enough to realize the extent of your own fanaticism.

Once we accept and adopt a product we create a synaptic marker in our brain which reminds us that the phone we use is great. The reasons why the device is so terrific are now behind you and all that matters is that the device is indeed terrific. You no longer think rationally about the device. It would simply take too long to process all the information presented to you each and every time you consider the device. There mere thought of this device merely recalls the marker and that equals great. Like 2 2 is not the sort of math you use your fingers to find the answer for. You use a synaptic marker pulling the answer not from logical addition, but instead from memory. If I decide one day that Macs are awful computers, and PCs are far better, then I have created a synaptic marker. If you ask me which is better, the Mac or the PC, it?s highly likely I will quickly answer based on that synaptic marker rather than reason or logic, exactly the same way I no longer need to use reason or logic to tell you 2 2 = 4.

Recently someone asked me to name ten things Windows has that the OSX does not. I named 10 things easily. I asked this person to do the same exercise. This person didn?t bother to answer to their own challenge. When this person had to really think about it rather than rely on synaptic markers, that person likely realized he or she didn?t really know why so much support was given to the preference of Mac . The marker may be days old or perhaps years old. Often months or even years go by without taking a serious look into why we do what we do. Why we like what we like and why we object to what we object to.
Take religion. I studied the bible as a child. It seemed perfectly acceptable as a 4 and 5 year old being told the good book is true and fact. I read the same bible again as an adult. And in doing so, I shattered the synaptic markers that had held since childhood. I realized how insanely crazy Genesis is. At the age of 19, I rejected the bible and all religion as ridiculously stupid and sometimes even humorous. 20 years later, I read the bible again. And found it so crazy that I had to question those that take it seriously. I once asked a co-worker how in the world of science she could believe such a thing as God. Her response was quick and even sharp. She said, ?Because it says so in the bible, dah.? The ?Dah? part really threw me for a curve. She must have felt I was insane to even consider that a book could be untrue. It was written in that book and therefore it is true. That?s one heck of a synaptic marker. It doesn?t require logic. It merely recalls a marker in which you remember the book to be true.

So who is David Pogue and why should we trust his review of the BlackBerry Storm? You shouldn?t trust it, and in some ways, you shouldn?t even trust your own. When Walt Mossberg first wrote about the iPhone, he said after 3 days of use that he was ready to throw it out a window. He expressed such frustration it drove him almost entire to drop objectivity and adopt a violent remedy for the frustration he was experiencing. So why didn?t he throw the iPhone out the window?

Some 9 years ago I was using Microsoft Exchange and Outlook on my Toshiba Tecra 400 MHz laptop. My laptop froze solid because they network dropped enough to stall the client from seeing the exchange server. This had happened many times before. I was in my office cubical, a high level consultant for a professional broadband company, and I more than lost my temper. I lost all reason. I struck the laptop screen with an upper-cut punch, fracturing the LCD screen horribly. I then grabbed both sides of the display bezel and violently twisted in opposite directions shattering the LCD screen and breaking the backing of the display. Lost in anger and frustration I then picked up the whole laptop, still connected to power, Ethernet, and printer, and who knows what else, and I raised it up off the table and over my head and then smashed it down again on the table. I lifted it up again, ripped it free from all attachments by throwing it on the floor. I kicked, stomped, and basically beat the heck out of that machine. For a good 30 seconds, I was a mad-man in a rage. I stopped using company laptops and purchased my own from that day forward. In every job I have held since then, I have always provided my own equipment with all the software I need to make my work easier and less prone to stupid problems. No objections from any employers on this either. I found I needed to work the way I need to work, or I can?t work there at all. I can?t conform to what other?s want. If I?m to have a successful working experience, I have to have the tools I need, and more important, they have to work well.

What does this have to do with Walt Mossberg? Well, unlike Walt, I have no problem throwing something through a window. I have no problem believing that I can fix a network and make it fault free better than my peers could. And I could create a software foundation far superior to the one given to me by others in charge of such duties. I suspect Walt told himself that this iPhone represents Apple?s creative design and engineering. And therefore Walt was the problem. He didn?t understand the device. The device and thus Apple, must be right, even if that means Walt himself must be wrong. Rather than just give up after 3 days, he stuck to using the iPhone waiting to like it. He convinced himself how great it was, and submitted a rave review. Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal was never going to state that the iPhone was a frustrating device, unless in the end he could overcome that.
Look at the no-button track pad on the new Mac laptops. I have heard nothing but Mac users say that once they got used to it they like it. And they even admit it failed to detect clicks. And even in those circumstances, the expressed that they must be doing something wrong, or that perhaps it?s just them. No way could Apple be at fault.

