Sekarang aku telah memiliki sebuah Palm Tungsten E2. Aku beli second hand..sebab nak try guna dulu palm tersebut. Aku sebenarnya berminat dengan palm programming. Tetapi sampai sekarang belum tercapai hajat aku untuk membuat sebuah aplikasi untuk tungsten aku. Aku berminat untuk membuat aplikasi-aplikasi berikut:

1.  TV remote control (pernah guna trial version tetapi teringin untk membinanya sendiri)

2. Bluetooth internet connection (nak link tungsten dengan handset aku. )

Les nouvelles se suivent et confirme que Microsoft est de moins en moins dans le coup côté mobilité.

Palm qui abandonne la plate-forme Windows Mobile pour se consacrer à son Palm OS qui roule bien sur Palm Pré.

Sony Ericsson passe à Android de Google.

Motorola Droid roulera sur Android de Google.

Le iPhone plus populaire que jamais.

Blackberry consolide sa position avec le Storm 2.

Que quelqu’un réveille Microsoft et ça presse !!!

Editorul CSS vă permite să modificaţi stilul vizual al blog-ului. Aveţi posibilitatea să editaţi CSS dvs. şi examinaţi modificările. Seteaza-ti blogul sa fie diferit de celelalte.

editeaza css

Pentru ajutor referitor la CSS încearcă W3Schools, A List Apart, si resursele wordpress: CSS documentation and CSS Forum.

Pentru validarea CSS recomand:

• W3C Jigsaw
• HTML Help

Related link:

• Optimizare CSS Files

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Wap.youpark.com provides mobile users with thousands of popular mobile applications and games that support popular devices/platforms like Symbian, Java, Smartphone, Palm OS, Pocket PC and Blackberry.

Wap.youpark.com brings easy access to latest news, daily horoscopes and free/trial mobile applications and games anywhere, anytime, on a mobile device.

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Wap.youpark.com is absolutely free. It provides an enhanced user experience to the consumers by providing them "one click access" to hot news, daily horoscopes and latest mobile content.

With Youpark mobile, end users can easily discover, browse and download popular mobile applications and games from the rich portfolio of Youpark. It allows the end users to either download the free mobile applications and games directly on their devices through GPRS or to download it from the link sent on their emails. Youpark mobile is available on large amount of devices of Nokia Series 60, Series 40, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Pocket PC and Smartphone, Plam and Blackberry.

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“Opera Mini enables you to take your full Web experience to your phone.”
Opera Mini enables you to take your full Web experience to your phone. Fast: Faster mobile internet as data is compressed before being sent to your phone. Free: Opera Mini is free to download. It is the definitive mobile web browser.
compatible for Android, BlackBerry, Java, Palm OS, Windows Mobile

What’s new in Opera Mini 4.2

-Skins
Personalize Opera Mini by choosing a new colorful skin. We have reintroduced the popular skinning feature from Opera Mini 3.
-Video
We are working to make video content available on more phones through Opera Mini. If you have a new Sony Ericsson or Nokia phone, the chance is high that you can take Opera Mini for a spin on m.youtube.com.
-Performance
Opera Mini 4.2 can use our newly established server park in the US. This means significantly faster page downloads for our users in the Americas and Asia-Pacific region. Users in the rest of the world will also experience faster page downloads since we’ve reduced the load on our other servers.
-Sync Notes
The handy Notes functionality from the Opera Desktop Web browser just got more portable through Opera Link. All of your notes are available in Opera Mini directly from the Bookmarks menu

Popular features in Opera Mini

-Full Web in your palm
When visiting a Web page, Opera Mini displays the overview of the page and suggests where to begin your reading.
-Built for speed
Opera Mini is built for speed. Web pages are compressed by up to 90% of its orginal size for speed, saving your time & money.
-Sync bookmarks and Speed Dial
Opera Mini features Opera Link, which allows you to synchronize your bookmarks and Speed Dial with a computer running Opera 9.50 or other mobile device running Opera Mini.
-Save it for later
On phones with JSR-75, Opera Mini lets you save pages for offline viewing so you can quickly access and read your desired Web content, even when you’re on a plane, in the subway, or in other places where you can’t get network reception. Depending on your phone, you may need to choose a destination folder for storing pages for offline viewing
DOWNLOAD OPERAMINI 5.0
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Este foi o primeiro programa que instalei quando comprei um Tungsten E2 e que também está instalado em meu Treo 680. Encontra-se atualmente na versão 3.4 RC11 e roda somente em dispositivos com sistema operacional Palm OS.

Apesar de ter sido desenvolvido basicamente para a leitura da Bíblia Sagrada (que é o meu uso principal com ele), nada impede que outros livros possam ser lidos por meio dele.

