Any Windows PC users going back to their old non-iPhone?

[gadgetluva]

I've already given up on the iPhone - too difficult to keep my tasks synced across devices, terrible phone experience, calendar is too simple, and the OS is not as efficient as a WM Treo (calling people, launching programs, search for emails are all multiple times faster on something like the Treo Pro). The iPhone is great for multimedia and webbrowsing (when Safari doesn't crash constantly), but terrible at efficiency, as a phone, and as a PDA (PIM) device. Putting it up for sale soon.

 

[ExBBUser]

I've already given up on the iPhone - too difficult to keep my tasks synced across devices, terrible phone experience, calendar is too simple, and the OS is not as efficient as a WM Treo (calling people, launching programs, search for emails are all multiple times faster on something like the Treo Pro). The iPhone is great for multimedia and webbrowsing (when Safari doesn't crash constantly), but terrible at efficiency, as a phone, and as a PDA (PIM) device. Putting it up for sale soon.

who are you kidding? terrible phone experience? the lowest call volume of any phone i ever owned was a treo 650. pathetic. OS is not as efficient as WM? Sure if you like reseting your device constantly on a old boring OS. One of the reasons I left RIM. Launching programs? how hard is to tap a a single button on the iphones screen compared to going into more than a few menus to launch a app? anyways next...

 

[Rene Ritchie]

Wow, some great responses!

For me, the bottom line is that I see Apple innovating and constantly pushing out new, improved software.

Are there problems? Heck yeah. But with my previous WinMo and Palm OS phones, there were problems with little to no fixes, especially speedy ones.

Palm OS 2.0 Nova and WinMo 7 won't even be previews until NEXT YEAR(!), fully 2.5 years after Steve Jobs pulled the iPhone from his pocket (and if he hadn't done that, I expect we wouldn't be seeing much if anything in the way of innovation -- cloning though it may be -- from the other players).

The iPhone is brilliant in some ways, tragic in others, but I can see a road ahead, and that's worth a lot to me at this point after nothing but wastelands before...

 

[rijc99]

who are you kidding? terrible phone experience? the lowest call volume of any phone i ever owned was a treo 650. pathetic. OS is not as efficient as WM? Sure if you like reseting your device constantly on a old boring OS. One of the reasons I left RIM. Launching programs? how hard is to tap a a single button on the iphones screen compared to going into more than a few menus to launch a app? anyways next...

I don't why people keep harping on WM needing resets constantly. 6.0 and especially 6.1 solved most of that. Sure, if you install alot of apps you may need the occasional soft reset but if you leave the OS in it's factory state, it's pretty stable.

I'm on a 3G and I recall not too long ago we were all having crashing problems. Even at this moment alot of apps state if their program crashes do a soft reset. Not to mention the constant safari crashes and occasional forced reboot. Having used Palm, WM and now Apple I feel they are all useable OSs. And at the same time do better with maintenance soft resets. The only difference is Apple will soft reset itself so you don't feel like you are doing them. If you've seen the Apple logo, you've had a soft reset.

 

[Jeremy]

I don't why people keep harping on WM needing resets constantly. 6.0 and especially 6.1 solved most of that. Sure, if you install alot of apps you may need the occasional soft reset but if you leave the OS in it's factory state, it's pretty stable.

I'm on a 3G and I recall not too long ago we were all having crashing problems. Even at this moment alot of apps state if their program crashes do a soft reset. Not to mention the constant safari crashes and occasional forced reboot. Having used Palm, WM and now Apple I feel they are all useable OSs. And at the same time do better with maintenance soft resets. The only difference is Apple will soft reset itself so you don't feel like you are doing them. If you've seen the Apple logo, you've had a soft reset.

Honestly out of all of those devices I've had the least issues with the iPhone crashing or locking up. I honestly had the most issues with the Palm OS devices.

 

[mcdan333#AC]

I have to agree with Bad Ash here. Came from a Treo650. It did some things better than the iPhone, some not as good, but it crashed alot. Since 2.1, my iPhone has been very solid.

 

[cardfan]

The centro i had hardly crashed at all. The iphone has been the worst phone i've had in terms of crashing. More laggy as well. In terms of volume and calls, the iphone really is below average. The centro trumps again (easily) in this department.

It's one thing to love the iphone for what it can do, but be fair about it. I've no experience with the gsm palms and left the cdma 600 series long behind but the centro was and still is a pretty solid phone. Not real fair to compare much older palm models with the newest iphone is it?

 

[Jeremy]

The centro i had hardly crashed at all. The iphone has been the worst phone i've had in terms of crashing. More laggy as well. In terms of volume and calls, the iphone really is below average. The centro trumps again (easily) in this department.

It's one thing to love the iphone for what it can do, but be fair about it. I've no experience with the gsm palms and left the cdma 600 series long behind but the centro was and still is a pretty solid phone. Not real fair to compare much older palm models with the newest iphone is it?

