The BIG mobile transistion (part one)

James is going to be writing a series of articles detailing his journey from 4 years of Treo 650 ownership to a brand new iPhone, and detailing all of the factors involved in making such a bold move.

For more than four years, my only mobile was a Treo 650, and before that, I used a Visor and Clie.  The moment I saw the first iPhone, I knew it wasn’t ready for primetime. Last year’s improvements were remarkable, but without cut-copy-paste, it still wasn’t a serious work platform.  But with the release of the 3GS and iPhone OS 3.0, I saw a device that, like my Treo, I could imagine using for another four years before upgrading.  After two years of waiting for improvements and a year of employment troubles, I knew it was time to take the leap.  This is the story of how I bridged the gap between the iPhone and my Palm-hardened brain.

My Treo was my most trusted companion.  It synced data to Entourage (almost) flawlessly through Microsoft’s dedicated sync conduit, first through Palm Desktop, and then when I stepped up to Mark/Space’s Missing Sync.  I was a color-coded category junkie.  Categories were never actually lost on calendar synchronization, just not transferred, so while it took a little bit of extra work, the category remained intact on subsequent syncs so long as I set the category of an event on both sides after the first sync.  Contact, task and note categories synced without issue.  I never synced the Treo to my work computer, mostly because I wasn’t in the sort of position where I needed that data on hand all the time.  The few work-related contacts or calendar reminders I needed I entered by hand and synced with my home desktop.

The Palm OS gave me in the handheld space what my Mac does on the desktop: reliability and a simple, intuitive interface that belied a depth of functionality, and the choice of well-crafted applications is first-rate.  With Paragon Software’s PiLoc, I added Cyrillic text support for SMS text messages to my in-laws in Eastern Europe, and I also used Paragon’s SlovoEd Russian dictionary.  I would occasionally use Documents to Go for Word or Excel editing, and there were a couple reference apps I counted on:  kMeteo for weather, and Nanika’s wonderful MetrO for public transit guidance in an incredible array of world cities.  GoogleMaps for Palm was actually pretty impressive, considering the age of the platform, and Clicker, which was way ahead of the curve at the time of its release, was still magnificent for controlling media players and more on the Mac.  On the flipside, browsing on Blazer was always painful, and I never could get Opera to work.  None of the media players for Palm OS could compete with a separate iPod.  RealPlayer, which was pre-installed, was just sad, while PocketTunes was only so-so.

The iPhone and iTunes App Store finally had the goods to match my needs across the board. Cyrillic support, basic weather, and GoogleMaps are all baked-in.  SlovoEd and Documents to Go have been developed for the platform by the original companies, Air Mouse Pro seems to have all of Clicker’s functionality with even more sex appeal, MetrO is (hopefully) only a few weeks away, and the media playback and web browsing are no-brainers.

I’ve never stood in line for an hour for anything, except an amusement park ride or two.  But there I was, up at 4:30 AM on a Friday morning to drive into Manhattan.  I work only a few blocks away from the 14th St. Apple Store, where at 6:00 AM the line stretched about a half-block.  Of course as I walked to the Apple Store from the paid parking garage, I saw someone pull out of a free space on the street.  That’s right, pay, fanboy.  Pay out the nose!

To be continued…