No site do aplicativo encontram-se disponíveis diversas informações, dentre elas, o download do programa em diversos idiomas, ferramentas de conversão, bíblias em outros idiomas, recursos que auxiliam nos estudos bíblicos, manual do usuário e um fórum de discussões.

Os arquivos das bíblias que podem ser instalados no aplicativo têm a extensão .pdb. Apesar de esta extensão ser genérica para todos os arquivos do sistema Palm OS, cada arquivo .pdb só será lido pelo seu respectivo programa.

Mesmo o aplicativo não estando disponível para outros sistemas, existe um aplicativo que permite a leitura destas bíblias no sistema operacional Symbian, o SymbianBible.

E, se você for usuário do sistema Maemo, pode instalar o emulador do sistema Palm OS e nele instalar o Bible+ e as bíblias disponibilizadas para o Bible+.

Neste outro site, Palm Bible+, podemos encontrar muito mais informações a respeito do aplicativo, em português.

Sites:

• Palm Bible+ (oficial);
• Palm Bible+ (não oficial, em português);
• SymbiamBible;
• Garnet VM beta for Nokia Series.

لوگوی آندروید

چند وقتی است که به فکر خرید یک گوشی با سیتم عامل ویندوز موبایل بودم که قیمت بالای این گوشی ها همیشه من را از خرید این نوع تلفن های همراه منصرف کرده، جدیدا به فکر خرد یک گوشی جدید و نصب یک سیتم عامل جدید بر روی آن افتاده ام (در همین راستا یکسری توییت هم در سایت توییتر گذاشته ام که در کنارهمینوبلاگ هم قابل مشاهده است ) و به همین بهانه این مطلب را می نویسم.

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این مطلب زیر نظر مجوز GFDL منتشر می‌شود. و کلیه حقوق آن برای همگان آزاد است، بدین شرط که به کلیه شرایط موجود در مجوز GFDL ( که یک نسخه از متن انگلیسی مجوز GFDL در این محل و یک ترجمه غیر رسمی (فارسی) از متن مجوز GFDL که در مرداد ۱۳۸۳ توسط کاوه رنجبر تهیه شده است در این محل ) قرار دارد پایبند باشد.

GNU Logo

عنوان مطلب : سیستم عامل گوشی‌های موبایل

بخش ثانی : ندارد

تاریخ انتشار : 10/06/1388 مطابق با 01/09/2009

شماره نسخه : نسخه یک

نویسنده : ناصر حاجلو

ای-میل نویسنده : n.hajloo@gmail.com

Copyright (c) 2009 Nasser Hajloo.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;

with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.

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چند سال پیش یک دستگاه تلفن همراه صرفا وسیله ای جهت برقراری تماس های تلفنی افراد و نیز مدیریت Address book شخص بود. پس از مدتی به وسیله ای جهت بازی تبدیل شد و رفته رفته به جایی رسید که امروز به عنوان کامپیوتر جیبی، دوربین عکاسی و … نیز بکار برده می‌شود.

لوگوی سیمبیان

تلفن‌های همراه بسته به اینکه چه امکاناتی را در اختیار کاربر قرار می‌دهند قیمت‌ها و اشکال متفاوتی دارند. اما مهمترین چیزی که باعث تغییر شکل فیزیکی و نیز بالا یا پایین رفتن قیمت یک تلفن می‌شود، سیستم عامل آن است. همانطور که امروزه سیستم‌های عامل مختلفی برای کامپیوتر وجود دارد، سیستم‌های عامل مختلفی برای تفن همراه وجود دارد که برخی از آنها عبارتند از:

•    Windows Mobile
•    Mac OS X (tiger)
•    Symbian ( series 6 و UIQ )
•    Java
•    Linux ( maemo و … )
•    Palm OS
•    Android
•    بدون نام – مثل گوشی‌های چینی
•    بدون سیستم عامل
•    …

اما چیزی که در این میان واضح است نقشی است که هر کدام از این ها بازی کرده‌اند برای مثال سیستم عامل سیمبیان بیشتر هدف گذاریش برای جلب مخاطبان عمومی بوده و با کاربران خاص ( که بعضا حرفه‌ای هستند ) کاری نداشته البته یک بخشی از کمبودها را در سری UIQ رفع کرده ولی باز هم برای کاربران حرفه‌ای حرفی برای گفتن ندارد.

گوشی‌های جاوایی هم قشر کم درآمد را هدف گرفته و با ارائه خدماتی مثل organizer و بعضا قابلیت مطالعه فایهای Office سعی داشته بعضی از مخاطبین سیمبیان را به خودش جلب کند.

