Help! I'm actually considering a WM6 Phone...

[wayland1985]

Hello,

I'm in the middle of a crisis of sorts (yep... geek here). I had an AT&T tilt for 2 weeks before I bought my iPhone 2g. I needed a PDA phone for software for school and the Tilt fit the bill. I loved it, but hardware issues made me trade it in.

Now I love my iPhone too (it's great for web browsing and entertainment), but it lacks when it comes to the software I truly need.

I'm not aware of a Document editing program that'll let me edit and modify .Docs or .PPTs on the go (the WM6 phones have built in Office).

Also, copy-paste. I find myself wanting it at times, and not getting to use it. Sure, it MAY be in the pipeline, but how much longer do I really have to wait???

SMS is lacking too! I had many many funny text messages come to me on election day. Unfortunately I wasn't able to share them with anybody, because the iphone doesn't allow forwarding of text messages! (Granted, I think the SMS setup looks great, but if forwarding is nice. Heck, if there was copy-paste, i'd be all set here too!)

MMS: Beating this to death again, but when will I get to send or receive video messages natively? I had a friend send me a picture message the other day. When she realized I couldn't see it, she laughed, asking what good my phone is anyways! (Heck, I'd be content if View My Message actually worked, and if I had copy-paste to copy the password over)




These are my only gripes. They're minor, I know, but still, they should be incorporated natively. So, please, convince me to stick with the iPhone, and to upgrade to the 3g!

 

[eplchamps0304]

It doesnt do what you need. What convincing do you need?

 

[kas23]

I'm not aware of a Document editing program that'll let me edit and modify .Docs or .PPTs on the go (the WM6 phones have built in Office).

There are text editors out there that can accomplish this, I think by downloading/uploading Google docs. I just use the Google Mobile App and do it right online. This way, you will always have access to your docs no matter where you are.

Also, copy-paste. I find myself wanting it at times, and not getting to use it. Sure, it MAY be in the pipeline, but how much longer do I really have to wait???

Everyone wants this. For me, it is a minor annoyance I can usually ignore most of the time.

MMS: Beating this to death again, but when will I get to send or receive video messages natively? I had a friend send me a picture message the other day. When she realized I couldn't see it, she laughed, asking what good my phone is anyways! (Heck, I'd be content if View My Message actually worked, and if I had copy-paste to copy the password over)

My wife received her first MMS yesterday and I finally got to see this notorious page. I almost died of embarrassment for Apple! They give you some stupid username and password (whatever for!). Then you have to switch back-and-forth between the text and Safari due to lack of cut and paste. Oh, the irony. Oh, the horror. Then the damn page made the whole phone freeze up and I had to reboot the phone. If Apple could just do one single thing, it should be to have AT&T pull this page.

Flutter, otoh, is beautiful compared to this horrible, horrible webpage.

These are my only gripes. They're minor, I know, but still, they should be incorporated natively. So, please, convince me to stick with the iPhone, and to upgrade to the 3g!

Well, you got me so pissed off again about the viewmymessage page that I really can't help you.

 

[kas23]

It doesnt do what you need. What convincing do you need?

True, Apple already has you money. Hit the road!

 

[wayland1985]

It doesnt do what you need. What convincing do you need?

LOL... Point taken.


I think my biggest problem is that it can easily do what I need. We've seen ideas for making copy-paste work. MMS is a program apple engineers could easily make work...


Most of my usage is from phone calls, music (on the train) and some games.

The software I need is 1 or two programs. 1 is almost out on the iPhone. The other I COULD do without???

I guess what I'm looking for is some reassurance that Copy-Paste and MMS is coming, but Apple isn't showing any interest...

 

[Donz0r]

LOL... Point taken.


I think my biggest problem is that it can easily do what I need. We've seen ideas for making copy-paste work. MMS is a program apple engineers could easily make work...


Most of my usage is from phone calls, music (on the train) and some games.

The software I need is 1 or two programs. 1 is almost out on the iPhone. The other I COULD do without???

