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![[F]](/Images/i7/site.gif) TidBITS  TidBITS TidBITS Talk
iPhone Features & Software![[dave28c]](/webx/?30@@1) dave28c (apparently) - 01:13pm Jul 28, 2007 PSTvia email - Dave ClarkWhat's the best site for getting an unbiased look at all the features
-- particularly 3d party -- on the iPhone. I'm looking at what
software and programs will replace programs I now have on my Verizon
Treo 650, thus:
Docs to Go -- Read (and write, maybe) Word, Excel, PDFs and more.
Using the iPhone where there's no Hotspot Internet connection, how
easy will it be to download and upload documents to/from and then
synch to the laptop? I've done this with the Treo, sorta.
Datebk, by Pimlico Software. I know about iCal, and regularly synch
to it on my Macs.
Contacts will become Address Book and synch to my Macs.
Vehicle Log -- I keep track of gas and service on three vehicles.
What's going to replace this?
Runners Log -- I keep track of my daily bicycle rides, almost 2000
miles this year, 3200 total last year (Not bad for an old fart).
Diet & Exercise Assistant -- Watch what I eat.
Password Wallet 4.0.1. -- What alternative for this nifty program?
Will I wind up using Password Keychain on the Macs?
Will my RSS program now be coordinated with Safari on the iPhone?
Planetarium. Get moonrise and sunrise (and much more) for anywhere
on the planet. This is great and fun for planning my photography trips.
What games are available?
Is there any rumor that iPhone will go to 15 or 20 or more G of
memory, to make it truly an iPod replacement as well as a Smartphone?
I've looked at most of the reviews online and off, but again I'm
looking for a real side-by-side comparison of just what will the
iPhone do or NOT do compared to my Treo.
Thanks.
Dave Clark
tom140 (apparently)
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Jul 30, 2007 3:13 am
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
On Jul 28, 2007, at 4:13 PM, David Clark wrote:
> I've looked at most of the reviews online and off, but again I'm
> looking for a real side-by-side comparison of just what will the
> iPhone do or NOT do compared to my Treo.
I don't think I've seen many rumors about memory expansion, and my
guess is that this would be kind of low on the list considering all
the other things most people think the iPhone needs added right away.
In case it's of use, here is a list I made of some the stuff
mentioned in the Pogue reviews which the iPhone does not do yet:
voice dialing
download apps
java
flash
video camera
mms
games
lyrics
video output
disk mode
download ringtones
wireless modem
wireless sync
ichat
rss
streaming audio/video
to do's
I think I've seen hacks for disk mode and ringtones. "Apps" are web-
based only. One list is here:
http://iphonewidgetlist.com/
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Tomoharu Nishino (apparently)
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Jul 30, 2007 3:13 am
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
On Jul 28, 2007, at 4:13 PM, David Clark wrote:
> What's the best site for getting an unbiased look at all the features
> -- particularly 3d party -- on the iPhone.
The best thing you could do is to go to the various iPhone portal
sites that are popping up and simply try out the various apps for
yourself---since all third party apps are just AJAX apps, they should
all work on your desktop web browser, and will give you a sense of
what functionality is out there.
A few to get you started:
www.appleopolis.com
mojits.com
appmarks.com
mockdock.com
www.getleaflets.com
etc. etc. etc.
> Docs to Go -- Read (and write, maybe) Word, Excel, PDFs and more.
> Using the iPhone where there's no Hotspot Internet connection, how
> easy will it be to download and upload documents to/from and then
> synch to the laptop? I've done this with the Treo, sorta.
The iPhone displays PDFs and Word documents very cleanly (and zooms
nicely). (I suspect the same for Excel spreadsheets, but I haven't
tried it). The only way to get documents on to the iPhone, however,
seems to be to email them to yourself. No writing of documents on
the iPhone, though you could use something like Zoho. But I doubt
the onscreen keyboard would be practical for anything beyond a short
email.
mini.zoho.com
> Datebk, by Pimlico Software. I know about iCal, and regularly synch
> to it on my Macs.
