Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Anyone regret switching from PDA to iPhone?
- Thread starter CMD is me
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If you're okay with iCal or Outlook, then the calendar application is just fine. I have mine set to sync via iCal on my Mac, and then in turn iCal syncs with Google Calendar via Spanning Sync.
I've been using my iPhone since July, and before that I had a long run of Treos, Palm PDAs, and Blackberries. So far the iPhone has established the record as being the "smart" phone I've kept the longest without getting tired of it, and I don't see any signs of me growing tired of it any time soon.
I've been using my iPhone since July, and before that I had a long run of Treos, Palm PDAs, and Blackberries. So far the iPhone has established the record as being the "smart" phone I've kept the longest without getting tired of it, and I don't see any signs of me growing tired of it any time soon.
I have made the switch to the iPhone from about 6 years of O2 XDA, XDA II, XDA IIi, XDA Mini S.
I'll break it down for you......
Email - is very good, better than Pocket PC in my opinion. You can view full html email in all its well formatted glory and its very easy to manage (move, delete etc). I only use POP3 and I am happier for my mobile device not to interact with my mail server in case I accidentally do something I regret. That does however mean re-deleting mail when I get back on my laptop. I haven't tried the IMAP functionality but I imagine it does what its supposed to. Attachment wise, you can view Word, Excel and PDF files with the same pinch to zoom and drag to browse as with the photos etc. Overall I would say that the email is perfectly acceptable as long as you dont want to connect to your corporate exchange server. Having said that, I found out today that Outlook Web Access works a treat!
Calendar - is good. On a par with PPC really. It is easy to create appointments with reminders which will happily sync back to your PC when you plug it in. The only thing I think is missing is the ability to drag over a portion of a day to create an appointment but the alternative it offers is hardly difficult to use.
Internet browsing - is the best mobile experience I've had bar none. Safari with the multitouch screen is a joy to use and much MUCH better than PPC.
Document editing/creation - is non-existent, you can't do it. I thought long and hard whether or not that would be a problem for me and actually, when I thought about it, I realized that being able to do it on PPC was actually fairly useless as the documents I get sent via email are very often quite large and complicated which meant that I would seldom even bother to view them on my PDA. With the iphone however it is much the same as web browsing to peruse your docs, very nice.
Tethering - no can do. It is not possible (without jailbreaking) to tether your iphone to you laptop to dial up. Which is a loss for me as I used to do it quite often. However, the only thing I've actually lost because of it is the ability to send email WITH ATTACHMENTS and instant messaging. I can do pretty much everything else I would need to do on the road, from the iPhone. Also, I was finding that I was tethering less and less as WiFi hotspots become more common.
3rd Party Apps - I have lost some functionality here. I did use things like Terminal Client and some other apps which I will now not be able to do. I can live with that though. If you really need to use things like that then the iPhone is probably not the eay to go.
Phone - is excellent. I find the phone a real joy to use and the interface is really nice. There could be some extra stuff it the contacts management like being able to select catagories but thats something that will probably come later. Voicemail is really cool.
In summary I would say that there are certain things "missing" from the iPhone that perhaps stop it from being a really good business tool. However, if you read up on it and all the things you need from a mobile device ARE covered by the iPhone, then go ahead and get one, you wont be disappointed. It does what it does very well and many off the missing features may well be added in future software updates.
Hope that helps....
+1 with jontucker's comments. Perfectly on the mark.
As for tethering, I ended up getting a separate aircard for my Mac. pricey, but I've found that none of the other alternatives were worth the aggravation involved in getting them to work, and I deeply missed the ability to have internet truly anywhere I wanted. And the money justifies itself when you walk into a starbucks or other location that charges for WiFi enough times, and don't have to spend time signing up and paying for access.
As for tethering, I ended up getting a separate aircard for my Mac. pricey, but I've found that none of the other alternatives were worth the aggravation involved in getting them to work, and I deeply missed the ability to have internet truly anywhere I wanted. And the money justifies itself when you walk into a starbucks or other location that charges for WiFi enough times, and don't have to spend time signing up and paying for access.
I've been using PDA's for a while - the Newton, Palm, Windows Mobile (a bunch of different ones).
Funny how Apple is really the one that pulled it off with the iPhone and iPod Touch...
I was going to get the latest Windows Mobile PDA, for $199,and a Nano for $149, instead, I got the 4Gig iPhone for $299. Never looked back...
I hook up my iPhone to a Windows machine and it syncs with Outlook 2003.
Funny how Apple is really the one that pulled it off with the iPhone and iPod Touch...