I guess what I'm looking for is some reassurance that Copy-Paste and MMS is coming, but Apple isn't showing any interest...

Well if you look on the main macrumors.com page there's supposedly a carrier created MMS app coming.
as far as Copy-Paste goes, apple is trying to implement it smoothly, seamlessly, beautifully, and easily into the OS. As with any feature of the iPhone, we won't have it until they can get it to satisfy those qualifications.

 

[SFStateStudent]

Go with the WM6! Is that what you wanted to hear?

 

[wayland1985]

Go with the WM6! Is that what you wanted to hear?

LOL... not from a guy using the same exact phone I'm trying to get talked into buying!



I'll have to go and find a damn ATT with a actual working phone to play with. All the stores around here only have dummy versions.



Hopefully that'll talk me out of it, since none of you "Mac Diehards" have a compelling argument not to!!!

 

[sergiuria]

Well if you look on the main macrumors.com page there's supposedly a carrier created MMS app coming.
as far as Copy-Paste goes, apple is trying to implement it smoothly, seamlessly, beautifully, and easily into the OS. As with any feature of the iPhone, we won't have it until they can get it to satisfy those qualifications.

Hhmm.. Weren't you aware of the Push fiasco?

 

[Crotalus_Joe]

I am not an apple fanboy, nor am i a diehard winmo lover, i have used both the HTC 8525 and the iPhone, in the end i love and hate both the iPhone and the WinMo 6 phones.

Both have thier advatages and both have thier disadvantages. In the end i stuck with the iPhone due to the stability, the App store and the size. It was tough giving up Office mobile as it saved my skin on two different occasions. I was able to make changes to excel and word docs while i was out of the office at a conference. But that was only 2 times in 24 months, it just means that i now have to be sure that i have my laptop easily accessible if i am out of the office.

I have had the iPhone for close to a month now with no lockups or crashes, i tried the HTC Fuze when it was released in Mid November and it crashed twice in 7 hours.

In the end I think WinMo is more powerful with more features and flexibilty, but the iPhone is more stable and reliable. You need to decide which features you can live with and which you can live without.

I am hoping for the day when a company can combine the best benefits from each platform into one phone, then i will be a happy camper.

 

[billandy]

I am not an apple fanboy, nor am i a diehard winmo lover, i have used both the HTC 8525 and the iPhone, in the end i love and hate both the iPhone and the WinMo 6 phones.

Both have thier advatages and both have thier disadvantages. In the end i stuck with the iPhone due to the stability, the App store and the size. It was tough giving up Office mobile as it saved my skin on two different occasions. I was able to make changes to excel and word docs while i was out of the office at a conference. But that was only 2 times in 24 months, it just means that i now have to be sure that i have my laptop easily accessible if i am out of the office.

I have had the iPhone for close to a month now with no lockups or crashes, i tried the HTC Fuze when it was released in Mid November and it crashed twice in 7 hours.

In the end I think WinMo is more powerful with more features and flexibilty, but the iPhone is more stable and reliable. You need to decide which features you can live with and which you can live without.

I am hoping for the day when a company can combine the best benefits from each platform into one phone, then i will be a happy camper.

Isn't it why Apple's making MacBook Air now? I'm personally very confident that Microsoft will push out an iPhone version of their Office one day, and copy&paste will hopefully be coming together with the push notification service?

To a certain extent, if we forget about the economy, of course I'd love to have a MacBook Air and an iPhone to sort out all the problems, the experience editing Word documents and PowerPoint presentations is just so much better on a proper screen! I have to say I think the Office Mobile really doesn't do much. And for now you can view your Office documents anyway in Mail attachments or you can have AirSharing. They all do their job brilliantly well.

Maybe soon some geeks will make a BBEdit iPhone edition, haha

 

[jc1350]

I have Verizon XV6900 (HTC Touch) With Win Mobile 6 and hate it. I don't pay one penny for it (supplied by my employer), but I'm dumping it as soon as I can.