The built-in calendar software is usable, syncs seamlessly with iCal
but pretty basic. IMHO, the two biggest limitations are no category
support, and no ability to link contacts to events.
Also, no to do list support.
> Contacts will become Address Book and synch to my Macs.
Again, contacts syncs perfectly with Address Book, but is pretty
basic. Two major limitations: no category support, and no search.
One useful tip. Since the built in notepad doesn't sync with
anything on the Mac, people have suggested creating dummy contacts
(perhaps all beginning with a special character) and using the notes
field to have syncing notes.
> Vehicle Log -- I keep track of gas and service on three vehicles.
> What's going to replace this?
I believe there is a milage log (iphonemiles.com), but no maintenance
log yet.
> Password Wallet 4.0.1. -- What alternative for this nifty program?
> Will I wind up using Password Keychain on the Macs?
IMHO, this is the one key area where Apple's AJAX only approach is
going to be completely inadequate. Who is going to trust a website
with all their sensitive passwords? So if such an app is to
materialize, it's going to have to come from Apple. And when it
does, syncing with the Keychain would be logical, but no such app
exists as of yet.
> Will my RSS program now be coordinated with Safari on the iPhone?
If you use Newsgator to sync your various RSS clients, the recently
released iPhone version works quite well.
> Planetarium. Get moonrise and sunrise (and much more) for anywhere
> on the planet. This is great and fun for planning my photography
> trips.
None specifically for the iPhone. But I suspect that since the
Safari on the iPhone is pretty full function websites like
wikisky.org work (though very slowly).
> What games are available?
Appleopolis lists 62. Pretty much what you would expect---chess,
tetris clones, othello clones, solitaire, sudoku, etc.
> Is there any rumor that iPhone will go to 15 or 20 or more G of
> memory, to make it truly an iPod replacement as well as a Smartphone?
There are always rumors like that about Apple products, but I
wouldn't hold my breath. Using HDs would draw too much power, and
15-20Gs of solid state would be prohibitively expensive. Though I
find the 8GB capacity pretty useable---it's enough to carry a handful
of pod casts, a few TV episodes, and a 20 or so albums at decent
quality. You just have to intervene a little bit more in the sync
process.
> I've looked at most of the reviews online and off, but again I'm
> looking for a real side-by-side comparison of just what will the
> iPhone do or NOT do compared to my Treo.
If you are looking to fully replace the functionality of the Treo,
you will probably have to wait a while. A startling number of apps
have materialized in the three weeks the iPhone has been around, but
compared to the amount of software that has been developed for the
Palm over its 13+ years in existence, there is no contest.
And if you are unhappy with the built-in apps, there will never be
third party solutions to rectify those problems (in the way Datebk or
Agendus extended the fairly limited Palm apps). And there are
applications (like password storage) for which AJAX really isn't a
good solution.
Hope this helps.
Tomoharu
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jthompson (apparently)
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Jul 30, 2007 3:13 am
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
On Jul 28, 2007, dave28c wrote: What's the best site for getting an unbiased look at all the features -- particularly 3d party -- on the iPhone?
Well, the second part of your question is quite simple: there are NO 3rd party features on the iPhone, as the installation of such software is not permitted. What IS permitted is the use of "Web 2.0" applets, but those will run from any browser, not just iPhone.
Running through your particular concerns (from the perspective of someone who has switched from a Palm to iPhone):
Docs-to-Go: That functionality just isn't there, at least not yet. While you can view Word and PDF, and somewhat Excel, you CANNOT edit them, so it really ends up being a way to peek at an attachment in e-mail to be able to write a quick response. One particularly annoying issue is that the Mail program does NOT flip into landscape mode, so neither can any attached documents. Since Safari CAN do that, it's much more usable reading PDFs.
