New to Apple - Extremely disappointed

jhg

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I have never owned an Apple product, but bought an iPhone to replace a
dead Palm device. I find that while it's flashy and cool, and some
things work very well, the two basic functions for which I used the
Palm are both inferior on the iPhone.

The Calendar app cannot handle n'th week scheduling (i.e. 4th
Tuesday), so it's useless to me since many of my calendar entries are
of that type. Apparently you can set these up in iCal, so the
functionality is there, it's just not accessible on the phone itself.
There's no iCal for the PC so those of us with PCs are just out of
luck.

There are many 3rd party calendar apps that do support this, but NONE
of them can ring the iPhone's alarm since Apple provides no background
task support (as a software developer I can undersand that, maybe).
What leaves me mystified is the lack of an underlying alarm service
API with which an app could schedule an event to have the OS ring the
alarm.

Supposedly push functionality is available now, but what if I'm out of
range of a cell tower or WiFi? I just want the PDA to ring an alarm
based on its internal clock, but this will require a chain of events
starting at a server somewhere. This is overcomplicating things for
no reason.

The other big use for my Palm was secure password storage with a
companion PC desktop app and synchronization to multiple PCs. Again,
there are lots of "password vaults" available, but only a few have the
companion desktop app. Of those, none provide a lossless import/export
capability. Either the import discards categories or custom field
names, or the export is incomplete or not in a structured format (i.e.
XML, CSV) that could be imported into a different app in the future.

Getting my 600+ records into the iPhone is going to require hours of
recategorizing and correcting, and I do not relish having to do that
yet again the next time I change platform or password app.

I guess my expectations were too high, based on all the hype.

When I posted this on the Apple forums I got this response:

Your post was removed from Apple Discussions as it contained feedback or feature requests. These areas are intended to address technical issues about Apple products. Although your feedback is appreciated, unfortunately these forums are not designed for it and your thoughts/concerns will not get the attention they deserve.

Yeah, right. Shades of George Orwell....
 

ctt1wbw

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Hype? Over one million iPhone 3GS units the first weekend. 50,000 Palm Pre's. It's not hype. You just gotta know how to use the equipment.

You can synch an iPhone with Windows and use Outlook. You can do all this other stuff with Google Synch. Google is your friend.
 

Allyson Kazmucha

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Hype? Over one million iPhone 3GS units the first weekend. 50,000 Palm Pre's. It's not hype. You just gotta know how to use the equipment.

You can synch an iPhone with Windows and use Outlook. You can do all this other stuff with Google Synch. Google is your friend.


I'm going to have to agree here.

Pretty much everything you mentioned can be done, seems like you just didn't want to take the time to actually figure out HOW to do it. google offers all those services, as does windows with outlook.
 

ctt1wbw

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Plus, using MobileMe, you get synching capabilities, plus online storage. I synch my iPhone with my Macbook and my Dell laptop using MobileMe. So all the contacts and calenders and bookmarks in Safari are up to date.

On top of that, I have my business calender set up using Google Calender. I have that synched between my iPhone, my Macbook AND my Dell laptop. Any changes made on any of those three for anything at anytime get updated among the other two instantly. And it is instant.

Just read directions and use Google. You can also use Bing. It's amazing what you can google using Bing. Bing has Google Maps and everything. :D
 

jhg

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My, sensitive bunch here.

If you'd read my original post without getting defensive you'd see that the iPhone makes my two basic tasks more complex, not less. Sure, the iPhone is a wonderful tool for a lot of things, but requiring the use of Google Calendar just to enter an event for the 4th Tuesday of every month is not better.

I think I'm entitled to be disappointed. Palm got the calendar function right 15 years ago, why didn't Apple?
 

rustyjar79

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Well one thing I think we all can agree on here is, we all have "our" reasons for having the iPhone, while I have the iPhone to eliminate the need for multiple devices, and the fact that email looks much better on the iPhone, some people give it a shot because of all the buzz.

either way, everyone knows exactly what device they are looking for, they just don't know until they find it (I myself went back and forth between the iPhone and a Blackberry a few times, and I always end up back in the forgiving arms of an iPhone :D)
 

thinkTwice

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Which Palm did you have?

Why not get another Palm? If it's not too late, then I'd go get the Palm. I do agree that it does suck that you can't put an event for every nth week or whatever.

Hope you get things sorted out...
 

Jellotime91

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My, sensitive bunch here.

If you'd read my original post without getting defensive you'd see that the iPhone makes my two basic tasks more complex, not less. Sure, the iPhone is a wonderful tool for a lot of things, but requiring the use of Google Calendar just to enter an event for the 4th Tuesday of every month is not better.

I think I'm entitled to be disappointed. Palm got the calendar function right 15 years ago, why didn't Apple?

I agree some people seem a little defensive over this.
I think what they're trying to say though is that it IS possible and it's not like there is no way to do it. :)
 

traylorc

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My, sensitive bunch here.

Being sensitive goes both ways. IMHO the shortcomings you pointed out wouldn't lead me to post "I'm so disappointed in Apple thread". Additionally, the replies here were mildly sarcastic at best. It's not like you are being viciously attacked.