گوشی های لینوکسی برای حرفه‌ای ها(ی خاص) طراحی شده، آنها قادرند با گوشی هایشان اینترنت را و یا هر وسیله دیگری را بخوبی مدیریت کنند. قابلیت مدیریت فایلها، برنامه ها ، و مطالعه مستندات طیف وسیعی ازخواص را به خودش جلب کرده است.

سیستم عامل Mac OS X که نسخه ۱۰.۴ آن با کد نام tiger بر روی iphone نصب شده، با قابلیت های استثنایی و حیرت آورش همگان را برای استفاده وسوسه کرده، این وشی با قیمت بسیا مناسب ۲۰۰ و ۳۰۰ دلاری در قیاس با تمامی کامپیتهای جیبی بی رقیب است و در هر شرایطی شما را شگفت زده می کند. تها عیب این گوشی انحصاری بودن آن در دست شرکت Apple است و اینکه شما باید حتما از یک اپراتور خاص برای استفاده، استفاده کنید. که این دو امر باعث شده فروش این گوشی آن چنان که باید بالا نباشد. ( گرچه رشد بسیار حیرت انگیزی داشته اما در قیاس با سایر سیستم عامل ها هنوز جوان است )

لوگوی ویندوز موبایل

ویندوز موبایل که تقریبا جایگزین Palm OS شد ( البته نه رسمی ) برای کاربران چیزی را جز اندازه کوچک ایکون ها ( که آن هم در نسخه آینده – ۷ رفع شده ) کم نگذاشته و اگر از قیمت بالای این گوشی ها بگذریم چیزی نیست که شما را برای خرید یک گوشی ویندوز موبایلی وسوسه نکند. پیش از اینها دورین هایبی کیفیت این گوشی ها جلوی فروش بالای آنها را می گرفت امابا مرور زمان و جایگزینی دوربین های خوب بر روی این گوشی ها سهم بالای فروش این گوشی ها در بازار بیشترهم شد. معمولا افرادی که بطور خاص در جستجوی یک امکان خاص در گوشی موبایل هستند، این امکان را در گوشی های ویندوز موبایل پیدا می کنند. طیف بسیار گسترده برنامه های مختلف این سیستم عامل به اندازه ایست که تقریبا برای هر نیاز شما یک برنامه در ویندوز موبایل تهیه شده است.

سیستم عامل آندروید هم که این روزها با پشتیبانی گوکل سر و صدای زیادی به راه انداخته با جوایز حیرت انگیز و برنامه نویسان خبره ( گوگلی و غیر گوگلی و جنبش نرم افزار آزاد و کد باز ) سعی در گرفتن سهم بزرگی از بازار تلفن همراه دارد.

یک گوشی باید چه قابلیتهایی داشته باشد

پاسخ به این سوال برای هر شخص متفاوت است اما به نظر من امروزه یک گوشی باید یک سیستم عامل خوب ( مثل آندروی – ویندوز موبایل یا مک ) یک دوربین قابل تحمل ( حداق ۳مگ ) یک GPS – صفحه نمایش حداقل ۳ اینچی با قابلیت تاچ اسکرین – برنامه مدیریت و برنامه ریزی زمان – یک تقویم ( هجری شمسی ) - یک مرورگز اینترنت خوب – قابلیت مطالعه ( و ‌ویرایش) فایلهای آفیس و قابلیت تولید برنامه های شخصی ( درصورت نیاز ) را داشته باشد.

توصیه من به شما

اگر از گوشی انتظار خاصی جز مکالمه ساده ندارید و اصولا کار خاصی با آن انجام نمی دهید، یک گوشی ساده تهیه کنید که در این مورد داشتن سیستم عامل اصلا اهمیت ندارد.

اگر یک کاربر عادی هستید که صرفا با گوشی عکس می اندازد و موسیقی گوش می کند به سراغ گوشی های سیمبیان بروید.

اگر هزینه کافی برای خرید گوشی مور نظرتان در سیمبیان ها ندارید به سراغ جاوایی ها بیایید که تقریبا گوشی معادل سیمبیان را با قیت پایین تر عرضه می کنند.

اگر در جستجوی یک امکان خاص هستید ، از بین آندروید، ویندوز موبایل و مکینتاش یکی را انتخاب کنید.

میزان استفاده از سیستم های عامل موبایل در سپتامبر ۲۰۰۸ ( شهریور ۱۳۸۷ )

توجه داشه باشید که موارد بالا عمومیت دارد و در موارد خاص می تواند تغییر کند. در زر لیستی از مهمترین تولید کننده های گوشی با سیستم عامل های مختلف را می‌آورم.

