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Palm user looking at iPhone

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mel1881

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 24, 2008
2
0
Hello,

I am a macbook owner who uses a palm pilot as a pda. Would I be able to utilize an iPhone as a pda also? I have been eyeing the iPhone since the first gen.

I would like an all-in-one as opposed to carrying around both a palm pilot and a cell phone and plus, the palm os does not completely work with a mac os.

Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
 
Hi. I can't give you first hand info, as I'm still waiting for my iPhone, but I'm also switching from a Treo 700P after 10+ years of the Palm OS/Mac OS combo.

The thing I'm most worried about is the lack of a Memo equivalent that backs up on the computer, not via the web. After scouring the App Store for days, I may have found a solution: YouNote. It may not be perfect, but it seems the best that I can tell so far.

And as for the countless 3rd party Palm OS apps that I've accumulated over the years, there is at least some sort of approximation already in the App Store for almost all that I can't do without, and some seem better than what I've been using for years.

I'm chomping at the bit to get started. :D
 
Go into iTunes and look at the App Store. There are numerous PDA-like application you can download that should replace anything on a Palm device. I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for there.

So... yes. Join the club. Drink the Kool-Aide!
 
I just switched from a Palm Treo 680 to the iPhone 3G

Treo was generally better at the calendar application
iPhone a huge improvement for multi-media (iPod/Movies)

email - I used Chatter on the Treo, it was great. The iPhone's email application is nicer looking and renders emails better.

Third Party applications caused me to wait until the 3G version; so far I'm not missing too much.

I say do the switch.
 
mel1881 said:
Hello,

I am a macbook owner who uses a palm pilot as a pda. Would I be able to utilize an iPhone as a pda also? I have been eyeing the iPhone since the first gen.

I would like an all-in-one as opposed to carrying around both a palm pilot and a cell phone and plus, the palm os does not completely work with a mac os.

Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

I got a 1st-Gen iPhone on Day #1, specifically to combine by cell phone, iPod and Palm Pilot. I have never regretted the move. Having to carry only one device (and, when travelling, only one charger) has been a Godsend.

Now, depending on what you're doing with the Palm, the iPhone could very well replace it completely. As has been pointed out already, the App Store has a number of apps that may approximate some of what you have on your Palm, but maybe not all. However, the basic PDA functions of contacts and calendar are fantastic on the iPhone, and that's what I used mine for mostly. Obviously, compatibility with your MacBook will be total.

As for a Memo funtion, the iPhone Notes app is backed up to your Mac (or PC) when you sync, it just doesn't coordinate with any application on your Mac. So, if your iPhone gets lost or trashed, your Notes will repopulate when you sync the new unit.

I do miss not having a To Do app. That remains a curious omission.
 
I used Palms for years and had a Treo 700p until Leopard came out and I realized that iSync no longer supported the Treo. Yes, the iphone has a few deficiencies like no notes syncing or todos, but overall it is far and away better than the Treo. And with Palm dying its slow death and support for Macs dying with it, you may as well make the switch. The iphone is much more stable than the Treo, and I no longer need to pray when syncing to my Mac. The iphone syncs with ical, itunes, and addressbook with no issues EVERY time.

I've come up with some workarounds for the notes and todos. They mostly work but I'll be happier when someone develops some apps that sync them with the Mac.

1. Notes: I make address book entries called "znote: [name of note]" as the company name. These all get sorted to the bottom of the contact list so it is easy to find them on the iphone. And they get synced both ways so this is a good hack.

2. Todos: I created a new calendar in Ical called "Todo" and associated all my ical todo items with that calendar in a distinctive color. Then I drag the todo entry from the right column into the calendar on the day it is due. They now all show up in my calendar. If I miss a todo, I just drag it to the next day in ical. This method is a little more manual than I'd like, but suffices. I'm sure a true syncing todo app will come soon.

Regardless, Palm screwed up the excellent todo/floating event/calendar integration of Handspring's Treo 600 when they released the 700p, so their todo app isn't as desirable anymore.
 
I've been a PalmPilot user for over 10 years, with a Treo 650 currently, and now have an iPhone 3G. They're both good phones, and the data plan for the iPhone is only a few bucks more per month.

The currently available iPhone apps for lists and memo taking are still quite weak and immature compared to the ones available on the Palm, so I find myself still using my old Treo 650 and Sony Clie for those tasks. I can still use the Treo keyboard, and even Graffiti gesture recognition, faster than I can type on the iPhone virtual keyboard. There are several apps on my Treo that are not available on the iPhone at all, such as the Tom Tom turn-by-turn navigator, spreadsheets, ssh terminals, programming language interpreters and graphing calculators.