And hey...at least your iphone is working. Can't say the same thing about your Pre. ;)

(The proceeding post was rated "non-defensive" by the Iphoneblog Association of America).
 
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minimo3

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I too used to have a PalmOS device. I love my iPhone but I have to admit that it's PIM functionality is very basic. The calendar is no where as functional as PalmOS or WM. Not to mention that it takes multiple clicks to enter any data. Contacts is very basic as well. Tasks are non existent. Memos doesn't sync. No categories either. I've learned to live it. Mainly by regressing to paper and pencil.
 

OmariJames

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Supposedly push functionality is available now, but what if I'm out of
range of a cell tower or WiFi? I just want the PDA to ring an alarm
based on its internal clock, but this will require a chain of events
starting at a server somewhere. This is overcomplicating things for
no reason.

PNS works with applications that use Data. I understand that there isn't an API for
none-PNS apps to make their own alerts though. Just had to clear that up.
 

Alli

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I absolutely understand the OP's complaints. While I'm loving miPhone, the basic calendaring pretty much sucks. I have yet to get a calendar alert for anything. Google notification is hit or miss, and if you're out of cell service, or if your phone is off, that shouldn't make your phone's calendar obsolete.

Legitimate complaint, with absolutely no solution.

The two first people who responded to the thread (I forget who now) said there were work arounds if you were willing to look for them. So assuming we have, and haven't found any - what do you do if you have an appointment at 4:00 next Tuesday, but you're staying at one of those massive places where the cell service cuts out in most of the meeting rooms, and you have another meeting prior to the 4:00 that overlaps...but you need the calendar to remind you so you can leave the first meeting early. What is your (obviously non Google) workaround?
 

Allyson Kazmucha

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I absolutely understand the OP's complaints. While I'm loving miPhone, the basic calendaring pretty much sucks. I have yet to get a calendar alert for anything. Google notification is hit or miss, and if you're out of cell service, or if your phone is off, that shouldn't make your phone's calendar obsolete.

Legitimate complaint, with absolutely no solution.

The two first people who responded to the thread (I forget who now) said there were work arounds if you were willing to look for them. So assuming we have, and haven't found any - what do you do if you have an appointment at 4:00 next Tuesday, but you're staying at one of those massive places where the cell service cuts out in most of the meeting rooms, and you have another meeting prior to the 4:00 that overlaps...but you need the calendar to remind you so you can leave the first meeting early. What is your (obviously non Google) workaround?

Well I guess the best course of action there is to not overlap meetings :p

I was one of the first two who commented I believe, I simply meant there were ways to set events in a manner the OP wanted, several ways actually, googling will give you several solutions.

As far as your scenario, you can do that directly from iCal, create an event and set a notification to pop up or vibrate for a certain time. You can overlap events on iCal straight from the phone and set notifications, I do it all the time. You don't need cell service for iCal to alert you :)
 

touchyphone

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I use Yahoo! and calDAV to link to my iPhone. Wokrs good for me, I guess I am just throwing it out there. And I do set alerts via the calndar and hey always work. !
 

bubbatex

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First - anytime you change platforms, there are considerations and concessions you have to make/consider. I made concessions (each time) when I moved from a Treo to WM to BB back to WM to a Pre and now to an iPhone. No one device does everything I want in one package, but I'll live with an iPhone until something else come along.

Second - I must be missing something simple, but I have Exchange and I get calendar notifications as I should. Maybe everyone should ditch MoblieMe and Google and get Exchange!

Is the iPhone perfect? No. I would really like re-occurring notifications/reminders for email and calls. I would like one page with all of my email inboxes (bypassing the folder tree for each email account). And I would like separate email signatures for each email account. But other than that, I am happy.
 

Allyson Kazmucha

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First - anytime you change platforms, there are considerations and concessions you have to make/consider. I made concessions (each time) when I moved from a Treo to WM to BB back to WM to a Pre and now to an iPhone. No one device does everything I want in one package, but I'll live with an iPhone until something else come along.

Second - I must be missing something simple, but I have Exchange and I get calendar notifications as I should. Maybe everyone should ditch MoblieMe and Google and get Exchange!

Is the iPhone perfect? No. I would really like re-occurring notifications/reminders for email and calls. I would like one page with all of my email inboxes (bypassing the folder tree for each email account). And I would like separate email signatures for each email account. But other than that, I am happy.

You can set alerts with MobileMe easily. I don't think the issue was mobileme, I think it's actually the best possible e-mail/all in one solution on the iPhone if you're willing to pay the yearly subscription.

IMO, it's more than worth it. I got mine for 69 bucks when I bought my iphone 3GS which really isn't bad.
 

ardoreal

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Too bad this guy didn't get a Mac, because iCal supports exactly what he's looking for, and it imports right to the iPhone.

Actually, Google Calendar does the same thing too...... HMMMM......

That's like saying my new hotrod sucks because it doesn't sport a carburetor and has this crappy fuel injector system....
 

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