iPhone Impressions from a Treo User

As a longtime treo user myself I cant believe he things the dialing, stability and consistency is better on the treo than the iphone. I have had 7 different treos over the past 5 years mainly because they kept either randomly shutting down (some as many as 12 times a day) or would just completely freeze. The one I have now does it only 3-4 times a week which I consider great. Since switching to the iPhone I love it! It hasn't shut down on me once, the dialing and speakerphone are about equal on the two phones, but the stability and consitency of the iphone is much better than the treo. Just my 2 cents.

Fallencircus said:

As a longtime treo user myself

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Are there any treo features that you miss?

Fallencircus said:

As a longtime treo user myself I cant believe he things the dialing, stability and consistency is better on the treo than the iphone. I have had 7 different treos over the past 5 years mainly because they kept either randomly shutting down (some as many as 12 times a day) or would just completely freeze. The one I have now does it only 3-4 times a week which I consider great. Since switching to the iPhone I love it! It hasn't shut down on me once, the dialing and speakerphone are about equal on the two phones, but the stability and consitency of the iphone is much better than the treo. Just my 2 cents.

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I used to have a TREo too.. it would crash frequently and often I had to take the battery out to make it work again.
When closing a call, the screen would not respond to the input and because you then try again to close the call, unknowingly you were dialing the voicemail in your pocket.
and I can go on and on..

Fallencircus said:

As a longtime treo user myself I cant believe he things the dialing, stability and consistency is better on the treo than the iphone. I have had 7 different treos over the past 5 years mainly because they kept either randomly shutting down (some as many as 12 times a day) or would just completely freeze. The one I have now does it only 3-4 times a week which I consider great. Since switching to the iPhone I love it! It hasn't shut down on me once, the dialing and speakerphone are about equal on the two phones, but the stability and consitency of the iphone is much better than the treo. Just my 2 cents.

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did you ever have a problem with the keyboard/stylus recalibrations every single time you wanted to do anything? because each time i wanted to type with the stylus, i had to recallibrate it. I love not having to worry bout that with my iphone!

haha i also forgot about the stupid display always blanking out... i could keep on going if anyone PMd me... lol

Apple has a phenomenal first entrance into an incredibly competitive market, and I cannot wait to see how the other big players respond. .... Ignoring cost, the future phones that compete against Apple will have to not only have slick hardware, but will have to have an intuitive, easy to use interface, and complete solution to integrate my digital life with my real life.

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In other words, the mobile industry is in big trouble.

s10 said:

I used to have a TREo too.. it would crash frequently and often I had to take the battery out to make it work again.
When closing a call, the screen would not respond to the input and because you then try again to close the call, unknowingly you were dialing the voicemail in your pocket.
and I can go on and on..

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I have a 700w (Windows Mobile 5 Treo).

I found the root of all crashing was in installing third-party software. Practically ANY third-party software will reduce the stability of a Treo, to the point of it needing frequent hard resets.

I've tried this experiment many times (with different applications):

1. Hard reset the Treo.
2. Install single application.
3. Wait two days. If Treo hasn't crashed yet, install a second application.
4. I've never gotten here.

I actually got to Step 3 on one app once, but then the second app started everything crashing again. Trying again with the same first application and I didn't even get to Step 3.

So, right now, my Treo is a great multi-function device with third-party support on which all third-party and multi-function applications are banned.

Sigh.

Always had to laugh at people bemoaning the fact that the iPhone wouldn't run third-party apps. My Treo won't, either!

Treo Foolio Crapeo

My title may as well read as Palms product roadmap. I had a treo for 2 painful years. Talk about crash after buggy crash. Dialing on the treo isn't even close to the iPhone.

I would tap out a number on the treo and have to wait several seconds for the touch-tone to finish sounding off, this was especially annoying when dailing with a phonecard to make overseas calls. The iPhone on the other hand dials at a speedy clip. As a speakerphone the Treo was again horrible and having a conversation was like playing the lottery... you never knew what you were going to get.

I can definitely go on and on, but I need to keep my post short. Simply put I am loving my iPhone... the few flaws that it has (betting that most of them are fixable through software update, unlike the other guys) don't bother me.

Anyway you cut it, the iPhone is above and beyond anything that has ever been done before and can only get better... so unlike McDonalds, I'm loving it.

