handset email again

No wonder I couldn’t get the Blackberry email to work: it wasn’t within my power to do so. I had to call the Vodafone Egypt guys and exchange a series of code words and information about my past accounts. Now it’s up and running again. My last Blackberry died over two years ago, and I missed that red indicator light saying that email had arrived.

I’m satisfied with the iPhone in the abstract. But in practice, they are not yet as effective in Egypt as the Blackberry. The email download time on iPhones here can be really annoying. The title of the message appears, but then the wheel spins and spins sometimes for 2-3 minutes before the message itself becomes legible. Sometimes already-downloaded emails vanish and are re-downloaded on the iPhone here, again quite annoying.

None of this ever happens on the Blackberry, for some reason. I’m assuming that iPhones don’t have this stupid glitch in North America, or everyone would be using the Blackberry exclusively. iPhone does have a large clientele in Egypt, but for some reason it tends to be older and less hip than the Blackberry kids. All the AUC students seem to prefer Blackberry. I like both devices a great deal, but when my iPhone recently broke (fairly lamely, with a jammed button only 17/18 months after purchase, with repair costs nearly as much as a new phone) I had already resolved that another Blackberry would be next.