But the media, games, email and web experience are way way better on the iPhone. Safari blows away Blazer.

I'm also a developer for both platforms. The SDK development tools for the PalmOS were once surprising good for their time, but the iPhone SDK and CocoaTouch will allow hugely more powerful and attractive apps. One major difference currently is that many Palm apps allow a customer to try-before-buy; the Apple App Store currently does not allow that.

.
 
What's important to you?

Some of the earlier posters touched on this - I suggest you sit down and make a list of the apps & features that you use most often and can't live without, or are willing to compromise on. Then add to that the benefits you will get with an iPhone.

I currently have a Sprint Treo 650, and hope to be going to an iPhone soon. Assuming relative equality between the standard applications like Contacts, Calendar, etc, what's missing?

Memos/Notes - appears answered already earlier, 3rd party solution.
Phone log - my Treo shows red/green left/right arrows to show incoming versus outgoing calls, where the iPhone doesn't show a difference. Would be nice, not a dealbreaker.
etc...

Password safe: Dealbreaker for me, but there are some available on the App Store - green light for purchase.

OliveTree Bible - waiting for this to buy iPhone. Hoping it will be available soon. www.olivetree.com

One Benefit: 30x speed increase on the web browser and email. Can't wait!
Uh nuther benefit: iPod - the music player/sync for the Treo *$#%@. Really looking forward to iPhone for this.
Another is that you've only got a single device to carry. I've loved this since day one with my Treo, even though the music player is worthless.

Make your own list and see how it balances out...
 
I used a Palm T|5 until I got my iPhone in January. Now that you can download applications for the iPhone it is a great replacement for my Palm. With the 2.0 firmware, Calendars are color coded. With MobileMe, my mail, calendar, and contacts are up-to-date on my iMac, iPhone, and MacBook Pro. For me, the biggest weakness is the lack of a good Task/ToDo program.

The biggest draw, for me, is that I now only have to carry one device instead of separate phone, PDA, and audio player.

I hope this helps.
 
Just a heads up that company named Styletap is looking into developing a Palm emulator for the iPhone that would allow you to run your old Palm apps as well. The main hitch, as I understand it, is licensing restrictions on software developed for the app store, but I expect they'll find some way around it.
 
As a long time palm user...

I bought the original Pilot 1000. Since then I have used many Palm devices, the latest being the Treo 650 and then Palm Centro (the best Palm phone to date).

I skipped the original Iphone and went for the Centro because I didn't want to pay $600. I figured I could wait until next year and bought a the next generation and still come out ahead. Which I did with the 3G.

There is no need for me to repeat the differences between a Palm device and an Iphone. I would rather focus on 2 things: apps and text entry.

There are a lot of mature Palm apps out there. The Iphone platform is pretty new, but there are already quite a few apps for it. The problem is there are a lot of apps that should have been placed in a single category: junk. It took me a long time to wade through them to find a few that I consider legitimate. And then there is no way to try before you buy it seems. There are a few good free apps as well, but you would expect to pay for good ones because the author has to eat. I am sure in the next few months we'll see a lot of good apps. eWallet is one that available right now to name one. It's highly rated on the Palm platform.

Text input was my major concern. I've gotten quite comfortable with the Palm Centro keyboard. In the few days since I got it, I am getting better at typing on the Iphone, and I think the trade off of screen size for physical keyboard is great. If and when you get over the typing hurdle, the apps have a lot more screen estate to play with.

One promising app for text input is WritingPad. Instead of poking the key on the keyboard you would drag your finger over it in the order of the letters of the word you want to type, and it uses a dictionary to figure out what you wanted to type. I spent 5 minutes using it and I was amazed by the accuracy and speed by and large. There are a few words where it gave me the wrong guess, but it did list what I wanted on the screen as an alternative. I think this may be by far the fastest way to enter text on the Iphone after one spends an hour with it.

In conclusion: unless you are looking for something exotic, the apps you want will either be in the app store now or available soon. It's too big a market for developer to ignore. Missing physical keyboard is not a big deal.

Final thoughts: email and web browsing is awesome on the Iphone. Battery life is pretty good. They could have made the device a little thicker and give it more battery. As it is it's a little too thin in my opinion.
 