DateBk by Pimlico: I also used to use DateBk, and the increasing disconnect between its model and iCal (even with the use of the excellent "Missing Sync for Palm" package) was a large part of my move to iPhone. In the end, the switch has ended up being a mixed bag, with an ENORMOUS improvement as far as the "calendar" side of iCal goes tempered by the mind-boggling fact that iPhone doesn't have ANY connection to the "to-do" side of iCal. In terms of the specific improvements on the calendar side, I have been getting more and more reliant on the ability to program multiple reminders ranging from weeks to minutes before an event, and had found it frustrating that only ONE of those would cross over into DateBk. While it is only possible to EDIT two of the alarms on an event once it crosses over to iPhone, they ALL trigger at the appropriate time. One last improvement is that iCal and iPhone Calendar both handle repeats in the same manner, avoiding some DB corruption issues in the cross-talk between DateBk and iCal.
Contacts: As you mentioned, this transition is absolutely seamless; specifically, you DON'T have the disconnect caused by having multiple copies of the same contact placed into multiple groups, you just have that contact identified with multiple groups.
Logging: For this, you'll need to look for something on the web, since there really isn't any built-in program that would work, as the "Notes" program does not, as of yet, export out to anything off of your iPhone.
Password Wallet 4.0.1: I don't use that one, but I just saw an announcement from the folks at 1Passwd that they're working on "my1Passwd" which looks like a web-based solution to get this done. As it stands, there is NO keychain functionality on iPhone, other than to connect to secure WiFi. I was thinking about that the other day, and I think that Apple is unlikely to ever add that functionality for very good security reasons: if you use your keychain the way I do, you probably leave it unlocked most of the time while setting your Mac to require your ID/password to wake from the screen saver. So long as the keychain password itself is secure, the worst that can happen if I don't get the screen locked before someone comes by to use my computer is that they can get to the same things on the web I can. Unless they can isolate the machine on some pseudo-net to spoof the sites I SEND the passwords to (and tell my Mac to ignore the fact that the certificates are invalid) they will have no way to GET the actual passwords out of the keychain without the keychain password. However, if you view iPhone as more of a cellphone than a computer, you'll see that most people are unlikely to want the "screen lock" feature on, and that it is MUCH more likely that the device could be stolen and brought to someplace with the cracker's own personal WiFi pseudo-net to spoof various financial websites, etc. I guess if the device locked down the keychain every time the screen locked, that could be avoided, but then you've essentially lobotomized the utility of the keychain. Also, I suspect that the computing power needed for the strong cryptography might be another issue. We'll have to wait and see, but the need to re-enter frequently used authentications on my university servers is getting a bit annoying.
RSS: Sorry, I've never really used RSS.
Planetarium/games: If you can find them on the web iPhone can do them, but they're not pre-installed.
Larger memory: I wouldn't be surprised if a future revision to iPhone hit 16 Gb, and eventually 32 Gb, but I think it will always need to be flash RAM based. And speaking of future revisions, while I am very happy that I got my iPhone when I did, I think that those who are doing well with their current smartphone may do well to hold out until the rumored "wireless 3G" version is available next year. I did not go into my iPhone purchase with any intention of having cell-based wireless data access, but the convenience it provides is almost immediately addictive. And, as David Pogue warned us even before the thing was released, the difference in performance between true WiFi and the EDGE cell data network is absolute torture.
Hope that helps...
J
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John C. Welch (apparently)
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Jul 30, 2007 9:07 am
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
On 7/30/07 05:13 AM, "Tom Gewecke" <tom  bluesky.org> wrote:
> In case it's of use, here is a list I made of some the stuff
> mentioned in the Pogue reviews which the iPhone does not do yet:
>
> voice dialing
> download apps
> java
> flash
> video camera
> mms
> games
That's not really correct, as it can do web-based games, just not flash,
java, or downloadable.
> lyrics
> video output
> disk mode
> download ringtones
> wireless modem
> wireless sync
> ichat
There are at least three solutions for iChat that I know of on the iPhone.
It doesn't *ship* with an iChat client, but it can indeed DO chat.
> rss
Incorrect. The built - in safari does in fact do RSS.