The Palm OS has not been changed in how many years? There have been no major improvements or enhancements made either... which is one of the reasons so many people have jumped the Palm ship. I know I bailed once they left me out to dry with the 700p. Moved to WM at that point.

 

[taroliw]

Are there problems? Heck yeah. But with my previous WinMo and Palm OS phones, there were problems with little to no fixes, especially speedy ones.

This is a key point for me. I'm happy to live with issues now so long as I have some hope that they will be addressed in a reasonable timeframe. Apple has already demonstrated their ability to push out releases for iPhone at least as fast as they do for Mac OS X. Other mobile vendors should take note, because to me this is a *huge* differentiator. I too have suffered the long wait for enhancements (Palm, in my case) only to be mostly disappointed with what actually got delivered when it finally did arrive. More frequent, smaller improvements is totally the way to go, IMHO.

 

[taroliw]

Not real fair to compare much older palm models with the newest iphone is it?

Well, considering that all the PalmOS devices (CDMA or GSM) have basically been running the same OS level (with subsequent minor tweaks) since the 650 I don't know that it isn't really that bad of a comparison. I've used both the 650 and the 680 on GSM and found that the 680 was much more stable -- more RAM was the significant factor here.

But in terms of user experience (some backgrounding but mostly single-mode application use) PalmOS and iPhone general *user experience* is quite similar. Where iPhone falters, in my opinion, is that the standard PIM applications provided have serious gaps. I hope that they will get a chance to spend some time closing those. Where PalmOS falters is that it has -- through a menagerie of idiotic decisions -- managed to keep itself on an Ice Age OS platform.

If anything, comparing a truly multi-tasked and fully background-capable WM or Android would be less ideal as comparisons with iPhone. But being that they all live in the Smartphone marketplace and intend to serve similar customer needs, it's inevitable that they will be compared. If Palm chooses to take even more time updating it's OS and not really innovating on the hardware front, that's not the marketplace's fault... let the comparisons fly.

 

[cardfan]

Yeah, i about left palm over the 755p that never got updated and when it did, we were already looking at other things. Even the update (after more than a year) bricked a number of phones.

Still, the bugs seemed to be more hardware related. The centro finally seemed to be palm's end of evolution device for its palm OS as i heard the hardware was redesigned totally. In fairness, it works great. It's a great form factor, comfortable to use, snappy, and didn't have some of the annoyances of prior treos.

This is a weird era. Many have already complained the palm OS is aging and doesn't fill their needs and i just shake my head. Now i'm only from a sprint point of view (no gsm) but the centro is only limited in that it can't multitask, can't offer gps, or wifi. I think it could link with a bluetooth gps and i'm pretty sure you can put software on it to enable stereo BT. In addition, i've not seen an app that can do what Call Rec can.

But..i wouldn't think multitasking is much of a demand for most users. The iphone isn't. Only Wm is and to be honest, it slows down if you really take advantage of it.

Wifi is another i would hardly use since the Centro was 3g ready from the start on sprint. GPS isn't either, but that's just a personal thing since i already have had Garmins from years ago.

So, yes, its the same palm OS, but yet it's still superior in a lot of ways to the most modern OS's. I tend to think its more about the looks. People got tired of looking at the same palm icons. Or the same hardware. IMO, palm could easily add cosmetic touches, call it an OS update, and people wouldn't harp on it as much. It's probably why Touch Launcher is the number one palm app right now. It provides a different look.

 

[taroliw]

... the centro is only limited in that it can't multitask, can't offer gps, or wifi. ...

So, yes, its the same palm OS, but yet it's still superior in a lot of ways to the most modern OS's. ...

Well, I tend to discount the cosmetic and minor ID changes, which is pretty much all I see that Palm has been doing lately, esp with PalmOS. My bigger issues with PalmOS are *exactly* multitasking and networking. When I can't have all my IM connections running along with my email because the network stack only allows 8 ports open in the whole OS at once? That's where it's age starts really showing. And here on the iPhone I hum along nicely with 10 IM sessions open at once, along with my email fetching periodically in the background (get with IMAP IDLE already Apple!), and web and phone use.

I know usage patterns vary widely... but for me the PalmOS was limiting me in ways I didn't even realize until I got onto a device that could do things I secretly wanted but learned to stop asking for. Yes, Palm has a tremendously efficient and usable UI -- best of class still -- but the OS must be able to keep up with changing needs. Palm totally missed that boat. WM was for them, I think, a meaculpa to the fact that if they didn't do /something/ they were going to miss out on the Enterprise big time (even if I don't tend to prefer WM myself).

All that said, I also admit iPhone has serious improvement needs... think foreclosed house you're picking up for a steal but needs some real investment before it's a truly great place to live. I do adore my iPhone, but the area of PIM is one that I am particularly hoping for significant improvement. This device can do so many great and marvelous things, but it has a little trouble doing the basics.