I used palms quite happily for years- first a Palm IIIe, then a sony Clie SL10, then a TX. Used them mostly for email, watching video, taking notes at meetings (Used Docs To Go for this) GPS with TomTom and limited internet browsing. I used an iPod mini for listening to music and a SE K800i for calls and texting.
When I started using an iPhone I ditched the TX, bringing it out for the occasional long trip to unfamiliar destinations. I used the iPhone notes app to take notes and then emailed myself them.
I was without an iPhone for a week because I sold my iPhone and couldn't get a 3G one until a week after launch, I dug out the TX charged it up, synced with my PB, switched it on then switched it off after 5 minutes. Other than editing Office docs and GPS the iPhone beats the Palm every time.
 
switching from palm t5 to itouch

dacreativeguy said:
I used Palms for years and had a Treo 700p until Leopard came out and I realized that iSync no longer supported the Treo. Yes, the iphone has a few deficiencies like no notes syncing or todos, but overall it is far and away better than the Treo. And with Palm dying its slow death and support for Macs dying with it, you may as well make the switch. The iphone is much more stable than the Treo, and I no longer need to pray when syncing to my Mac. The iphone syncs with ical, itunes, and addressbook with no issues EVERY time.


1. Notes: I make address book entries called "znote: [name of note]" as the company name. These all get sorted to the bottom of the contact list so it is easy to find them on the iphone. And they get synced both ways so this is a good hack.

i have a new imac and don't like the way the palm works on it. i have an itouch. Can i transfer all my palm data (calendar/addresses/memos)?

Is it easy to do? someone suggested going first to missing sync as it will transfer the calender and contacts more accurately. is that true?

i heard that there is a problem transferring repeating calendar entries.

I read on this thread about using YouNote for the memos.

Is there a way to get word/excell documents on the itouch? if i send them to myself as an email attachment they will eventually be hard to find.
Click to expand...
 
I'm going to throw my hat in and ditto a lot of the people who are not regretting the switch from Palm. I've used Palm OS devices (My first was a PalmPilot Personal and went up over the years to the Treo 700), Windows Mobile (Treo 750, BlackJack) and multiple models of Blackberries. I have not regretted my switch to the iPhone either, and have been very happy.

Palm OS was great for its time, and very innovative. It's an incredible shame that they haven't kept up with their OS development. Had they kept up, they probably would have become something close to what the iPhone is now.
 
Look at it this way. They way things are going, you are going to be forced to ditch Palm sooner or later. It peaked as a company several years ago and nearly all of the people responsible for the glory days have long since gone. In fact, I think a lot of those people have gone full circle from Apple (working on the Newton), to Palm, to Handspring, back to Palm, and now back to Apple.
 
I too was a long time Palm user and replaced it with an iPhone and for me it replaces it fine. Another guy that I work with has replaced is Palm with a Touch and is happy too.
 
repeating events problem

ucfgrad93 said:
I used a Palm T|5 until I got my iPhone in January. Now that you can download applications for the iPhone it is a great replacement for my Palm. With the 2.0 firmware, Calendars are color coded. With MobileMe, my mail, calendar, and contacts are up-to-date on my iMac, iPhone, and MacBook Pro. For me, the biggest weakness is the lack of a good Task/ToDo program.

i am a former palm t5 user switching over to itouch. how do you enter an event that repeats every first tuesday of the month? i tried "every month" but it gave me august 5 sept 5 and oct 5 which are not all the first tuesday of the month.

thanks!
Click to expand...
 
Former Treo 600 and 650 owner here. Swapped for the 1st gen iPhone.

I was one of those people who bought the 3G the AM of release and got caught for a day with no working iPhone (server congestion)

I still have my Treo on my desk. All it has done for the past year+ is forward calls from my Verizon number to my iPhone.

I used it when I had no working phone for the day. I cannot believe the night and day difference. Its just two different experiences. I was so happy to get back to the iPhone interface.

As for notes, have you thought of evernote? Works like a charm for me and its free. I moved all my customer notes to Evernote and do not see myself going back anytime soon. I am all about Syncing and I get that with Evernote and well as ToDo which feeds into Remember the Milk.

I was a huge icon calendar fan. Something the iPhone still does not have. I got used to it, but, I still find the calendar a bit lacking. Wish I could color code the days so I know when I am out of town, etc.
 
alainr said:
i am a former palm t5 user switching over to itouch. how do you enter an event that repeats every first tuesday of the month? i tried "every month" but it gave me august 5 sept 5 and oct 5 which are not all the first tuesday of the month.

thanks!
Click to expand...