I was going to get the latest Windows Mobile PDA, for $199,and a Nano for $149, instead, I got the 4Gig iPhone for $299. Never looked back...
I hook up my iPhone to a Windows machine and it syncs with Outlook 2003.
No regrets but do miss some things...
I have no regrets in switching to an iPhone from my previous cellphone and Palm LifeDrive combination. However, there are some things I could do with the Palm that I cannot yet do with the iPhone or not do quite as well.
One example is in the Calendar and ToDo lists. iPhone has NO real native ToDo list capability, while the Palm had it built-in and also supplemented by numerous 3rd party apps. The Calendar feature of iPhone seems a bit limited so far when compared to that on the Palm (this may be due to the fact that I haven't really played with it much and am synching to the evil Outlook rather than iCal. I basically ported my Palm calendar entries over to Outlook and then onto the iPhone, so I haven't delved to deeply into calendar management).
Then there are a number of other functions I had been used to on my Palm that I cannot yet accomplish on the iPhone (without hacking it, which I am not willing to do yet). Things I used my Palm for regularly that I cannot officially do yet with the iPhone include:
- Read eBooks;
- Store and manage passwords; and
- Store, view and edit office documents.
That all said, I firmly believe that the iPhone WILL be able to do all of these things very soon, like, say, in February when the official Apple iPhone SDK comes out. And that is the reason I went with the iPhone over a Palm Treo. In the iPhone, Apple has created a mobile computing and communications platform for the future, not one rooted in past paradigms (as the Palm and Windows Mobile currently are). We may have to put up with a lack of sanctioned, usable applications now, along with some birthing pains (see my separate thread on Windows XP MCE sync problems - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/378155/ ).
But, in the long run, I am convinced that the iPhone offers far more usability than any other "smartphone" platform currently available (and Android doesn't count yet since there is no hardware available for it).
I have no regrets in switching to an iPhone from my previous cellphone and Palm LifeDrive combination. However, there are some things I could do with the Palm that I cannot yet do with the iPhone or not do quite as well.
One example is in the Calendar and ToDo lists. iPhone has NO real native ToDo list capability, while the Palm had it built-in and also supplemented by numerous 3rd party apps. The Calendar feature of iPhone seems a bit limited so far when compared to that on the Palm (this may be due to the fact that I haven't really played with it much and am synching to the evil Outlook rather than iCal. I basically ported my Palm calendar entries over to Outlook and then onto the iPhone, so I haven't delved to deeply into calendar management).
Then there are a number of other functions I had been used to on my Palm that I cannot yet accomplish on the iPhone (without hacking it, which I am not willing to do yet). Things I used my Palm for regularly that I cannot officially do yet with the iPhone include:
- Read eBooks;
- Store and manage passwords; and
- Store, view and edit office documents.
That all said, I firmly believe that the iPhone WILL be able to do all of these things very soon, like, say, in February when the official Apple iPhone SDK comes out. And that is the reason I went with the iPhone over a Palm Treo. In the iPhone, Apple has created a mobile computing and communications platform for the future, not one rooted in past paradigms (as the Palm and Windows Mobile currently are). We may have to put up with a lack of sanctioned, usable applications now, along with some birthing pains (see my separate thread on Windows XP MCE sync problems - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/378155/ ).
But, in the long run, I am convinced that the iPhone offers far more usability than any other "smartphone" platform currently available (and Android doesn't count yet since there is no hardware available for it).
switched from HTC touch to iphone (had samsung i600 and a whole range of HTC devices before).
Still think HTC is great company and their new combined devices have the technical lead over everybody.
but for day-to-day phone calls, email and music player, the iphone has them beat.
If only i could get a reliable skype and MSn Messenger client for the iphone .....
Still think HTC is great company and their new combined devices have the technical lead over everybody.
but for day-to-day phone calls, email and music player, the iphone has them beat.
If only i could get a reliable skype and MSn Messenger client for the iphone .....
This doesn't quite count as true document editing/creation... but you can create a note on the iPhone and then email it to yourself on your computer. I wish there were true notes syncing though - where you could edit your notes on the computer and sync them back to the iPhone.
My other wish is for a decent to do list app, but Vitalist.com works for me for now (and rememberthemilk.com is even better but they charge $$$ for they're iPhone interface).
Just used my iPhone on the toilet whilst taking a k*ap...... used to bring the newspaper in to catch-up on the news... this is way better as I can do it discreetly at work !
Thank you for this thread and the responses. I've been stressing over whether or not to pick one up and have recently really missed having a calendar on the go as well as mobile email and full on contact information. Hopefully someday there will be compatibility with corporate exchange networks but having mobile personal mail is better than mobile none.