Literally in true Windows fashion I have to reboot it every few days, the ActiveSync fails miserably and I have to manually "send/receive" or turn on airplane mode and turn it off to get activesync to start working again, and at times the phone just locks up.

There is no physical keyboard on this phone and the on-screen keyboard is absolutely horrible. I have to tap things more than once for the tap to register and most things are too small to use a finger - you have to use the easily-lost stylus.

It's such a pain to use, I can't imagine editing any document on it.

My problems could be with the phone itself and not WinMobile, but the contract is up in June and I'm going to switch to a Blackberry for my work phone.

 

[MotionxxUSxx]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

Check out documents in the app store. Got it for free when it first came out. Havent really used it but it does edit and can upload and download from google docs.

 

[iDarbert]

I'm not aware of a Document editing program that'll let me edit and modify .Docs or .PPTs on the go (the WM6 phones have built in Office).

You should consider that the iPhone platform is relatively new; I'm pretty sure the first versions of Windows Mobile didn't came with Mobile Office either (but I'm not sure, I've never been really interested in WM, all I know is that Windows CE didn't have any Office app in the beginning) and Documents To Go for the Palm also didn't came out immediately after PalmOS was created.

Right now there are a few apps that let you create rich text and spreadsheets (there's one that syncs with Google Docs, which sounds nice but doesn't work as well as advertised) and things of the sort but still no full featured Mobile Office-like app.

Personally I don't use Office much, let alone on a mobile device (I used to fiddle with Documents to Go on my palm but nothing serious) so I'm already happy that the iPhone is able to read Office files out of the box.

I've seen a review in the App Store saying that some company is working on a mobile Office solution for the iPhone, but I haven't heard anything about it elsewere so I'm skeptical about that.

Bottom line is, right now there's no such app(s), but I doubt it will be like this for long.

Apparently the claim was not unfounded
http://gizmodo.com/5069995/microsoft-office-documents-editing-coming-to-the-iphone
http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/iphone/notify/index.html

I must've been living under a rock I guess

 

[kdarling]

I have Verizon XV6900 (HTC Touch) With Win Mobile 6 and hate it. I don't pay one penny for it (supplied by my employer), but I'm dumping it as soon as I can.

Hey, at least you don't have to reload the entire OS, like some iPhone owners do (a restore).

Suggestion: check out the Verizon PDA section here on HoFo. There's an update for the XV6900 that apparently does wonders.

And for goodness' sake, get an aftermarket keyboard. There are lots that are as good as the iPhone's.

 

[kdarling]

Well if you look on the main macrumors.com page there's supposedly a carrier created MMS app coming.

Yeah, if you're Swedish.

as far as Copy-Paste goes, apple is trying to implement it smoothly, seamlessly, beautifully, and easily into the OS. As with any feature of the iPhone, we won't have it until they can get it to satisfy those qualifications.

Apple figured out elegant copy/paste a decade ago on their other handheld(s).

I think it's missing because of security worries, speed concerns, and because it's not high on the list of money makers or reasons why people buy the phone.

 

[kas23]

Yeah, if you're Swedish.

True...I wonder if we really should be bugging AT&T about MMS, not Apple. I'm sure AT&T could come up with an MMS app, assuming they're the one not blocking it.

 

[redman042]

WM6 is horribly aggravating to use. I was a long time WM user before I finally switched to iPhone. I'm SO glad I did. The iPhone is an absolute joy to use and the amazing new apps coming out all the time continuously freshen the experience. But I will readily admit there were a few sacrifices made in the switch (though so much more was gained). Doc editing was one, though I hardly ever do it and it is incredibly tedious on any phone. Docs to Go is working on an iPhone suite so I'm confident that need will be filled - though who knows when. How long can you wait?

Cut and paste, MMS, and the other big holes may or may not ever be filled. Apple could have filled them a long time ago if they wanted. They have to be leaving these out for a specific reason and I haven't figured out why. If you get an iPhone now, the risk you take is that these holes may never be filled.