> streaming audio/video
You really need to be more specific here. "Streaming" is a bag of cats.
> to do's
Also note that the iPhone does *precisely* what it was promised to do. That
I think is the problem most have with it. It does what was promised it would
do and nothing more.
--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelch bynkii.com
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Lewis Butler (apparently)
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Jul 30, 2007 9:07 am
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
On 30-Jul-2007, at 04:13, Tom Gewecke wrote:
> In case it's of use, here is a list I made of some the stuff
> mentioned in the Pogue reviews which the iPhone does not do yet:
>
> download apps
I think that's going to be a while.
> java
> flash
Doubt either of these is coming anytime soon, if ever.
> video camera
Maybe.
> mms
Doubt it very much. It has real email, why get substandard email
like MMS?
> ichat
this does seem a big oversight, doesn't it?
I played with one again in the Apple store and I have to say, the
interface is brilliant. I loaded up some web pages zoomed in and out,
cruised through the list of songs installed, and watched a YouTube
video. Everything just worked seamlessly. It really made other phones
look likes bricks.
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ShawnKing (apparently)
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Jul 30, 2007 9:07 am
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
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John Massengale (apparently)
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Jul 30, 2007 3:00 pm
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
>I played with one again in the Apple store and I have to say, the
>interface is brilliant. I loaded up some web pages zoomed in and out,
>cruised through the list of songs installed, and watched a YouTube
>video. Everything just worked seamlessly. It really made other phones
>look likes bricks.
It's certainly the best phone I've ever had. The touch screen is brilliant. All laptops need them. I gather thought that a screen with the quality of the iPhone at laptop size is very expensive. Let's hope the iPhone helps to bring down the price.
John
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Dan Frakes (apparently)
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Jul 30, 2007 3:00 pm
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
On 7/30/2007 9:07 AM, "Google Kreme" wrote:
>> mms
>
> Doubt it very much. It has real email, why get substandard email
> like MMS?
MMS isn't "substandard email." Essentially SMS with multimedia attachments,
MMS is a different technology altogether and serves a very different purpose
than email: namely, sending multimedia content between mobile devices.
Many phones don't support email. Even fewer support email attachments. If
you want to send a photo taken with your camera's phone to another phone,
for example, MMS is the way to do it -- or it would be, if the iPhone
currently supported MMS ;-)
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Steve McCabe (apparently)
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Jul 30, 2007 3:00 pm
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
>> ichat
>
> this does seem a big oversight, doesn't it?
Ermm..yes and no. Given that Apple have hyped up the video aspect of iChat
quite extensively, and given the placement of the camera on the phone, I
don't know how they can reproduce iChat on the iPhone without going back
several steps...
Cheers
Steve
This message not sent from my iPhone
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michelle@pyrusmalus.com (apparently)
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Jul 31, 2007 2:28 am
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Re: iPhone Features & Software
On 30 Jul 2007, at 23:00, Dan Frakes wrote: On 7/30/2007 9:07 AM, "Google Kreme" wrote: mms
Doubt it very much. It has real email, why get substandard email like MMS?
MMS isn't "substandard email." Essentially SMS with multimedia attachments, MMS is a different technology altogether and serves a very different purpose than email: namely, sending multimedia content between mobile devices.
Many phones don't support email. Even fewer support email attachments. If you want to send a photo taken with your camera's phone to another phone, for example, MMS is the way to do it -- or it would be, if the iPhone currently supported MMS ;-)
My Sony Ericsson does both MMS and Email and multimedia attachments.
My decision on which method to use to send a picture is made on price.
My service provider - Vodafone in UK - charges me 35pence per MMS but Emails with attachments are charged as part of my mobile internet package so not costed separately so generally using this method is much more cost effective. I know a number of friends who do this too.
I send quite a few of picture messages of my son to grandparents and husband when we are out and about and as long as they end up on their phone or email inbox they dont mind how I am sending them.
Michelle
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TidBITS TidBITS TidBITS Talk iPhone Features & Software
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