• Windows Mobile : HTC – HP – Dell – i-Mate
• Mac OS X (tiger)  : Apple
• Symbian ( series 6 و UIQ )  : Nokia – Sony Erricson
• Java   : Samsung – LG
• Linux ( maemo و … )  : Nokia – Samsung
• Palm OS   : palm
• Android  : HTC

لینکهای مرتبط

توضحاتی در ارتباط با سیستم های عامل موبایل در ویکی پدیا

توضیحاتی در ارتباط با ویندوز موبایل در ویکی پدیا

توضیحاتی در ارتباط با آندروید در ویکی پدیا

توضیحاتی در ارتباط با سیستم عامل مک در ویکی پدیا

“”It’s been just a little over a month since Apple blocked iTunes sync with Palm Pre, and now Apple takes that strategy one step further by blocking Snow Leopard sync with Palm-OS powered smartphones.”

READ MORE…

So I’m all ready to upgrade my little mini from Tiger to Snow Leopard and then I get wind of this. Yes, I’m still very happy with my Centro, thank you. Truth is, I should have been running Missing Link all the time but I never got around to it. While Missing Link is reporting some problems with Snow Leopard compatibility, I’m sure they’ll fix that stuff. Even if they don’t, I don’t use the compromised features.

AppleInsider | Apple drops Palm OS HotSync conduit from Snow Leopard.

Parfois je m’interroge sur le bienfait de fusions entre deux compagnies.

Par exemple, prenons le cas suivant Research in Motion qui fusionnerait avec Palm ?

Il me semble que depuis quelques années les Blackberry de Research in Motion sont pas mal plus tendance que les produits de Palm.

Alors pourquoi une fusion entre les deux ?

À moins que la direction de Research in Motion veule gaspiller des milliards en argent, je ne vois aucun intérêt pour eux de se marier à Palm, une compagnie qui agonisait jusqu’à tout récemment mais donc plusieurs voient de l’espoir avec leur nouveau produit le Palm Pre.  Certain voit même le Palm Pre comme proche compétiteur au iPhone de Apple.

On se calme.

Ce qui fait la  force du iPhone de  Apple est non seulement ses capacités de télécommunications sans-fil mais également iTunes auquel il est relié pour télécharger des applications gratuites ou à peu de frais.

Research in Motion tente de rivaliser avec Apple avec son nouveau magasin virtuel d’applications, laissez-moi vous dire qu’ils sont loin d’obtenir le succès de Apple de ce côté.

Le problème qui se dessine dans le monde des télécommunications sans-fil (les cellulaires) est important.  Il y aura tantôt trop de joueurs utilisant trop de plateformes différentes.

Research in Motion possède son propre système d’exploitation pour ses Blackberry.  Palm possède des appareils avec Windows Mobile et d’autres avec Palm OS.  Plusieurs nouveaux appareils verront le jour utilisant le système d’exploitation de Google, Android.  Il y a également tout seul dans son coin le iPhone qui utilise le système d’exploitation développé par Apple.

Cinq plateformes majeures disponibles pour plusieurs dizaines d’appareils plus différents les uns des autres.  Palm OS, Apple, Windows Mobile, Android, Blackberry.  C’est un non sens pour le consommateur qui s’ y perd.

Imaginez si les compagnies dépensaient des centaines de millions en recherche et développement au lieu de les dépenser en publicité pour se rivaliser sur autant de plateformes différentes.  Là c’est le consommateur qui serait gagnant.

Smartphone vendor Palm has hit back at concerns that its high-profile Pre device may be abusing owners’ privacy. A BBC report notes that one owner found his Pre was reporting his location over a secure connection back to Palm on a daily basis, as well as sending back information about application crashes. In addition, the update also included a list of the third party applications installed on the phone and how long they were used for. In a statement, Palm said it took users’ privacy "very seriously" and said it gave owners ways "to turn data collecting services on and off." The statement added that Palm’s privacy policy "is like many policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer’s information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience… We appreciate the trust that users give us with their information, and have no intention to violate that trust."

Palm launched the Pre in June on US network Sprint, and is hoping the device – which runs its new mobile operating system, webOS – will help turn around company fortunes after many quarters of large losses. Further launches in Europe and Canada follow shortly (via Telefonica and Bell, respectively). Earlier this week analyst firm Gartner fired a warning shot to the vendor during release of its latest global handset sales report. "This device attracted a lot of media attention [in the most recent quarter] but showed mixed results at the cash register as sales only reached 205,000 units," said Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner. "Palm currently ranks tenth in the smartphone market and Gartner remains concerned about its ability to gain traction outside the US market, where its brand is less strong."

