Sunday, August 3, 2008

My iPhone experience

First off, I loved my PalmOS Treo 650 - it very capably contained my life. It held my calendar, my contacts, and my to-do list for many years. The base system filled most of my needs, but of course I couldn't leave well enough alone. I added more applications. They made it unstable, but I felt I couldn't live without their added functionality.


Then it died back in June. It refused to power on and I didn't have cell phone insurance on it - even if I did, it was obsolete. What should I do? I toyed with the idea of getting a Sprint Centro, but after playing with one at Best Buy, the keyboard was just unusable to me. So then it was a choice between the latest Treo 755p or something new. I tried out a Blackberry and absolutely hated it. I decided to get the iPhone mainly because the PalmOS platform is a technological dead end.


What I miss:

  • DateBk5 calendar - the PalmOS third-party calendar/to-do list program added so much to my calendar. The iPhone doesn't even have a to-do list!!
  • ChatterEmail - an amazing third-party mail application that allowed me to read (and FLAG!) my mail messages in all my different mail accounts.

What I love about the iPhone:
  • The web browser is amazing.
What I hate about the iPhone:
  • Battery life is atrocious
  • Apps are buggy
  • Poor Outlook/Exchange integration -- NO TASKS??
  • Poor email handling - how do I flag a message for later action?
So far I'm just syncing with Outlook and downloading my gmail. I haven't gotten it to talk to our Exchange server yet. It just says "failed" with absolutely no reason why. I'll have to check the logs on Monday, I just don't feel like doing that from home - too many other things to do on a weekend.


All in all, it's a neat device, fun to use, and can probably satisfy most people that aren't coming over from an environment they've used and enhanced for 5+ years.


Me? I'm hoping to find a lot of third-party apps to give me back the functionality I've lost.


Can anyone recommend a task list program that can handle outlines?

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