How is the calendar?

[archie]

Sounds pretty limited Sure would be nice to have Agendus on the iPhone (without the crashes of course).

So that's what you really wanted to say, isn't it? Why didn't you just start the thread with that comment?

By the way, the only thing that "crashes" on me is Safari - and it certainly doesn't happen nearly as often as other phones. I'm not sticking up for the fact that it happens like 3 times a week, shuld be more stable than that, but it does certainly do it gracefully. In fact, upon returning to Safari, that last page I was visiting shows back up when returning to the app.

I've used Agendus (paid for versions 6, 7, and 8), I much prefer iCal on the iPhone - even with the restriction of not having a to-do list (damnit Apple, give me to-dos).

 

[archie]

Yeah, I'm used to Agendus logging when I've called a contact, associating contacts to meetings, daily journal, actually most of the functionality gets used. If Apple ever opens up to 3rd party apps I'll definitely get an iPhone because I know the apps would come. I have more faith that Apple will fix what is 'wrong' (from my perspective of course) with the iPhone than Palm will fix what is wrong with the Treo.

Forgive me for questioning this last statement, but how can you say that? Two weeks ago you were all over my case about trusting Apple and the company's dedication to its product.

 

[archie]

MacUser, thanks for the nice response. One of his questions you didn't touch on was notes - can you assign notes to a calendar event? (It almost seems silly to ask, but better to know for sure)

Calendar events do have a notes field.

 

[archie]

That's not entirely true. You can set TWO reminders for the same event so you do get two notifications--Alert & Second Alert. True, it would be nice to have a snooze feature like they have on the Alarm Clock app.

Yes, this is true.

 

[archie]

I guess there's no external LED or anything to indicate that an alert has happened? I'll miss butler.

Nope. No tiny little LED to indicate an alert ? just a huge 3.5 color screen.

 

[archie]

It syncs all the iCals with no problem. You choose which iCal category you want the iPhone events to go into as a setting.

What are the steps for getting this done?

Step 1.) place in dock.

The End.

 

[cmaier]

Nope. No tiny little LED to indicate an alert ? just a huge 3.5 color screen.

but, sadly, i have to press a button and swipe a finger to see if I have anything new. From a user-interface perspective, the LED was a lot more useful. If you're in a meeting and your iphone buzzes, you have no idea why. Turning the phone on to see why is considered rude in many circumstances. When my treo gets an incoming sms, email, or voicemail, i can tell why by the color. (I keep my phones on vibrate).

 

[archie]

but, sadly, i have to press a button and swipe a finger to see if I have anything new. From a user-interface perspective, the LED was a lot more useful. If you're in a meeting and your iphone buzzes, you have no idea why. Turning the phone on to see why is considered rude in many circumstances. When my treo gets an incoming sms, email, or voicemail, i can tell why by the color. (I keep my phones on vibrate).

If its an SMS the message is displayed on the screen along with the alert/buzz sound. If it's an email, you get the alert as well, just like voicemail and calls and calendar alerts and alarms... you can set different sounds to each.

Now of course this doesn't help if its set to vibrate, but the screen does come on and let you see the SMS message, or see who is calling (and you can choose to ignore and shut ringer/buzzer off or send directly to voicemail), or whatever.


If you completely miss it (say you leave the room and its on vibrate) and the screen shuts off before returning, then yuo won't know anything happened. But this is a rarity because I find myself wanting to use the iPhone all the time so anything I may have missed will probably be noticed right away.

 

[cmaier]

"If you completely miss it (say you leave the room and its on vibrate) and the screen shuts off before returning, then yuo won't know anything happened. But this is a rarity because I find myself wanting to use the iPhone all the time so anything I may have missed will probably be noticed right away."

Your first sentence has "you" and your second has "I."

Well, it's not a rarity for me. I can't be sitting around fondling my phone while sitting in a meeting. I feel a buzz, I pull it out of my pocket at a time when I can do so inconspicuously, and I want to see what I missed. That's one of the great things about an external LED or OLED display. Having to turn on the screen, besides being rude, is more effort then seeing what color a light is.