(Extracted from GSMA Mobile Business Briefing)

Sure.  It isn’t exactly the end of the first week with my iPhone.  That was Thursday past….three days ago.  So sue me.  I really did intend to post something, but the day got away from me and the evening was consumed by a date-night with the wife (to a local theatre offering $5 double feature of bad, black & white, 1960’s sci-fi flicks – totally rules bitches!).  Then Friday also got away from me seeing how I needed some iPhone tech support and I was busy with burning CDs to iTunes and had some headaches to fix with the transfer of information from my Palm Centro to the iPhone.  And even today has been a whirl-wind of activity, with a couple of hours spent at a local festival, followed by back-to-school clothes shopping for the daughter, followed by an early-ish dinner.

Whew!

But here I am, sitting in front of my iMac with iTunes playing a random shuffling of music from the 819 songs I have currently burned to the hard drive.  And while it’s getting late enough that I’m considering heading to bed (but not to sleep as yet), I have instead opted to be a dedicated blogger and pound out my impressions of this device after a “week” of ownership.

Holy fucking shit balls.

Let me make this perfectly clear:  there may very well be better smartphones in the marketplace, but I cannot speak to them.  I can, however, speak of this iPhone and holy fucking shit balls.  While visiting my local AT&T store the young man helping me took care of the initial setup by transferring my Centro’s SIM card entries to the iPhone so I really had nothing to do other than wait.  Patiently.  Wait.  My daughter, who was with me, had only the urge to kill me as I was getting something way cool, which she wasn’t.  Oh well…

To start with it is a very fine and elegant looking device.  Looking over cell phones day in and day out on sites like CNET and Gizmodo, I’ve seen plenty come and go and owned a few along the way.  The Motorola RAZR was a smart looking phone.  The Sony-Ericsson Walkman series are a good looking line of phones (or so I think).  And, as previously mentioned, I happen to think the Palm Centro is a handsome phone even if its screen is rather disappointing in terms of quality (quite usable, but quite low-res compared to almost everything else).  But I cannot think of a single cell phone I have seen, owned or personally touched that comes close to both the understated elegance and overall sense of quality (materials and construction) which emanate from the iPhone.  Does its shiny black surface attract fingerprints?  Certainly.  But show me a shiny black plastic device that is held which doesn’t show fingerprints and smudges.  However, Apple should keep an eye on their rearview mirror as the folks at LG are hot on Apple’s tail with the upcoming BL40 Chocolate, which, from what I’ve seen on the Internet, is smokin’ hot (if maybe too long and too narrow for comfortable usage as a phone).

I really wish I could convey all the thoughts, impressions and feelings that came with my first few hours of iPhone 3GS ownership, but that’s not quite possible.  Actually, it’s far more likely I didn’t have too many of them.  First, there was the drive home from the AT&T store, while stopping for an early dinner on the way.  After arriving home my wife and I trundled off quite quickly to a special movie series we have been seeing for a few weeks.  Between the driving, eating and movie-watching there was little play time with the new baby.  However, things sped up quite quickly after that and it has been something of a whirlwind of both good and not so good (and maybe even a tiny bit bad) impressions thus far.

First, it is, as many have said, a rather intuitive device.  While I explored many of the built-in applications (let’s just use “apps” from now on like the rest of the world does, ok?)  to see what it was they precisely did, I was most interested in the icon for Settings.  Settings is where it’s at, bitches.  Again, most everything seemed quite intuitive and I found I was able to quickly make the necessary changes I wanted to make the phone work more the way I want/need it to do.  After settling in with settings that I felt were most appropriate or me, I started re-exploring the built-in apps and making whatever changes were necessary to make them work for me.  Example:  the weather app was set for Cupertino, CA and NYC, which are of no use to me (my apologies to both Cupertino and NYC).  Naturally I wanted my local weather and that of locations where family and friends reside and so it was done.

I also played around with the camera app (I find it difficult to both hold the phone AND select the focal point, while not bouncing the phone all over the damn place), notes, voice recordings, etc., but only to expose myself to them in a cursory manner.  I pretty much deleted everything I created as it was all for fun and education.  While playing with these various built-in apps I would discover the occasional “Oh!  That’s cool!” as well as the “Hum…..I think that could have been done better,” but what device have I NOT said that about at one time or another?  Of course, all this fooling around with the apps meant it was time to take this baby for a spin in the App Store, which was done quite promptly.

