iPhone's MobileMe Push Mail Hands-On Shows Why BlackBerry Is Dead

As you can see in the video, MobileMe push mail is now active, fully operative, and perfectly armed. My iPhone is now getting all email in real time, both over a Wi-Fi connection and using a cellphone network. I even use EDGE—not 3G—and a non-official carrier on roaming. So far, not a single problem. Bad news, RIM: BlackBerry is dead, dead, dead. Dead.

Until now, the only thing that separated the BlackBerry from the iPhone—apart from the iPhone's better, faster and more powerful operating system—was the push email on the BlackBerry. (Well, and the physical keyboard that some people say they could never part with.) I was a CrackBerry addict myself before getting the iPhone, and the only thing I missed (sometimes not really, because it can get very annoying) was the push email.

With iPhone OS 2.0 and MobileMe (or the enterprise connectivity options) the push email difference is completely gone.

The push mail works flawlessly. Even over international connections: to do the cellphone network test I used a Vodafone Spain SIM card running on the Vodafone UK network here in London. Not a single glitch—the thing just worked almost instantly. Knowing that Apple is using Sun Java Messaging Servers, probably paired with Synchronica or Consilient's over-the-air synchronization modules, I'm not surprised. It feels like they have put together a rock-solid operation.

If you couple that with the fact that both consumers and enterprise iPhone users are going to be able to push sync everything, including calendars, address book and web bookmarks, you can see why Research In Motion is going to have a very tough time defending against the Apple juggernaut on software features. The combination of multimedia, consumer and enterprise features on the iPhone, coupled with the flawless Application Store and its user interface, makes any BlackBerry look like a useless brick.