If you have a mac and use iCal, create a new event, select repeat, custom and the options at the bottom allow you do to this.

I hope this helps.
 
+1

I also just recently switched from a 700p treo to the iphone 3g.

The only thing the iphone lacks from the treo is the ability to tether ...

Otherwise i couldn't be happier :)

You will get pretty quick with the iphone keyboard once you use it for a bit. With both one and two hands free i can outperform the treo by about 10 - 20 percent. (after 1 week)

But the biggest plus to the iphone is that there software is in active development, poor old palm has been suffering from multiple strokes for the past several years !
 
Ntombi said:
Hi. I can't give you first hand info, as I'm still waiting for my iPhone, but I'm also switching from a Treo 700P after 10+ years of the Palm OS/Mac OS combo.

The thing I'm most worried about is the lack of a Memo equivalent that backs up on the computer, not via the web. After scouring the App Store for days, I may have found a solution: YouNote. It may not be perfect, but it seems the best that I can tell so far.

And as for the countless 3rd party Palm OS apps that I've accumulated over the years, there is at least some sort of approximation already in the App Store for almost all that I can't do without, and some seem better than what I've been using for years.

I'm chomping at the bit to get started. :D
Click to expand...
So I'm giving an update after having my iPhone for 10 days.



Thumbs up! :D

I knew about the bugs and the lack of copy/paste, I'm waiting to be able to edit documents and so on, and yes, that's a problem, but I'm still completely and totally thrilled with my iPhone.

As I mentioned earlier, YouNote is a pretty good memo replacement, but as you can see, others have workarounds that are also viable. I'm happy to have a PDA that is completely compatible with my computer again. :rolleyes:

After 10+ years of using the Palm OS, I'm finding the switch to be amazingly simple. Of course, Safari>Blazer, and Mail>Chatter or VersaMail.

I did have some duplication issues when I imported my Treo's calendar into iCal and synced, which was annoying, but I fixed them in less than an hour (and don't forget I had over ten years' worth of dates transfered). I also took that opportunity to stop transferring into my iPhone appointments I took in 2001. ;)

After just a few days, I can type amazingly fast, and I'm used to the OS and lack of buttons. :)

Also, my bluetooth headset works even better with the iPhone (no more of the random beeps in my ear that happened hourly when it was paired with the Treo).
 
lesliegolf said:
Former Treo 600 and 650 owner here. Swapped for the 1st gen iPhone.

I was one of those people who bought the 3G the AM of release and got caught for a day with no working iPhone (server congestion)

I still have my Treo on my desk. All it has done for the past year+ is forward calls from my Verizon number to my iPhone.

I used it when I had no working phone for the day. I cannot believe the night and day difference. Its just two different experiences. I was so happy to get back to the iPhone interface.

As for notes, have you thought of evernote? Works like a charm for me and its free. I moved all my customer notes to Evernote and do not see myself going back anytime soon. I am all about Syncing and I get that with Evernote and well as ToDo which feeds into Remember the Milk.

I was a huge icon calendar fan. Something the iPhone still does not have. I got used to it, but, I still find the calendar a bit lacking. Wish I could color code the days so I know when I am out of town, etc.
Click to expand...

Having a separate app with a separate syncing mechanism for every type of data will quickly become a nightmare. I've already got the main itunes sync and 1password sync. Apple will sync notes and todos sooner or later, so I'll wait. For now, I'm using my addressbook hack that I explained above and starting to put some notes into 1password, since I've already got that syncing process on my plate.
 
software to sync palm to itouch

Ntombi said:
So I'm giving an update after having my iPhone for 10 days.



Thumbs up! :D

I knew about the
After 10+ years of using the Palm OS, I'm finding the switch to be amazingly simple. Of course, Safari>Blazer, and Mail>Chatter or VersaMail.

I did have some duplication issues when I imported my Treo's calendar into iCal and synced, which was annoying, but I fixed them in less than an hour (and don't forget I had over ten years' worth of dates transfered). I also took that opportunity to stop transferring into my iPhone appointments I took in 2001. ;)pened hourly when it was paired with the Treo).
Click to expand...

what software did you use to transfer your palm calendar/addresses to the iphone? i have an itouch and was reading that there are a lot of problems with missing sync.

what are the other options like younotes? i am trying to figure out how to get memos on.
when you wrote:
Of course, Safari>Blazer, and Mail>Chatter or VersaMail."

what does that mean? is blazer an alternative to safari?
thks
 
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