As I take part in WordPress, Facebook, and Myspace (and since getting the iPhone, twitter….I know….I know….you don’t have to say it) I knew I needed to get those apps loaded onto the phone and pronto!  Again, the App store app works quite easily and I was quickly searching for the requisite apps to allow me to blog and social network to my hearts content via the iPhone.  In addition, there were a few other apps that I had heard about and knew that I might want right off the bat so I also downloaded the free version of Pandora, The Weather Channel (free version), Rise and Shine, and (after joining up) the app TwitterFon, which I fond on my own, but was subsequently recommended by a friend. (Hi Tam!)

My initial impressions are a mixed bag across this spectrum of apps.  Pandora works great.  Clean.  Simple.  Just works (sound familiar?).  Facebook’s is good, but not great.  I find some things are not as intuitive as I would have expected and I spend some time trying to figure out where things are, often discovering that the app doesn’t support certain functions one finds on the web site.  I guess this is to be anticipated as it is just an app, a portal (if you will), and not the full-fledged web-based site.  Myspace is generally good as well, but to be frank I don’t use it as much because so many folks I know and follow have migrated to Facebook.  Shame too as I much prefer to blog (obviously), but typing blogs on an iPhone, no matter how elegant it may be, simply isn’t reasonable.

Rise and Shine is an app that doesn’t really do anything new unless you purchase the requisite hardware from the fine folks over at Kensington.  I came across it on Gizmodo and the app allows you to use one of three screens for a clock, but you then attach some hardware (like a dock) that charges the iPhone while it keeps it upright so that you can place it next to your bed.  As a bed-side clock.  Not very exciting sounding, is it?  Except that it does a really nice flip-number style clock face and I love those damn things.  Love ‘em.  So I have the app, but not the hardware and at something like either $40 or $50 it’s going to stay that way.  Hey Kensington….if you’re listening….try $25 or $30.  After all, the hardware really isn’t anything more than a dock.

The recommended TwitterFon app seems fine, but I haven’t tried any of the other apps for twitter so I cannot offer any sort of comparison.  That said, it seemed to have a reasonably high number of positive reviews and stars, so it seemed like a logical choice.  Besides….what’s the point of asking a friend (who is tech-oriented) for their opinion if you’re just going to ignore it?   The Weather Channel app does just what it is supposed to do and really isn’t any different in concept from the built-in Weather app from Apple.  However, there may actually be a difference.  I noticed the built-in app gets its weather information from Yahoo.  I don’t know from where Yahoo gets their information, but I do know that the Weather Channel works hard at predicting weather themselves and also make use of all the good info that comes from the National Weather Service.  Between the two apps I’m more inclined to go with the Weather Channel simply for accuracy.

Finally, the WordPress app.  As I mentioned about Myspace, I don’t see myself posting blogs from my iPhone.  No way.  No how.  However, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to check my blogs for recent comments or checking on my fellow WordPress bloggers.  While the app allows such activity I do not think it does it very well.  In particular I was very much annoyed with the process of setting up the WordPress app to handle the four WordPress blogs I control (or share control of).  One must set-up each blog individually, unlike the website which uses a single screen as one’s portal to all their blogs.  The WordPress app is quite a disappointment (sorry guys…just calling it like I see it).

Getting myself set-up with my Gmail and Hotmail e-mail accounts was a snap.  A breeze.  Too easy.  I was certain that I was doing something horribly wrong as it was just too simple.  And it worked.  Correctly.  Damn if that’s not nice.  I smile every time my iPhone lets me know that I have a new e-mail.  It really is sweet.  I could almost make the argument that the messaging app and e-mail access alone make the phone a worthwhile investment.

But not everything has been sunshine and bunnies with the iPhone.  Nope.  Couldn’t be that easy, now could it?  So what’s wrong with it?  What hasn’t worked well or at all?  For one, I have noticed that something doesn’t quite work the way I would have expected (but of course this could just be me being stupid or not seeing things with the same eyes as Apple) within the message app.  When one is within a given exchange of messages there is an option named Edit at the top of the screen.  Pressing such offers two options at the bottom of the screen:  Delete and Forward.  What wasn’t quite apparent at first to me was that the options to delete or forward were specific to each segment of the messages exchanged.  Meaning:  one could delete or forward one or some messages by selecting the radio button next to each message.  When I first began using this app I assumed (erroneously) that delete meant to delete the entire exchange of messages.  Imagine my surprise when after messaging with a friend I went to delete said messages and nothing happened when I pressed the Delete button!  To actually delete an entire exchange of messages one must be on the message app’s home page, select Edit, press the red radio button with the white line through it, and then select Delete, which appears to the right of the message in the message list.  In the end it wasn’t really a big deal and was, in some part, my own stupidity that I didn’t understand what was going on.  But I really think that one might be forgiven my way of thinking when you consider that the e-mail app allows for the deletion of an e-mail from within the displayed e-mail.  To my way of thinking this is something of a minor (maybe very minor) inconsistency between these two apps.