Mind you, I love the phone, but I'm not going to defend some of its omissions. Another helpful thing would be a summary screen, like a 'today' screen, that just shows all the events in one place.

 

[archie]

"If you completely miss it (say you leave the room and its on vibrate) and the screen shuts off before returning, then yuo won't know anything happened. But this is a rarity because I find myself wanting to use the iPhone all the time so anything I may have missed will probably be noticed right away."

Your first sentence has "you" and your second has "I."

Well, it's not a rarity for me. I can't be sitting around fondling my phone while sitting in a meeting. I feel a buzz, I pull it out of my pocket at a time when I can do so inconspicuously, and I want to see what I missed. That's one of the great things about an external LED or OLED display. Having to turn on the screen, besides being rude, is more effort then seeing what color a light is.

Mind you, I love the phone, but I'm not going to defend some of its omissions. Another helpful thing would be a summary screen, like a 'today' screen, that just shows all the events in one place.

???
After you unlock it, you are taken to the summary screen. The active SMS icon shows you how many new SMS messages you have to look at, the Phone icon shows you how many new voicemails you have, the email app shows you how many new emails you have, heck the calendar icon even shows you the correct date. I personally thought this was one of the cooler features of the iPhone. All the new stuff is displayed in one location.

As far as turning on the screen for incoming messages, this is not neccessary as the iPhone displays these new events without you needing to turn the screen on.

 

[cmaier]

Archie dude. Pay attention.

I DO have to turn the screen on, because unless I grab my phone out of my pocket and look at it right away, it has already turned off.

Second, the "summary" screen only displays little numbers in red circles. It doesn't, for example, show me the subject line of an email, the first line of an SMS, the title of an appointment all in one place like you can get on a WM phone or via a plug-in on palm phones.

The way it is now, this is how it works for me:

10:41 PM - phone buzzes. I am in a meeting, and talking.
10:45 PM - phone buzzes again
10:52 PM - someone else is talking, I can take a moment to look at my phone.
10:52 PM - I press home.
10:52 PM - I swipe my finger on the screen.
10:52 PM - I press home again, because I'm in the middle of my weather screen.
10:52 PM - I see a little red circle with the number 14 on it on email. Hmmm. What did the number say before the meeting? Did I get an email? Is it important? Hmm.
10:52 PM - I see a little red circle with the number 4 on it on SMS. Hmmm. What did the number say before the meeting? DId I receive an SMS?
10:53 PM - I start launching programs to see whether I got anything new, and what the new thing was, and whether it was important.

This is not exactly the apex of friendly user-interface design. On many phones I can press one button and see my five most recent emails, upcoming appointments, and missed alerts in one place. If I click on an email summary, it launches the email program so i can read it. I'm not forced to click the screen over and over to get to a place where I can even figure out what exactly I missed.

 

[archie]

Archie dude. Pay attention.

I DO have to turn the screen on, because unless I grab my phone out of my pocket and look at it right away, it has already turned off.

Second, the "summary" screen only displays little numbers in red circles. It doesn't, for example, show me the subject line of an email, the first line of an SMS, the title of an appointment all in one place like you can get on a WM phone or via a plug-in on palm phones.

The way it is now, this is how it works for me:

10:41 PM - phone buzzes. I am in a meeting, and talking.
10:45 PM - phone buzzes again
10:52 PM - someone else is talking, I can take a moment to look at my phone.
10:52 PM - I press home.
10:52 PM - I swipe my finger on the screen.
10:52 PM - I press home again, because I'm in the middle of my weather screen.
10:52 PM - I see a little red circle with the number 14 on it on email. Hmmm. What did the number say before the meeting? Did I get an email? Is it important? Hmm.
10:52 PM - I see a little red circle with the number 4 on it on SMS. Hmmm. What did the number say before the meeting? DId I receive an SMS?
10:53 PM - I start launching programs to see whether I got anything new, and what the new thing was, and whether it was important.

This is not exactly the apex of friendly user-interface design. On many phones I can press one button and see my five most recent emails, upcoming appointments, and missed alerts in one place. If I click on an email summary, it launches the email program so i can read it. I'm not forced to click the screen over and over to get to a place where I can even figure out what exactly I missed.