I've just bought a treo 680 to tide me over until the iPhone's release in Australia and I have to say that I'm really happy. Surprised actually given all the negative remarks about treos. It appears far more utilitarian than the iPhone, and it's got me questioning if the iPhone is for me. I've got about a dozen programs on it so far, most of which are medical databases and textbook readers that make life on the wards fantastic. To me it's the best part of the Treo and something that would be a real step back with the iPhone. Hopefully Apple will open it up to 3rd party developers, as WiFi and EDGE data rates are not cheap and ubiquitous here so web apps would be next to useless.

I stepped up from a RAZR and the UI on the treo is so much quicker and the screen beautiful (alas the iPhone screen is nicer). Reception and call quality whips the butt off the RAZR - I can get reception through my whole house when the RAZR dropped to zero when i walked through the front door. The only step down from the RAZR is battery life which is understandable - I get 3 days from a charge and relatively heavy use which is fine with me. The missing sync is a must (again very utilitarian compared with the way the iPhone syncs) and syncing iTunes and iPhoto by bluetooth is nice (although a little slow!). I've not has a single crash so far (2 months) despite constant daily use. It lacks the beauty and wow of the iPhone but as a serious workable smartphone I'd really recommend it.

_

Treo......

I literally paid through the nose to relieve myself of it......(early cancellation from Verizon)

I paid my dues and there's no looking back. No regrets and the iPhone is worth every penny and more. Can't wait for updates.

.Andy said:

I've just bought a treo 680 to tide me over until the iPhone's release in Australia and I have to say that I'm really happy. Surprised actually given all the negative remarks about treos.

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The Palm-based Treos tend to get better reviews all over the place. A shame Palm has effectively killed the OS.

IMHO, the primary problem with Palm's WM5+ devices is that there is no single culpable party when things inevitably go wrong. I've tried getting my (obviously broken) Treo fixed under warranty, but between Palm pointing at Verizon and Microsoft, and Verizon pointing at [every possible third-party application vendor] and at Palm, and an utter lack of help from Microsoft, I'm stuck with crap.

Still, works great as a phone and with the utilities built into WM5. Just can't take any third-party apps whatsoever without flipping to Hyde mode.

Palm OS Garnet Treos no better than WinMo

jettredmont said:

The Palm-based Treos tend to get better reviews all over the place...

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I don't know about that. I've had a Palm OS based Treo 600, 650, and a Windows Mobile 700wx and ALL have been miserable, but the 700 actually seems to run the best. It does crash quite frequently, but the Palm based 650 was just obscene. I had it for about two years and it would crash almost daily. Indeed, I did attempt to run third party apps and even an app I programmed myself, but even with a clean slate reinstall it would freeze or reset itself constantly.

The stability issues are one thing, but even when it stays running for awhile, the user interface is terribly slow: click - wait - wait - wait - wait - app opens - crash. lol. but seriously, it feels like running a 486 back in Windows 3.x.

Between the stability issues, lack of quality third party apps (aka ones that DON'T CRASH THE !@%# DEVICE), sluggish interface, sheer bulk/weight, bad call quality, miserable speaker phone, terrible camera (640x480), and price ($400-600 new), ANY Treo is an absolute JOKE compared to the iPhone.

Alas, the one thing that is SORELY lacking in the iphone compared to the Treo is 3G. Where I'm at, I get a great Verizon EV-DO coverage. So Im sitting on an iphone without activating it yet to see what Verizon pulls out of their sleeves this week. Humor has it, they'll be getting some new HTC models and the new Moto Q9...

I switched from a treo 650 to iPhone. I miss exactly three things: 1) Goodlink integration with corporate Exchange Server. It was magic having emails, contacts, tasks, and calendar items sync between desktop and phone over the air within minutes. Expensive magic for sure, but I miss it. 2) Sprint's coverage / network. Even 1xRTT seemed to have less latency and more consistent speed than EDGE does. Hopefully ATT will improve this over time. 3) Having a period "." key on the main keypad. I hope Apple will shrink the space bar to make room for this in revisions. A common annoyance of both devices is requiring an adapter to use standard stereo headphones.

That said I have no regrets. The iPhone is a joy to use as opposed to the frequently crashing treo with stylus that fell out everywhere, bulky antenna, and desktop software that made any windows system unstable. The treo 600-700s had the best smartphone form factor from 2003-2006. Palm has now been totally surpassed.

raccoontail said:

3) Having a period "." key on the main keypad.