When Pogue writes a review about the BlackBerry Storm, you have to understand that this person is a Mac loyalist. He loves being part of the Mac user community. He writes books on the Mac. Uses the Mac and promotes the Mac. He does all of this with a smile. He?s essentially a New York Times paid Apple advocate. Good work if you can find it. But does this make him objective? Let me ask it like this. Would Walt Mossberg of Wall Street Journal gone past the 3 days of frustration if that iPhone was called a Treo 900 and was developed by Palm? Or would he have been more like David Pogue who felt the device was frustration and rather that question himself, sought support from other outside opinions to justify the bad review. David Pogue states that he didn?t trust himself, so he asked 4 others their opinions regarding the BlackBerry Storm. What predispositions did these 4 other candidates bring with them to the reviewer?s table? Were they the type of people to hold RIM is such regard that they would question themselves before calling a dud a dud?
I listen to the Mac podcasts from Leo LePorte. He and others state that they download at least one new app a week for the iPhone. I own a Windows Mobile based smart phone. I have not bought a new app for this phone in months. Does this mean I hate it? No. It means it does what I need already. I have a wallet app for codes and other useful information I want to carry in a secure way. The built in email app gathers my corporate and person email. Like the Treo, it has a file system. I can detach attachments, view them, even edit some, create new emails, and send those attachments back out. I can of course make phone calls. I have SalesForce Mobile, and I can log calls, create tasks, edit account data and work in a highly mobile way. I have a 280k Websters dictionary. I have pTunes for the WinMo, and an audible player. I have notes, calendar, tasks, stock quotes, instant messenger, TeleNav, Windows Live Search, Facebook Mobile, and Office Mobile. In short, the phone is feature complete as far as I am concerned. I don?t need a new app every week to convince me that my phone is worth the monthly data plan and is useful. I didn?t buy it to play with it. I have a Nintendo DS and PSP collecting dust for those tasks should the need arise. And I can type much faster on my phone. I don?t have this urge to throw it out a window. Why? Well, because the phone works and it provides the software I need.

The iPhone is truly a beautiful device. I own two of them. Well, I sold one, and am looking to sell the other. At which time I will not own any. I saw the device and I allowed its beauty to sway me into buying it. But the email is very slow. It didn?t have SalesForce beyond just reading my data. And most of the software is on par with flashlight apps and other useless junk. Soon the novelty of the phone wore off and I returned to reality. I often to refer to state of novelty as the honeymoon. For many people, the honeymoon lasts just long enough for the next Apple update, in which the smallest of reasons start the honeymoon over again until the next Jobs announcement. Why do they buy so willingly? Perhaps because deep down the product is so bad that the user will buy anything to hopefully move beyond grossly inadequate to just awful. But if I ask them if the device is awful, they will say they love it. I am sure they think they love it. I thought I loved mine too. But that has nothing to do with it being inadequate. Often people are willing to overlook inadequacy in exchange for beautiful things. Why do people love OSX so much? Is it really more stable than Windows? No. But it?s pretty. Why does Apple spend so much time making computers that are beautiful? Again, beautiful goes a long way. The more beautiful and clean something looks, the more people will assume it of quality. Why does a newly painted home sell for far more than an unpainted home? Well, it?s clean. It must be better. That?s how irrational people think. Rational investors know this and buy up real estate that sells well under its true market value so they can resell it for true market value. What is true market value? True market value is what idiots pay for a newly painted house. It looks nice, and so therefore it is a high value house worth every dollar.
You could try the BlackBerry Storm yourself. But what good does that do if you yourself can?t open your eyes to the possibility. Perhaps the Storm is a bad device. Perhaps Pogue is correct as much as an opinion can be correct anyway. The problem with Pogue?s review is its basis, which is the assumption that the iPhone is the gold standard. The iPhone?s best feature is how it looks and that cannot be the gold standard. How you interact with it, though important, is not as important as a solid foundation of useful software. And by useful, I mean functional. I can read mail and download it far faster than the iPhone does, even though I have only 3G against the iPhone?s 3Gand WiFI. The Treo, WinMo, and the BlackBerry all cache email, and you can read and re-read it and search it far faster than the iPhone. Motorola, RIM, and Palm all made a useful product that actually works. Not so much for Palm as it crashes often. But their heart is in the right place. Apple?s history is in design more so than functionality.

If you keep comparing the BlackBerry Storm to the iPhone, you?ll keep giving it a bad review for not being an iPhone. And it?s not supposed to be an iPhone. It?s supposed to be a touch-screen BlackBerry. Mac users love the idea of the track pad that is the button. But then pull a hypocritical about-face when someone else uses the same technology in an opposing product, such as the BlackBerry Storm. They say they had 2 years to copy Apple and failed. Honestly, do you think RIM designers sat in a room and attempted to copy the iPhone? Or did they just give you their take on what a touch-screen BlackBerry ought to be, thus they did not try to copy it at all? It?s an important distinction. RIM merely made a BlackBerry with a touch-based interface to replace the keyboard. As Pogue states; you can?t flick the scrolling to create virtual momentum. Why, because the regular BlackBerry didn?t have a virtual momentum feature when using the joy-ball. Adapting a virtual keyboard to replace a physical keyboard doesn?t change RIM?s thinking. It would if they were dissecting the iPhone and copying it, which they are not doing. And this is the basis for the bad review. Pogue is used to how the iPhone operates. If RIM doesn?t do at least that much, it?s a failure in his opinion for not being an iPhone plus more. That is exactly the definition of not being objective. It?s also, ironically, counter to everything Apple is about. Apple is about rethinking something entirely, and then giving you Apple?s version of it. You are not supposed to ask yourself why it is that Apple?s email isn?t cached and as fast as everyone else?s, and thus review it poorly for failing to be like WinMo. You?re supposed to believe that Apple?s email is simply the better email because it?s email done the Apple way. You?re not supposed to want MMS, because Apple believes email is all you need, even if it is painfully slow. You?re not supposed to need copy and paste. You?re not supposed to even need Exchange support or Active Sync, but at least Apple realized early on that if they wanted to sell phones they need to think beyond video games, music and movies. But even though the BlackBerry Storm provides all of these features, it doesn?t measure up to the flawed yet beautiful iPhone, which is the gold standard according to our New York Times reviewer.

