Love the iPhone, Keeping my Palm


The stars aligned: my wife had been asking what new toy I might like for my birthday, my call-dropping Sprint service reached the end of its 3 year contract, the Palm OS was disappearing from even Palm's own phones, and Apple had introduced the most anticipated new gadget of all time: the iPhone. True, my 15GB iPod still seemed to have a lot of life left in it, and nothing in particular going against it --- but why fight fate? ...



Sunday opened a small window of opportunity. While my wife was dragging her mother through the local mall, I snuck out to the AT&T store, where a pleasant fellow named JT filled in a few details about the iPhone's service plan: rollover minutes didn't expire for a full year, and there weren't any roaming charges to worry about. Great! Could I play with one for a few minutes? Nope: their store sold out of their 30 unit allotment within 45 minutes of opening on Friday. He suggested that the best place to see one would be an Apple store. Lucky for me, the Apple store was only 15 minutes away, and my mother-in-law shops slowly.

At the Apple store, people were packed in pretty tight. I made my way to the area with the greatest density, and sure enough, peeking between a few shoulders I glimpsed the much lusted-after iPhone. Unable to get much closer, I made my way to the back of the store to see if someone could answer a few questions. It turned out that a second display had been set up there, and almost immediately I had one of the display models in my hand.

First impression: Wow. Smaller and lighter than I expected, but with enough weight to still feel solid. The screen really is as beautiful as people have been writing, the graphics crisp, colorful, and eager to respond to the merest touch. Displayed objects react with inertia that makes them seem real. The bar for user interaction with small devices has most definitely been raised. To the Verizon and Sprint comedians who mocked this thing as the "iWhatever" or the "whyPhone " in their respective memos, I can only say I'm thrilled that they're so confident about giving it strong competition. Everyone, iPhone user or not, will benefit.

Like many other gadget nuts out there, I watched the keynote that introduced the iPhone, read the rumors that trickled onto the web, and viewed the commercials and videos released by Apple in the days prior to release. So I already knew how to browse photos, flip through music, scroll around web pages, and use the phone. But the app that gets the most attention on my Palm-based phone is the calendar, so that's the first icon I selected.

Little wonder it wasn't demonstrated. Compared to most other iPhone features, the calendar seems to have received little attention. I tapped the "+" button to add a new event, and used the virtual keyboard to enter the event name and location. This was my first experience with the little keyboard, and I had no problem typing with my index finger. I think I'd find it quicker than Graffiti in short order. So far, so good.

The date/time picker uses some spinwheel-like controls: use a finger to roll the cylinder to the chosen date, hour, and minute. While this looks cool, it seems like it might be significantly slower than the couple of taps it takes to do this in Palm's calendar. In fact, if you're trying to set an ending date several months in the future, you'll be spinning the date wheel for a while.

Then I tried to set up the event to repeat on the last Monday of each month. I don't know about you, but I have quite a few of these monthly events. First Wednesday of the month, last Monday, second Thursday. The iPhone's repeating event options: daily, weekly, every two weeks, monthly, or yearly. So what happens if you have an event on July 15th and set it to repeat every month? It shows up on the 15th of each month. Okay, we give our dog her heart-worm meds on the first of each month, but how many people have meetings on the 15th of each month, regardless of which day of the week it happens to fall on? Strike one.

Another thing I find myself doing with my calendar is searching for a particular event. When did my wife last see Doctor Somesuch? "Let me check... ah, that would have been April of last year." My Palm-based phone makes this search function readily available by tapping a silk-screened button, and search works across applications. What does the iPhone provide for search? Nothing. To find my wife's last appointment, I'd need to search manually for it. Strike two.

A third-party application that has become indispensable to me is SplashID by SplashData. For those unfamiliar with this little gem, it's a strongly encrypted database for storing passwords, credit card numbers, serial numbers, and other personal information. There's nothing like it currently on the iPhone, and while such an app could exist as a web app accessible by the iPhone, I've seen no such service yet. The closest the iPhone comes to security is a four digit code that can be required to unlock the device. I'd question whether unencrypted data on such a device would be safe from attack, and I'd be annoyed to have to enter a code for every use. No wallet application makes for strike three: for me, the iPhone is out of the running.

For now.

On the bright side, the iPhone is a rich platform with amazing potential. It's only been out for a few days now, and it's certain to see new features and refinement in the months ahead. Will Apple add the functionality to make the iPhone a fit for my needs, or for yours? Or will they create a software development kit (SDK) to allow third parties to fill in the gaps? We'll see.

One thing is certain: what Apple fails to provide will be an opportunity for another phone maker. And I'm betting the competition is staying up late.

Posted: Sun - July 1, 2007 at 10:44 PM          

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