So for those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter, you may not have known that I made my decision. I did, in fact, dive head first into the world of the iPhone. So I thought I’d lay out my reasoning for buying it and if my concerns are (or are not) valid. I did a ton of web searching prior to my move, so I hope I can return the favor for those in the same situation I was.

First, to give you a little background, I originally was on a Palm Treo 650 for about a year before I moved over to the BlackBerry. The difference was night and day. I loved my BlackBerry. It provided some cool features such as their secure messaging system, BlackBerry messenger, push notification, and the ability to PIN other BlackBerrys. I felt like I was part of the elite club. But something still seemed like it was lacking. While the BlackBerry is a brilliant tool for business users and those looking for an excellent text-based communication device, it just didn’t seem to meet my needs. I’ll be honest, I’m a pretty tech savvy guy. I like my tech toys. So I wanted something that would satisfy my social media urges. Something that could be productive with my business needs, but also do so much more media stuff as well. After about a year and a half, the iPhone came into the picture.

Before I go any further, I’m going to break this down into two categories. First, I will address my main concerns of switching to the iPhone and whether they are still valid, now that I actually have one. Secondly, I will speak about a mere sample of the many things I do with my iPhone to give you an idea of what I use it for daily.

1. Data Usage
I’m a heavy data user, so I was afraid of losing my unlimited data on Telus. I upload pictures to Flickr and TwitPic, stream videos live with Qik, constantly use data over various apps, and so on. I can safely say this is not an issue though. I have yet to break 400MB a month, which means I could even drop down to the lowest 500MB tier and save 30 bucks a month. And thanks to Rogers relatively inexpensive data overage, if I add an extra 100MB a month for some reason, that’s only an extra $3 (it’s 3 cents a MB). Not bad.

2. E-mail
Everything works perfectly fine with iPhone’s e-mail app. I can connect to any e-mail account I need fine, whether it is Pop or IMAP. The only downside is it isn’t push notification, which means I don’t get the e-mail instantly after it is sent. Instead, I have it set to check every 15 minutes. But come on, is getting an e-mail five minutes later the end of the world? Either way, Apple is rumored to be looking into Push notification and background processes for developers, so maybe it’ll come to e-mail too.

3. Calendar Sync
Originally this was a bit finicky, as I could only sync my calendar when I connected my iPhone to my computer via USB. But now Google has released Google Sync for the iPhone, and it uses Push service. Woo hoo. So I can add an event in Outlook, click on Sync, then immediately open up my iPhone and the new event is there. No wait time. It’s instant and it’s over the air. Brilliant! Same thing with contacts (I backup my contacts with gmail). It’s perfect now.

4. Battery Life
This was a major category I had worries about. But honestly, I have never had my iPhone run out of battery power. The key thing to remember: turn OFF what you are NOT using! I think part of the problem is users are leaving everything running. If you aren’t using Bluetooth, then turn it off. If you aren’t using the GPS, turn it off (though I leave it on usually and am still fine). If you aren’t using Wi-Fi, turn it off. I think you’re getting the picture. What I do is when I’m at home, I turn on Wi-fi and turn off 3G. Once I leave the house, I reverse it. Bluetooth is always off, since I don’t need it. Never had any battery life issues what so ever.

5. Touch Screen
I love my physical keys, so I was worried about losing them. But after about a day or two, that concern was long gone. I can fly when I type on my virtual keyboard. Even my BlackBerry using friends are blown away at how much faster I can type than they can, and they use their BlackBerrys with physical keyboards all day. The key thing with the keyboard is to simply trust the predictive text. The predictive text tries to predict what you are trying to type when you accidently hit the keys next to the proper one. Sometimes it’s off, but usually it is accurate. So as I’m typing a word, even though I can see it is completely wrong in the box, once I hit that last key it usually sorts itself out. You just have to trust it. As for the touch screen in general, and not just in typing, it’s brilliant. You have so much more freedom now to select things. No more scroll wheels, trackpads, balls, etc, to use. Just touch exactly where you want to on the screen and you’re good to go.

6. Roaming Charges
Now here is something I still have yet to try. Roaming charges in the United States. Apparently there is a U.S. data roaming plan you can throw on your phone with Rogers before you go down, then take off when you get back. I haven’t looked too heavily into this yet though, as I have not gone into the States since I’ve gotten the phone. I may soon enough though, as I may be headed to Los Angeles in the first week of June. We’ll see.

7. Switching Careers In General
Since the iPhone has extended the exclusive rights with AT&T now until mid 2010, you wouldn’t see a CDMA version until that time at the very least. That means I had to move from Telus to Rogers. Honestly though, it really hasn’t been that bad. One thing I’ve noticed is Rogers has a faster text message delivery time, even to other carriers. Telus, who rarely goes down, also has had two major data downtimes since I’ve moved to Rogers oddly enough. I was still up and running on Rogers. The only downside with Rogers is that I thought my 400 minutes included long distance like my Telus account did, but it doesn’t. So I think I’m going to restructure my plan a bit to include some long distance minutes. But honestly, I’ve had no problems with Rogers so far. Still wish they had unlimited data though for piece of mind. Ha.

So what do I use my iPhone for on a regular basis? Well, I am constantly on Twittetlator Pro for my Twitter needs, my e-mail is checked every 15 minutes automatically for new mail, and I am always surfing the internet with Safari to check up on things. Of course there’s the Facebook app, which needs no explanations. I’ve used Maps to find places near me in an area of Toronto I’m not used to being in (thank you Maps! So handy). I’m always sending pictures to my Flickr and TwitPic accounts, plus I stream live videos from Qik. I use calendar to organize my days, YouNote for jotting down quick text and voice notes, and Shazam to tell what songs are playing in stores or on the radio (and save it for future iTunes lookups). Sportacular keeps me up to date with sports, Flixster helps me look up movies and showtimes, WikiTap lets me look up things in Wikipedia and the dictionary and Darkroom Premium helps me take better low-light pictures. And this just scratches the surface of what I use it for, as I still have other productivity/social apps I use regularly as well as the many games I have downloaded. It is amazing how much more productive I can be now. Not to mention, how resourceful I can be to other people (I always have the answers after looking it up).

Again, all of this constant use has not put me close to going over my data limits, plus my battery lasts just fine. My concerns have been laid to rest, with the exception of data charges since I have yet to go to the States.

Much like how I turned to the internet for help, hopefully this entry has helped you too. If you have any questions, just ask away! For a faster response, e-mail me or send me a message on Twitter.