iPod touch Going from iPod Touch to a 5 year old Palm.

how did you miss an alarm? Does your iPod not vibrate when the alarm goes off?

Yeah that's not something at the forefront with the iPod Touch. If Apple made a consious effort ot make it a PDA I'll bet they could do it. I use it for one since my needs aren't very complex.

statik13 said:

If only Apple would treat the PIM functionality as something better than a red haired step child.. *fingers crossed for a great update this summer*

Click to expand...

Same here. I love my iPod touch, but the Calendar app is terrible. You forgot to mention that if you switch out of the app before you hit save, the fully-entered event magically disappears forever....

that's too bad about the lack of vibrate. I agree with you, I'd miss tons of reminders if my iPhone did not vibrate.

I'm sooooo saddened by this thread.

I had hoped to be able to replace my Treo with a cheap phone and an iPt late in the year. Guess the $50 i spent on my insurance replacement phone was a good thing for now.

But i appreciate the honestly and you coming back to post it!

I'll keep reading & watching & waiting - hoping my Video iPod holds on a bit longer.

Balls

Well I wish you had written this before I spent £260 on an itouch. All I want is a shceduele that:
-does colour apointments,
-indicates appointments that recur and
-indicate if there is a note against the appointment.
Seems like i'll be going back to my palm soon.

write to
apple.com/feedback

statik13 said:

Nope. No vibrate on the iPod Touch. No snooze button. No way to dismiss only a single alarm if you have 2-3 pop up at a time. No re-alert if you missed it the first time.

The only way the alarms are effective is if you happen to be listening to music at the same time as the alarm goes off.

Don't get me wrong... I'm still keeping the iPod for all the fun stuff. It does an amazing job at web browsing, games, email, music and videos. I just gave up completely on trying to use it as a PDA.

Click to expand...

I agree 110% with your assessment! I ended up demoting my iPhone to an iPod touch-ish device and I'm using a WM phone for the PIM capabilities.

Since when was the iPod touch a PDA? While I agree that the calender does need some so work it is just a iPod, cant you use a cell phone? I use the calender and alarm on my G1 instead of my iPod Touch.

I should point that the iPod touch is a just a glorified iPod with a touchscreen; the calendar and other crap are just "bonuses"; Apple just cares about selling apps and music.

statik13 said:

Since when? Since Apple decided to includes email, a calendar, alarms, notes, and contacts. That pretty much is the definition of a PDA.

Click to expand...

You're not exactly Apple's target market.

Isn't there a better calendar app on the app store somewhere?

Mr Skills said:

Isn't there a better calendar app on the app store somewhere?

Click to expand...

Not one that can use the native alarm system, or set alarms for tasks. Apple locked developers out of all calendar access. And a 3rd party app can't run in the background, so it cant trigger an alarm.

However, come June I am sure we'll see Apple using an insane amount of server power so your to-do list can ping Apple so Apple can ping you to pick up milk on your way home from work.

Does anyone still make a free-standing PDA anymore? When so-called smart phones took off, manufacturers dropped PDAs like a hot rock. I still have a Dell Axim sitting in it's charger on my desk....

The touch has never been marketed as a PDA. The calendar is one of many functions....

Hey, anyone wanna buy that Axim????

I understand your frustration, but to play devil's advocate: I just don't think you can ask an iphone or ipod touch to do email like a blackberry, game like a DS, organize like a PDA, take pictures like a point-and-shoot nikon, surf the internet like a netbook, and guide you like a Garmin. Oh, and be an ipod.

Don't get me wrong - apple bills it as being able to do email, play games, organize, take pics, surf, navigate, listen to music, and more (you can take out a couple of those on an iPT, but you see my point) - and so it does. But I don't see how anyone could make a single fit-in-your-pocket device that replicates the functionality of a half-dozen well designed and relatively expensive stand-alone devices.

Now, in the case of your calander complaints, the fixes are probably not as hard as I'm making them out to be, and I bet the iPT could in fact become a true PDA replacement. That's a great goal and something that Apple should strive for. But TJRiver is right: the iPT has never been touted as a PDA replacement. For now, the iphone and iPT are jacks of all trades, masters of a few - and that ain't bad.

TheMSK said:

Well I wish you had written this before I spent £260 on an itouch. All I want is a shceduele that:
-does colour apointments

Click to expand...

You can colour code in the calender if you link it to google calender and setup multiple calenders, ie personal, work, holidays etc....

What is strange is that you can do custom alerts and dates from google calender that the ipod calender correctly picks up but you can't do a custom from the ipod.

