With regard to messaging, the iPhone and BlackBerry are very different devices by design. BlackBerry is able to offer robust messaging capabilities because of the BlackBerry Internet Service and/or BlackBerry Enterprise Service, which is essentially middleware that manages synchronization...

I am right there with you. I had a BlackBerry storm, and loved how the clock came up as well as the Bedside Mode options that automatically dimmed the screen between certain hours. Unfortunately there is nothing for the iPhone (that I can find, and I've looked plenty) that matches this...