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Thanks for the report. This tip may help you--you can type a period (or any punctuation) with one finger-drag instead of 3 taps:

See #2 here:
http://www.ipodhacks.com/article.php?sid=2293

Reading these comments I can confirm they are true to my 750. I loved the phone but I had to reset it literally 2 times a day, and jettredmont was right--third party apps make it even worse.

Winterspan also brings up a good point. If it hasn't crashed in a day or two, the interface starts to crawl. Tapping the Start button for example can take anywhere from 10 seconds-3 minutes. After that you should just reset. This is probably the fault of the slow processor and bad memory management in Windows Mobile.

IE Mobile was a decent browser but it could mutilate pages, making one word per line in some case. Opera Mini is better but crashes a lot.

I do miss the Solitaire though (and 3G speeds, but not the battery life!). Slingplayer Mobile will also be missed even though it didn't always work, but I suppose having a video iPod is better anyways.

Steve

The only thing I miss about my treo were the eBooks - but then again, I'm stuck with the Blackberry piece of crap anyway.

I'm really hoping that either Apple or a third party will get text books onto the iPhone - then it will be my perfect device - heck, imagine reading manga/comic books on the thing. Then I wouldn't have to cart around so much paper when I travel.

I had a Treo 650 (Sprint) for about 18 months now. Once in a rare while (like 2 to 3 months) I have to reboot it. Other than that no issues, however unlike some of you I may have 1 or 2 external apps on it.

My wife on the other hand had a Treo 650 (Verizon) about 2 years ago that every 6 months would start rebooting and rebooting until it drained the battery. Recharging the battery was a waste as it would start rebooting again. She had the phone changed twice and had the same problem after a few months. Finaly she threw it away.

Your millage will vary.

iphone games

see macmost.
web based games for iphone.
new game daily.

audio books

iphone does audio books.
see ipod,more(bottom right).
flynn

Apple take Palm, sets sights on RIMM

Sounds like iPhone will pretty much own Palm's share of the market. The question is what will happen with Blackberry? I guess a 50/50 split with RIMM might be okay. It's a huge market.

Steve Jobs was right about one thing, the interface is light years ahead of any other. Flicking through screens is So much more fun than clicking through them.

@Fallencircus: we all have our own unique experience with these devices... My (Palm OS) Treo experience was pretty good for my 650 and 700p.

@calculus: (What do I miss of the Treo?)

I miss Treo dialing so much. I could turn on the phone, tap out 3 letters, and be on the call. I prefer the simplicity of the treo sms client (I'm not a huge fan of bubbles), and the memos app. That and GMail. Gmail on the Treo was great. Lastly, I miss Backup.net, my automatic live backup of my entire device, so I never had to sync, nor had to freak out if my device crashed. So I miss a combination of third party software and built in features

Thanks for reading/commenting!

-Michael Ducker
(the author of the linked story)

ajhill said:

Sounds like iPhone will pretty much own Palm's share of the market. The question is what will happen with Blackberry? I guess a 50/50 split with RIMM might be okay. It's a huge market.

Steve Jobs was right about one thing, the interface is light years ahead of any other. Flicking through screens is So much more fun than clicking through them.

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Well, there is no way to get Exchange mail on iPhone without opening up IMAP ports on the corporate email servers.

I don't get the arguments against doing this at all (is IMAP really less secure of a protocol than Exchange?), and I'm all for another push in that direction (Exchange clients suck across the board; IMAP gives much better choices). However, it's a major roadblock in front of Apple to "own Palm's share of the market".

I've had a 600, 650 and 700p. All crashed frequently no matter what I did. One used to turn itself on and off randomly. Another rebooted every night at 3 am. Several reinstalls of the firmware by tech support at Sprint stores didn't help.
The 700 was slower than the 650 and I never did find out why. Some phone calls never showed up in the Treo's phone call database. Plus, it used to shunt calls to voicemail even when I had 4 bars and the phone was right in front of me. Syncing with the Mac was inconsistent. The list goes on and on.
I couldn't wait to get the iPhone. A week in and I am still thrilled.

JohnHummel said:

I'm really hoping that either Apple or a third party will get text books onto the iPhone - then it will be my perfect device - heck, imagine reading manga/comic books on the thing. Then I wouldn't have to cart around so much paper when I travel.

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If you can convert mangas to pdf and send to your email account, iphone shows it rather nicely. The PDF viewer is pretty minimal,
but it renders it really really well.

And i too will love a seperate pdf viewer which syncs with itunes!