There are a group of people like me who require specific things in a smartphone above all else. For me it is decent communication ability (email and calls) followed by PIM and easy data entry. These are what get me through a day when married with good battery life and an overall fast system speed. PIM is essential for me and one of those features that are rarely put up the top of the list by manufacturers. This comment from Graham sums it all up-
“Treo 680
Adding a calendar entry
1. Tap Calendar icon.
2. Tap on the timeslot your want for new appointment
3. Type in appointment details
Adding a memo
1. Tap memo icon
2. Start typing: automatically creates new memo
In a meeting last night. Entered an appointment on my Hero. What a convoluted process that was. Love Android but the calendar is an absolute mess. Where’s the progress?”
The progress is in big screens, gaming, fancy interfaces and that’s about it. There has been little progress in battery times, data entry and overall speed. So much is crammed into the latest smartphones that the basics are ignored and PIM is at the very top of the ignore list.
I understand that most people don’t need a PIM system that is capable of driving an exceptionally busy schedule (because they don’t have busy schedules) and Murray summed up this in a recent article on Palm-Mac-
“I hope however that I never get to the stage where a pre-requisite of any new device is how quickly I can add a Calendar entry as that would indicate either my work is starting to take over my personal life or less worryingly, my memory is starting to go. How do folk need to record so much stuff in a Calendar, I don’t get it? I have at most 2/3 entries per day as that is all that tends to happen in my daily life. I don’t know, perhaps they are entering stuff like …7am: have a cup of coffee, 1pm: have lunch…I live in perpetual fear of my life becoming so overrun with work related stuff that I need to record it for fear of forgetting it.”
This point is shared by 99% of people on the planet, but it does not look at the fact that we all have different lives and different jobs and that people should not be blamed for their lives being different.
I don’t add pointless stuff to my smartphone calendar because most are work related. For example last Thursday consisted of 5 conference calls, 3 meetings and 7 tasks that needed to be completed that day- most were automatically added to my BlackBerry by my work server, but amending these appointments throughout the day as priorities change is a hugely frequent task for me. Being able to do so without fuss when running to a meeting makes a big difference on a busy day (which most are) and having a smartphone that makes this process difficult also makes a big difference, but not in a good way.
The point I am trying to make is that the iPhone and Android platforms are great at so many things and that 1% more effort (probably less than that) will open up the platforms for people like me who need really fast PIM usage and in particular a super fast calendar. I don’t need to add an alarm to have a cup of coffee, but even if I wanted to it should be easy. Graham is right when he asks where the progress is- there is no reason for Apple, Google and the like not to make some of the PIM tasks easier. It’s almost as if they feel that by doing so the devices will somehow become less desirable. The fact is though that they would open themselves up to even more people than now, even if it only another 1%.
I don’t find input of an appointment that bad on my G1, but it’s true that nothing comes close to Palm OS.
There’s some clear things here to me.
1) Shaun hates the iPhone PIM fucntionality as it doesn’t suit him. I think we’re clear on that one
2)The (main) reason that Shaum hates the iPhone PIM is that he can’t do stuff quickly enough for his busy (sounds impossibly busy to me) WORK schedule
3) A significant majority (at least on PDA247 – and I suspect the rest of the world) of other iPhone users, just don’t have a need to, or want to make that extensive a use of the iPhone PIM fucntionality. Some, like me do, but I’m OK with what it can offer – sure it could be better, but Apple aren’t going to change it to suit the minority.
The fact is that in general (and I know there will be exceptions), people see and use the iPhone as a consumer device and it isn’t a work phone.
They are not people that need to juggle conference calls, receive and send 200+ emails a day and keep hundreds of contacts on their device. It just aint so.
Where I work, iPhones now seem to be the main personal phone of choice for people, but I’ll bet they have very little in their calendar, it’s not a work phone so they won’t be using it all day for calls and emails and I’d suspect that most have less than 50 contacts in the phone. They more likely use it for Facebook, music and games.
I think we need to stop harping on about how good Palm smartphones were (I had three)and they were good, but an iPhone isn’t a Palm. Or a BB, or an Android device. It’s an iPhone.
And let’s face it, anything’s better than a Win Mo device!
Years ago I owned an old Morris Minor. If the battery went flat you could start it up manually by cranking the engine a few times with something called a ‘starting handle’. (Younger readers might want to google this!) On numerous occasions I have seen people trying to bump start their cars. I usually think, ‘It’s a shame they don’t still build cars with starting handles.’ A few months ago my son’s car battery died. He couldn’t bump start it as it is an automatic. I couldn’t drive out to help him because I had spent the evening in with my wife and Jack Daniel. My son had to call out the RAC and I thought, ‘It’s a shame they don’t still build cars with starting handles.’
I held off upgrading my Treo for a long time because I was looking for something to match the capabilities of the Palm PIM apps. Now I have come to the point where I have realised that it is just not a priority for manufacturers. I bought a Hero not to replace my Treo but to complement it. It seems I am destined to always carry two devices around. It used to be a Palm Pilot and a dumb phone.
I dream of that day when one device will do everything I want but I am realistic: it may never happen. I am not frustrated though because I still think that my Treo is a really cool device. The problem with rapidly advancing technology is that we lose the wonder of the moment and are always looking for the next best thing. If you had said to me even 10 years ago that I would be able to carry round in my pocket something that powerful I probably would not have believed you. I will probably always wonder though, ‘Why don’t they still build cars with starting handles? Why don’t they make devices with PIM functionality at least equal to Palm’s?’
I better stop. This is beginning to sound like a sermon!
Shaun, just a question – why do you need to enter “tasks” on your calendar?
I wouldn’t want to speak for Shaun but for me it is really useful being able to look at one screen and see all my appointments and tasks for the day. I can then think about which tasks I can fit in between appointments. It’s not essential, just really useful.
For myself, unless something absolutely has to be done at a particular time, it goes on a separate task list for today.
That keeps my calendar clutter free, so that I can get a better overview how much time I have available.
What I like about Handy Calendar on my E71 is that I can put appointments which have a beginning and an end time. A reminder which only has a start time, a task for a few bits and pieces I have to do sometime that day. Day entries for things that apply to the whole day, and anniversaries. Data entry and overview is quick, simple and easy. I only set alarms for things I know I will otherwise overlook and even though going to the toilet is a necessary task and quite often an event in my case, I don’t feel the need to plan it into my day, nor to record the event for prosparity sake.
“I think we need to stop harping on about how good Palm smartphones were (I had three)and they were good, but an iPhone isn’t a Palm. Or a BB, or an Android device. It’s an iPhone.”
I agree, but my main point is that Apple could change the iPhone calendar and not affect how usable it is for the majority of people who do not need the extra functions. That way we would all be happy…
“Shaun, just a question – why do you need to enter “tasks” on your calendar?”
Never use tasks- it’s never something I have been able to use. I am admittedly obsessed with using the calendar for everything:)
HTC HD2 , tap calendar and timeslot and type, and voila. And windows mobile is poor! i dont think so.