Last September, I saw a TV ad for the iPhone 3GS where it showed the "Take Me to My Car" app. That did it! The next day, I bought a 16GB iPhone. I went with the cheapest options I could get for my AT&T 3G, texting, and cell phone service, so my monthly bill is $84. It is money well spent.

Ever since the iPhone first came out, I wanted one, but I couldn't justify paying AT&T's monthly fee. For a while, I used an iPod touch. My reluctance to buy an iPhone was driven mainly by the fact that my employer provides me with a free cell phone and free cellular service. I only pay for my personal use of the phone.

In early December, my old work cell phone (a Palm Treo 700p) started to fail. I nursed it for a week or two, before I gave up on it and asked my boss if I could replace it.

As it turned out, there is a new rule at work that everyone in my group has to have a BlackBerry. We also have to have Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless, does not sell any BlackBerry model without the data plan. As a result, I now carry two mobile Internet devices with me: a BlackBerry Tour and an iPhone 3GS.

To make this comparison better, I should compare the iPhone with the BlackBerry Storm, but after several colleagues and friends told me how bad the Storm is, I requested the Tour instead, which is what they recommended.

The "Take Me to My Car" app does what its name implies. I am horrible at remembering where I park my car. Now, when I get out of my car, I activate this app and it uses the iPhone's Global Positioning System (GPS) to record where my car is parked. When I want to return to my car, the app uses the iPhone's GPS to show me walking directions back to my car. For mall parking lots, this app's utility is limited because there are so few, if any, guideposts for the GPS to utilize, but when I park on a city street or if I park my car at Citizens Bank Park to see a Phillies game, this utility shines because it gets me reasonably close to my car.

Using the iPhone is a bittersweet experience; likewise for the Tour. The iPhone wins hands down for the availability of different apps and user friendliness. The Tour excels at reliable voice calls and picture taking. That's sweet.

For the iPhone, the bitter is phone conversations. Calling over AT&T's network is terrible. It is rare that I can complete a conversation without the call being dropped. I tend to hold brief phone conversations. Despite my tendency for short phone calls, on my iPhone, at some point, calls often drop. I have yet to have that problem on my Tour with Verizon. The quality of the calls on both networks is very good (i.e., no static) though.

With the Tour, the 3G data network is slower than AT&T's 3G network on my iPhone. I cannot quantify the differences because I don't know how to measure it accurately.

I have both devices set up for email. I use Gmail for personal email and my employer's Microsoft Exchange 2007 with BlackBerry Exchange Server (BES) for mobile email on my Tour. On my iPhone, I also use the same Gmail account as I do on my Tour and the same Exchange 2007 account, but the iPhone doesn't support BES so I use the iPhone's built-in Exchange 2007 synchronizing capability to get my work email there. What BES does is allow my Tour and my Exchange 2007 account to synchronize not just email, but my calendar, address book, notes, and memos. BES is kind of like Apple's MobileMe services.

On my iPhone, I always receive my Gmail messages faster and sending is faster than on my Tour. The Tour's Gmail GUI looks like Gmail's web page. I am a big fan of Gmail, but I don't like the way it's web mail feature works so I prefer to use it via IMAP. On my iPhone, my Gmail inbox looks much like the way it does on my Mac with Apple's Mail program.

The Tour's screen is much smaller than the iPhone's so reading messages is easier on my iPhone. Exchange 2007 mail is also faster on my iPhone, probably because the Tour has to go through the additional BES layer. In addition, HTML email is not rendered well on the Tour at all, but the iPhone has no problem with HTML email.

Setting up my iPhone for Gmail and Exchange 2007 access was very easy. Setting up my BlackBerry for Gmail service was long and convoluted. The process to set up my Tour with my Exchange 2007 email account via BES was so painful that I gave up and I asked one of my colleagues to do it for me. For an unknown reason, the Tour keeps losing my Gmail account's password so I frequently have to enter it again.

