Palm to iPhone - the summary

I'm wrapping up my series on migrating my personal data from the Palm/Outlook/XP to the iPhone/OS X/Cloud. I've yet to figure out how to manage my work data as well, that will be the subject of future posts.

On the left, a picture of my battered Tungsten E|2. It's my sixth or seventh Palm, and my second E|2. Like most Palm devices the on/off switch died within six months of purchase.

Palm can't make power switches. Or rather, they don't like them to last.

Note there are eight action buttons, four silkscreen and four physical (omitting the center button -- I hardly ever use it). Note the nice search button -- the iPhone doesn't have global search (maybe for a good reason).

Below is the current iPhone. Not coincidentally, the top row corresponds to the four physical buttons on my Palm. The special bottom row, however, is taken over the the phone, google, map, iPod.

The Calendar and Contacts are a close match to the Palm. They sync with iCal and Address Book by USB cable. One improvemnet is that iCal also subscribes to my wife's BlackBerry/Google Calendar, so get to see her appointments on my iPhone (read-only). (iCal further syncs my primary calendar with gCal using Spanning Sync; I've put MobileMe on hold until Apple does some major fixes).

The ToDo.app doesn't sync with iCal, it syncs with Toodledo. My family Google Calendar also gets a feed from Toodledo, it shows tasks as all day events.

On the far right is Evernote, the anxiety provoking home for my Palm Notes and more. They sync to the Evernote service.

The following posts may be of interest to anyone who's trying to migrate a Palm device from Outlook/XP to an iPhone using OS X/Cloud ...

• Different calendaring models...
• Migrating Palm Notes (Memos) to Toodledo and Appigo Notebook.app (9/29/08)
  
• All done except Notes/Memos (and buy Missing Sync for iPhone)
• Moving Contacts/Address Book
• Moving Tasks, more moving tasks, and ToDo.app and Toodledo
  
• Archiving your iPhone backups
• JFile passwords to 1Password
• Spanning Sync
• Summary table on Google Docs (since updated)
• ePocrates Palm to iPhone (this one was easy)
• Cumulative iPhone notes and surprises
• Why MobileMe's problems are deep and a Palm veteran's perspectives

iPhone 2.0.2: fast contacts from phone

This Ars commenter is right:

Apple says bug fixes ahoy in new iPhone 2.0.2 firmware

...This update definitely fixed the lag in loading contacts in the Phone app. I can start scrolling as soon as the app appears now

Strangely, there's still a lag when loading them in the Contacts app...

Weird. Contacts still has a 2-3 second lag (though it varies), but phone has no lag when viewing contacts. Grand Dialer, which also brings up contacts, also has lost its lag.

I haven't noted any other changes. In Minneapolis-Saint Paul I haven't had the reception problems some markets have, iPhone reception is no worse than the previous 3G Nokia phone I had.

I wonder if it will fix my app update problem.

Palm to iPhone: do I need an iTouch as well as an iPhone?!

I’ve made my personal Palm to iPhone transition (see report)…

Gordon's Tech: Palm to iPhone - only the notes remain

….The current collection of solutions makes an interesting contrast to the simplicity of my original Palm III - even if I ignore the migration challenges!

• Calendar: iPhone <-> iCal <-> Google Calendar via Spanning Sync ($25)
• Contacts: iPhone <-> Address Book
• Tasks: iPhone ToDo <-> Toodledo ( -> iCal + Google Calendar as read-only) ($35)
• Notes: iPhone Evernote <-> Evernote service (temporary)

It was bloody hard work, but now that I’ve done the job it’s not so hard for anyone who wants to replicate it. The key tip for Palm users going to iPhone on OS X is to pay $50 and buy Missing Sync for the iPhone with the bundled migration assistant. Oh – and read my posts.

That still leaves the workplace problem. On the Palm, after wasted years of trying to get to a single calendar (see also), I ended up using Chapura’s KeySuite (vs. DataViz Beyond) to sync to my office Exchange server/Outlook 2003.

So at home I used the Palm Outlook conduits to sync the standards apps to Outlook 2003, and KeySuite conduits at the office.

It worked, but it sure was stupid. Flipping between calendars was a pain.

Now, with a mounting sense of horror, it occurs to me that, at the moment, the only viable workplace option is to buy an iTouch for sync to my corporate environment. [1]

Imagine that.

Of course I’ll keep my Palm Tungsten E2 going as long as possible, but if I need to replace the half-broken Palm PDA the iTouch is about the same price. If an iPhone alternative does not emerge (and I’m thinking, I’m thinking) it makes sense to replace the Palm Tungsten E|2 with an iTouch.

So I’d have an iPhone and an iTouch to carry about.

This would be funny if I weren’t crying.