Thanks for explaining. I didn't realize you were wanting email summaries and appointment viewings AND SMS viewing all on the same page. I suppose that would be nice for some people.

Perhaps you should stay with the Windows Mobile phone.

 

[oalvarez]

CMaier, not sure if this would be of help....you could turn the phone lock to off and forego having to "swipe" to minimize one less icon push. no, it won't replace a blinking LED but it might allow you to quickly check your home screen in a meeting. i suppose it's only an icon push to either mail or phone to see your new msgs or missed phone calls. not trying to sway you, just trying to offer some help.

regards

 

[Fry-man22]

Thanks for explaining. I didn't realize you were wanting email summaries and appointment viewings AND SMS viewing all on the same page. I suppose that would be nice for some people.

Perhaps you should stay with the Windows Mobile phone.

To be completely accurate with the rest of their posts, the individual you quoted can apparently discern all this from an LED, as this as what they were lamenting the lack of.

While I admit the LED my have been a convieniance if you wanted an app running to control it and notify you with it, but not to the extent it would change the outcome of the example of the iPhone example scenario above. Given the same steps with the LED you would still need to fire up the screen on any other device.

You can check every app in 10-15 seconds anway...

 

[bcaslis#IM]

I'm not sure if you were trying to be helpful or sarcastic with that reply. I don't agree with lots of the requests for features, but there are certainly places where improvements could be made.

Thanks for explaining. I didn't realize you were wanting email summaries and appointment viewings AND SMS viewing all on the same page. I suppose that would be nice for some people.

Perhaps you should stay with the Windows Mobile phone.

 

[cmaier]

My previous phone was palm, not windows mobile, fwiw.

And I'm not dissing on iphone. Just bringing up places where improvements could be made.

 

[Kupe#WP]

And I'm not dissing on iphone. Just bringing up places where improvements could be made.

You miss archie's most important point - NOTHING can be done to make the iPhone better. Ironic how he even seems to have trouble getting along with his fellow aficionados.

 

[Playberry1010]

Missing sync does allow you to view multiple categories in a calendar and even to see which event goes to which category. But you still assign a default calendar that any new event on the device gets put into when you sync. Happens on both Palm and Window Mobile versions. Even the iSync conduit Apple supplied for Palm Desktop did this. That what makes me think it's some sort of sync services issue. It would be really good if they fixed this, but it's not too bad to deal with. I just know that when I open iCal to look at any items in my "iPhone" calendar and reassign them.

Thanks for the clarification. Guess if I had gotten Missing Sync, I would have found that out! I used the iSync conduit on my Treo synchronizations. Right now I just have a default unfiled category I am sending my iPhone calendar items to. LOL, good idea to simply rename it to "iPhone". I agree it's not to bad to deal with, as I had been doing so all the time anyway.

 

[Certs]

You miss archie's most important point - NOTHING can be done to make the iPhone better. Ironic how he even seems to have trouble getting along with his fellow aficionados.

Seriously...

If someone states a flaw, its a god-damn flaw, no argument needed. The email alert is GARBAGE, absolute trash, the vibrate is hardly felt when in a pouch on my waist sometimes, it doesn't repeat, AND I CAN'T CHANGE IT!

It has become second nature for me to turn the iphone on intermittently to check if I have new email/sms.

But that doesn't bother me, actually. If I could set a normal (or better yet, custom. WOW that would be nice) ringtone for email/sms it would suffice. But when apple screws you, they stick it in all the way....

 

[braj]

I've used Agendus (paid for versions 6, 7, and 8), I much prefer iCal on the iPhone - even with the restriction of not having a to-do list (damnit Apple, give me to-dos).

Agendus is on a completely different level as far as functionality, you can't even compare the calendar in the iPhone at all, it just isn't aimed at doing the same things. My comment about stability was with Agendus BTW, not iPhone. I both love and hate Agendus because its features are so rich but Iambic has got issues with releasing half-baked apps.

If you prefer iCal you probably don't have much to keep track of and wouldn't need Agendus anyway. Todos at the very least are a necessity for me.