I think if you use it with google calender then it's a good calender

Spock said:

Since when was the iPod touch a PDA? While I agree that the calender does need some so work it is just a iPod, cant you use a cell phone? I use the calender and alarm on my G1 instead of my iPod Touch.

Click to expand...

The truth is, just about anyone that hears a user say, "I am looking for a replacement for my PDA, what should I get?" suggests to them the iPod Touch.

Most owners of the iPT or iPhone claim it's Apple's Tablet PC or PDA or netbook simply because it does what THEY need it to do.

So yes, it's been deemed Apple's Newton 3.0 and/or PDA by the masses that use it as such and don't have a problem.

QCassidy352 said:

I understand your frustration, but to play devil's advocate: I just don't think you can ask an iphone or ipod touch to do email like a blackberry, game like a DS, organize like a PDA, take pictures like a point-and-shoot nikon, surf the internet like a netbook, and guide you like a Garmin. Oh, and be an ipod.

Don't get me wrong - apple bills it as being able to do email, play games, organize, take pics, surf, navigate, listen to music, and more (you can take out a couple of those on an iPT, but you see my point) - and so it does. But I don't see how anyone could make a single fit-in-your-pocket device that replicates the functionality of a half-dozen well designed and relatively expensive stand-alone devices.

Now, in the case of your calander complaints, the fixes are probably not as hard as I'm making them out to be, and I bet the iPT could in fact become a true PDA replacement. That's a great goal and something that Apple should strive for. But TJRiver is right: the iPT has never been touted as a PDA replacement. For now, the iphone and iPT are jacks of all trades, masters of a few - and that ain't bad.

Click to expand...

This is a great post, and reminds me of the time before the iPhone and iPT. Geeks were looking for a device that did great PDA functions, great web functions, great cell phone functions, and great entertainment functions. No matter which way we went we could get TWO of those in a device... maybe two and a half, but never all four.

What Apple has done with the iPhone is make a device that can actually do all four decently with a friendly UI and easy to customize/change/organize/configure system (iTunes).

Now, since these devices do so much, things will fall through the cracks like the devices of yore. My TX was great at being a PDA, suck as a music/video player, and has a sucky browser. With the iPhone and iPT users will find it's great at one thing and not so great at another.

Personally, I think the iPT makes a great PDA, it works too much like the Palm TX and is great at doing everything it did and didn't do. The only caveats I have are the lack of any kind of physical (external) keyboard to punch out documents and the screen size.

The only device that I can see coming close to doing all four things well is the HTC Touch Pro 2, but that device's biggest downfall will be "the friendly UI and easy to customize/change/organize/configure system (iTunes)" bit.

statik13 said:

I'm curious. What about the iPod Touch makes you consider it a great PDA replacement?

I would call it a great music & video player in a nice sized device. I'd also say it has a great web browser, a pretty good email client, a surprisingly fun game ecosystem and a really helpful iTunes remote. But for PDA use I would rate it somewhere between average and absolutely useless depending on your PDA needs.

Sadly, for my needs, I find it closer to the latter

Click to expand...

Basically that right there is my reason.

Given the success of many PDA and smartphone types that don't do some of the higher end things that PDA and smartphones of yore used to do, I'd say the iPT and iPhone make pretty decent PDA replacements.

Most people know a days think receiving a Word Doc via Bluetooth, editing it, saving a copy for yourself, and BTing it back to another device is "new tech" or that the iPhone's square icons was something unique to Apple. When in fact it's all be done before. The truth is no one did too much of that stuff in the past, and now, many people are just getting used to doing just what you mentioned.

They just use their iPhone to talk to others, surf the web, check email, listen to music, check a rudimentary calendar, and biggest of all, play iFart Mobile. In college I used my TX and micro keyboard as a laptop since I couldn't afford one (after dropping $1000s on a G5). Now, I wouldn't be able to do that at all.

The iPT and many other devices are being made to do those key things, and nothing else. True, the iPT and iPhone aren't even perfect rudimentary PDAs but they get what they can done for all that they do..... if you know what I mean.

As for the iPod Touch specifically, (excuse the verbose rant above), it's the WiFi, web browsing, entertainment, and access to mail and basic calendar. True it doesn't have great text entry like my TX or any other Palm, but it works. And lastly, paired with Google Mail or Mobile Me, you get over the air syncing and updates.

Other than that, like others have said, it's an over the top iPod with a delicate screen.

SORRY.... i could have made this post shorter.