Battery life on both the iPhone and Tour is lousy. I have to remember to charge both devices daily. Since I use my iPhone more than my Tour, its battery life is shorter than my Tour's. Even if I am not actively using my iPhone, its battery drains because of the numerous apps I use that check for new information via AT&T's 3G network.

Both the Tour and the iPhone have a keyboard, but the Tour's is mechanical, whereas the iPhone's is touch screen. I find the Tour's keyboard more difficult to use then the iPhone's. There is little tactile feedback with the Tour's keyboard and the keys are too close together.

The Tour also doesn't have touch screen capability, nor can it change the orientation of its display between portrait and landscape modes like the iPhone can, so the Tour is more cumbersome to use for email and viewing web pages. I also find the Tour's web browser to be slower than the iPhone's, so if I need information while I am out and about, I almost always use my iPhone, not my Tour.

Just as there are Mac users who need Microsoft Windows for some applications that simply don't play well on Mac OS X, there are some mobile phone users who need features that are not available on the iPhone. One of the features I need is integration with a BlackBerry Exchange Server, which I previously discussed. Another is an encryption key generator that allows access to certain secured networks. The BlackBerry OS has an encryption key generator app, which is tied to my employer's Virtual Private Network.

I am also a Facebook addict! Yes, I admit it! I love keeping track of my friends and family on Facebook and sharing my life with them. I think its so cool that I can be out and about and shoot a photo, than upload it to my Facebook page with my cell phone! The Tour and the iPhone both have a Facebook app. The Facebook app on the iPhone is far easier to use then the one on the Tour so I tend to use it more when I am on the go. The Tour's Facebook app is very cumbersome to get around to the various features. By the way, feel free to friend me at [email protected] if you are on Facebook.

Setting options for different aspects of the Tour is very cumbersome. There are many different paths one can take to get to particular optional settings. For example, I spent half an hour after my Tour was set up for email figuring out why it was vibrating so much that it nearly fell off my desk. I finally threw up my hands and I asked a colleague to fix it. In contrast, all the iPhone's optional settings are collected in one preferences app so I don't have to spend a lot of time looking when I want to change how the iPhone or one of my apps is configured.

Both the iPhone and the Tour have a 3 megpixel camera built in. The camera on the Tour is an optional feature though, whereas with the iPhone, its standard equipment. Both the iPhone 3GS (not older models) and the Tour have video recording capability. For camera quality, the Tour beats the iPhone 3GS hands down. The iPhone's camera isn't bad, but it has no real flexibility. You can't zoom with it. No adjustments can be made to the aperture and shutter either. Not only does the Tour's camera zoom, but the Tour has a built-in flash. Thanks to the Tour's flash, it is considerably better than the iPhone for indoor photos, especially in low light conditions.

Since I use MobileMe, I prefer to sync my address book and iCal information between my three Macs and my iPhone wirelessly. There is an option to sync that information with iTunes on a Mac via Bluetooth or a USB cable. The BlackBerry Tour has a utility that works well to sync it via a USB cable or Bluetooth. Either method works fine.

Locating and finding new apps is also much easier on the iPhone then it is via any BlackBerry. With the iPhone, you have a choice of using your desktop computer or your iPhone to find apps and read about them, as well as install them. With a BlackBerry device (not just the Tour), you can do the same thing on a desktop computer via a web browser or on the device, but the selection of apps is limited and at least on the Tour, searching and learning about new apps is cumbersome.

In closing, if you need a business caliber mobile Internet device with cell phone capability, the BlackBerry Tour and the iPhone 3GS are well worth considering; however, the type of mobile device you should buy depends on your needs. If you need to frequently hold conversations on your cell phone, the Tour or any other device that uses Verizon Wireless is by far the better choice because of Verizon Wireless' superior reliability. If you expect to use mobile Internet apps more than voice, then the iPhone 3GS is a great choice. In fact, I know a few people who carry an iPhone and a BlackBerry or some other non-Apple mobile device such as a Droid so they can get the best of both worlds.