I?m not saying the Storm is a great. I don?t own one, or even plan to buy one. I did own two iPhones, and frankly I am shocked you all love it so much. So far those that do love it tend to be those who wish to read from it rather than create with it. I create email. I create email that requires attachments that come from email I receive. So in my mind the iPhone is lacking key features I need. Had I written a review about the iPhone, I would have focused on those missing features as much as Pogue homes in on his opinions that BlackBerry devices ought to have physical keyboards, which is a pretty dumb thing to write I might add. Pogue, you must understand at least as a writer that one of the best things a person, or even a company can do, is to step beyond what they are great at in an attempt to grow beyond what they are great at. That?s how we grow as individuals. And it?s how a company can stay relevant in the face of a changing industry. If customers want more touch-screen based products, then now is the best time to begin to learn to be great at providing a touch-screen product.

Alex Alexzander

[backpack]

Are these critics aware that any new products is going to have a few bugs in it? So why so harsh on the Storm?
If this was Blackberry's fifth generation of the Storm then YES, we could agree with the harsh review but it is only the first generation so there should be some leway towards towards the product.

[sfoalex]

Perhaps they will do a follow up review on the next firmware release. They have to write about something.

Alex Alexzander

[rgreen4]

Perhaps you are unaware of the "Missing Manua" series of books that David Pogue has written and edited on the Windows Operating systems. My first exposure was to the one on Windows 2000 Professional, followed by XP Pro, then XP Pro Second Edition (covering the SP2 changes, and lastly the Windows Vista version.

No biased Mac advocate could have done such a fair, straight and objectiive book covering all the nuances, details and features of a Windows OS. While I confess to having not read his reviews on devices, one could not have a negative opinion of something and not have it come out in 800 pages of detailed description of it features.

The first part of your post was dead on. We all become accustomed to the device and operating system we are using, and ny change is sometimes difficult to accomodate. This is why many XP users set their Control Panel to use the classic interface, the old familiar box full of icons becasue they understood it and were immediately more productive with it. Knowing that Vista was going to be different, I reset all my XP interfaces back to become accustomed to the category view before upgrade to Vista 18 months ago. It helped, but there still was a period of accomodation, which in business is referred to as a learning curve.

Every device we use today has a learning curve associated with it. The operators manual to my new vehicle is over an inch and a half thick, and one cannot tune the radio without knowing how to use a touch screen. Some don't want to accomodate to the changes and then call the device a name. That is their right. Some reviewers may fall into that realm, but most having received a flow of devices over the years, have actually kept up with some of the changes better than the average consumer. While the average consumer changes devices ever two years or so, reviewers may have to change devices every month, so they never really get comfortable with any one. If we don't like their review, we can take it or leave it. But, unless we read that reviewer review a series of products, we really don't know if they are biased one way or another.

I watch Bill O'Reilly most evenings, and agree with him about half of the time. The one feature I really like is at the end of the program when he reads the e-mails. Many times he will read an e-mail from a viewer castigating him for being so conservative on an issue. Then he reads the next e-mail from a viewer castigating him for being so liberal on the same issue. Perhaps, they are both right. The liberal viewer sees him as conservative and the conservative viewer sees him as liberal. In other words in between their perceived viewpoints, or in the middle, which is where he should be.

Reviewers are somewhat in that same position. Those who like a brand, take offense when it falls short in a review. Those who do not like the brand, like it when that happens. Unless the reviewer comes across technical flaws, the review is going to be subjective, because they are giving us their opinion. Sometime we will like that opinion and sometimes we will not. Unlike many members who post their like or dislike, most reviewers I have read, give the reasoning behind their likes and dislikes. (Fair disclosure - I neither own nor use either an iPhone, iPod, Mac nor any Blacberry device).

[sfoalex]

I wrote a book about a Mac app and I'm no fan of it. And to read it you wouldn't know it. It can be done as I have done it. I complained about to my friends, but you wouldn't know it by reading my words. And if you saw me talking about this app in forums, you'd very much not know it. I gave free help to many, published many how to tutorials online and did it for no money. So I have to say it can be done. I have done just that myself.
Any other opinion I could write would merely be a repeat of what I have already written so I'll leave it at that.

Alex Alexzander