While I was aware of this deficiency in advance of purchase, I still find it very odd and annoying that an iPhone user cannot create folders on the home page and use said folders to store related apps.  The current method is that every app appears as an icon on the home page and as the home page fills up a new home page will appear to accommodate those icons.  Sure, swiping between the home pages isn’t difficult, but why wouldn’t a folder architecture make more sense?  Fortunately for me an acquaintance of mine who works at our local Best Buy (and who owns an iPhone 3G) offered a solution that at least attempts to better organize one’s apps.  He suggested creating individual home pages for related apps.  He keeps his games on the second page, social networking apps on the third and something else on the fourth…I don’t remember what.  It’s a nice idea, but still seems pointless considering there is an alternative and it’s one that we have been using on computers for ages.

I also take some exception to the iPhone’s port by which one both syncs and charges the device.  Maybe it is far more sturdy than it appears, but I look at this thing and rue the day when I bend or break something while trying to plug in the cable.  The thin wedge of metal surrounding the plastic and leads seems far too flimsy for long-term usage before something breaks.  In addition, the portion of the plug by which you hold the male end of the sync cord is too short.  It’s width is fine, but there simply isn’t as much to grab hold of as I would like.  Then again, I’ve been known to like a little extra something on which to hold, but that’s another story.  I always feel like I’m having to pinch hard to get as much grip as possible on this too-short plug.  And it doesn’t help that its shiny and slippery plastic.  Apple:  make it a longer and rubberize it.  Or something.  Please.

About the only other thing I have found irksome (oh…there are a variety of things that are irritating about the iPhone, but these were issues already well known to me, which had some influence upon my decision to look at iPhone competitors, but in the end I found them to not rise to the occasion of iPhone killer) is the syncing process.  First, one MUST plug in the sync cord to a USB port on the computer itself and not into a USB hub (either powered or unpowered) or the USB outlets on a Mac keyboard.  If you do not plug your cord into a USB port attached to the computer the sync process may not work.  At all.  Or, at the very least, it will not sync contacts, calendar items, etc., but may sync music.  I concede that this information may be yet found in the user’s guide for the iPhone (which I downloaded from their website), but it was not mentioned upon the pages under the chapter for syncing the iPhone to iTunes.  This lack of information was crucial in that my iPhone was not syncing properly and it required a call to Apple iPhone tech support.

And let me get this out of the way, the guy to whom I spoke was fantastic.  Great.  Better than great.  Chef’s salty chocolate balls great.  We went through my problem and diagnosed it pretty quickly and it was clear to me that he was not reading from some prepared tech support script, but instead listened to my issue and to what steps I had already taken to try and fix it myself.  That is something I’ve never had occur while talking to tech support with any other computer company.  They get onto their script and stick to it like glue, without any regard or concern for what steps you may have already taken.  But back to syncing…

When I first synced the phone I looked through the various options on each tab of the iPhone portion of iTunes.  Sync this.  Sync that.  And sometimes/often they had some additional options by which one could fine tune the syncing process.  However, I found one thing very strange….syncing music.  I had choices whereby I could handle the music syncing manually or let iTunes do the work.  But if I left it to iTunes it would, every time I synced the phone, erase whatever music and/or movies I had on the device and install/re-install from the various libraries.  Why?  Why does it want to delete stuff?  I might be very content with what I already have on the iPhone.  Maybe this is why there is the manual option, but it still seems weird.  And weirder is the fact that the option to manually control the process of syncing music isn’t on the Music tab, but on the General tab.

Next, while discussing this issue with the tech support guy, I also discovered that if one leaves the syncing of music, etc. to the iTunes software it will attempt to fill up your phone’s entire memory with music, movies, etc.  However much media type files you have it will transfer over until the device is full.  No.  I don’t want that.  Maybe I want the device to always have a few gigs worth of empty space for while I’m out in the field, so to speak, just in case I need…well….space on the phone.  I would much prefer the option to instruct the software that I only want it to sync no more than x-number of gigs of media.  This would seem quite reasonable if you ask me.  In addition, I think it would be super nice if there were an option to sync music randomly to the iPhone.  I mean, I would like the software to shuffle the song list in iTunes and then transfer over to the phone that set of shuffled songs (up to so many gigs as I discussed a moment ago).  Instead, I had to set up a playlist and place my music collection in there, shuffle it, deselect all the songs, then reselect a portion that fit my requirements for only having so many gigs of music, etc. on the iPhone.

Did that make sense?  I feel I’m being a bit unclear.  No.  I’ve re-read the above paragraph and it does make sense.  At least to me.  But that’s  a bit unfair considering I wrote it.  Well, if you don’t quite get what I’m specifically trying to say think of it this way:  it doesn’t do some shit I think it should fucking do!

There is one thing I knew the iPhone didn’t do that pisses me off to no end, which I do want to rant about.  When one enters birthday, anniversary or other important dates to a contact’s card, there isn’t any way to have the contacts date made known to the user so that they might remember to buy a card or such.  Look at my Palm Centro….I can enter a birthday for a given contact and also tell the software to pop up with a reminder on the calendar portion of the phone’s OS so many days in advance of the date of the event.  I almost always set the reminder for seven days before the event as I find that gives me sufficient time to run out, buy a card and/or gift, and get it in the mail or whatever.  The OS on my Centro is like 8, 9 or 10 fucking years old if not older.  I mean come on Apple…..all this social networking bullshit is fine, but the phone doesn’t come with a basic way to remind you of someone’s upcoming birthday, anniversary or whatever?  That’s so fucking lame.  An insufficient work-around is to enter the event into iCal so that it reminds you of the event, but why couldn’t iCal and the Contacts app work together in this regard?  But even then it’s not a perfect set-up as iCal can only offer one or two reminders.  The Palm software allowed me to set it up such that I would get a reminder each of the seven days before the event.  Each day.  Just in case I didn’t get round to matters seven days out, I would still get reminders so I wouldn’t forget.  No such luck with iCal.  And making matters even more worse, there is no custom function for how often one wants to be reminded of a given iCal entry.

iCal has all the basic ones: daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, yearly, but no custom feature by which I can enter the time frame I want and/or need.  For example, we have cats.  Having cats means changing litter boxes and with scoopable litter I am able to change the boxes on a fixed schedule without worrying about the house becoming stinky.  The time frame I have found that works best for the ground floor litter boxes is to change them every 11 days.  I know…it’s a weird number, but it works.  Not 7 days.  Not 14 days.  But with iCal those are my only two choices as there is no way to make a custom setting like 11 days.  My Palm Centro can do it.  The Palm Zire 31 I had before it could do it.  And again, as a gentle reminder, the OS running those devices is fucking ANCIENT compared to iCal.

Lastly and finally, the App store.  I have been reading reviews of apps for a while now even though I didn’t have an iPhone.  And now that I do I have visited the App store and looked around at its wares and come away with two particular impressions:  (1) it’s not the most user friendly site to which I’ve visited, and (2) it seems like there is a lot of shit out there.  And by “shit” I mean “shit”.  After browsing around for hours, reading descriptions, reviews and such, I’ve got to say it’s really quite underwhelming.  If I were Apple I wouldn’t want to brag too much about how many apps are in the App Store because it seems to me that most are useless, poorly written and crash-prone.

I find it very odd that a company which is so very closed about its computer’s operating system seems so very open about applications for its one and only cell phone.  Furthermore, I find it just as peculiar that a company which prides itself on design aesthetics as well as what is a very stable and well-executed OS for computers, allows such crap to fill the App Store and subsequently the iPhones of millions of users.  I don’t get it one bit.  I DO understand the idea of putting applications into the hands of the masses as it brings so much to the iPhone that Apple simply couldn’t do on its own, but really….the iPhone has become the repository of an awful lot of shit.

As promised, here are my thoughts on the Palm Pre.

Things I really like about the Pre:  it’s small (but not too small), and feels good in the hand; the touch screen is easy to use, and the slide out QWERTY keyboard makes typing a breeze; the camera is 3 megapixels and takes photos without interrupting to save; the headphone jack is a standard 3.5mm (so no need to buy a special adapter); WiFi lets me use my home wireless network (and the keyboard makes typing the password simple too); Palm’s webOS is intuitive, pretty, and runs smoothly; transferring data to and from the Pre works just like using a USB flash drive–drag and drop and you’re done; the app store is easy to navigate and use (some of the better apps include YouTube, Fandango, Where, GoogleMaps, Pandora, AmazonMP3, Sprint Navigation, PDF and document viewers).

Things I’m not crazy about:  the high gloss finish on the front and back means the phone looks greasy after just a little touching; the slide out keyboard can feel a little flimsy, like it wouldn’t take much to accidentally break the back from the front; the app store, while easy to use, is grossly lacking in actual applications (as of yesterday, there were only about 15 or 20 apps to choose from) and is still only in beta; the accelerometer (which lets you change the screen orientation from landscape to portrait) only works for a few applications (the camera and web browsing), and not for everything (maybe I’m crazy, but I think it’d be nice to view the music player in landscape…).

Here’s a video review in case you want a more in-depth break down of the Pre.

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