[1] Apple has designed the iPhone to sync to a single home machine. It’s more or less mandated by their DRM requirements. The Palm was more or less designed to sync to more than one machine.

Update 8/18/08: Results of an early experiment in trying to sync in two places.

Bento opens up iCal and Address Book

Bento doesn't seem to get much respect.

It should.

I just played with it. Bento lets me edit task, calendar and address book data in a database framework. It brings a lot of power to underpowered apps; Bento + iCal/Address Book is much closer to Outlook.

I'm migrating my main machine to 10.5 in a few weeks. I suspect I'll buy Bento after that.

iPhone sync: WebDav, FTP and now ... AFP

After I read this review I, somewhat impulsively, installed Data Case:

DataCase Turns your iPhone into Wireless Storage Drive [iPhone Apps Review] - iPhone Hacks:

...One of the most anticipated iPhone apps, DataCase developed by Veiosoft has just hit the iPhone App Store.

The app turns your iPhone into a wireless storage drive that can be accessed by any other device on your wireless network, and includes a viewer for the most popular file formats such as Word, Excel, pdf, etc...

Sounded useful. I think it cost me $7-10.

Of course, on first try it didn't work. I was proud of myself for quickly figuring out the trouble. From my Apple Store post:

When I first tried this with 10.4, it seemed to mount, then I lost a connection. With 10.5 it didn't let me mount. When I looked at the settings, I saw it uses AFP -- apple file protocol.

I thought AFP was extinct!

It's a very curious choice, I think it says something about the limited options developers have to connect the iPhone to anything. I'm surprised there's any AFP support on the phone...

I had disabled AppleTalk eons ago on my machines. I restored AppleTalk and I was able to connect...

Wow. Now I've seen everything. Apple's astounding decision to bar everyone except the Missing Sync team from the USB cable is leading to the resurrection of all sorts of almost extinct file protocols. WebDav (yech), FTP, and now AppleTalk!?

So where the heck did this AppleTalk/AFP support come from? I'm sure Apple didn't just leave it on the iPhone. As always, Google is our friend (Nov 2007 - when iPhone apps were all hacked into unlocked phones ...):

Insanely awesome iPhone hacker and developer "Core" just finished implementing AFP for the iPhone and iPod touch. This software connects your iPhone (or touch) to your computer using AFP, the AppleTalk Filing Protocol. Your iPhone shows up on your desktop as a disk with full read/write access.

The great irony of the iPhone is that it combines features of the year 2015 with the year 1984 - requiring astounding gyrations to substitute for a Palm III.

A lesser irony is that Apple's bloody minded barracading of the sync cable is resurrecting near abandoned file protocols ...

PS. Omni Group? Maybe you should install the "Core" server into OmiFocus ...

Palm to iPhone migration: Different calendaring models

My first pass at Outlook/Palm to iCal/iPhone calendar migration was to stop using the old calendar, and start a new one.

Then I realized how long it would take to tediously enter birthdays and the like, so I decided to migrate calendars from my Palm using Missing Sync for Palm.
(Warning: if you do this, I suggest renaming your iCal calendar so it can't possibly clash with any Palm category you might have.)
(Note: I'm still on 10.4, though now I'm scheduling the 10.5 migration. So 10.5 behavior may vary.)

It worked, but when I was done all the Categories in the Palm had become calendars in iCal.

Sigh.

This is why synchronization is so horribly hard. Application models vary. The Palm allowed for one calendar, but each appointment could belong to a single one of about 9 categories. Google has an unlimited number of Calendars, but no categories. Outlook 2003 has one real calendar, but each appointment can be associated with an unlimited number of categories. Outlook 2007 is similar, but it supports calendar overlays. Google is like iCal, but appointments can have locations. Alerting models all vary.

I won't even mention how astoundingly limited iCal is compared to even Outlook 2003 -- with one huge exception. iCal can subscribe to calendar feeds. Still the absence of a list view in 10.4 is surprising -- even the iPhone calendar has a list view.

Anyway, since I sync a single iCal calendar with a single Google Calendar, I wanted to merge some of my iCal Calendars. Turns out the way to do this is to export the calendar you want to eliminate, then import it back into the target Calendar.

The good news is that somehow I've gotten closer to Calendar Nerdvana than I'd expected. Between synching iCal to gCal with Missing Sync, my wife's Blackberry synching to gCal with a built-in app, and my subscribing in iCal to my wife's Google Apps family calendar, I'm starting to be able to get useful calendar overlays. Now if I figure out a work calendar solution ...

iPhone calendar design flaw: all day events

The iPhone calendar has a design flaw. I ran into it because I subscribe to a calendar feed from Toodledo, and tasks due today are represented as all day events.

When you have lots of all day events, the display area for the calendar fills with all day events, and the hourly events aren't accessible.

The design flaw is the logic for partitioning scheduled and all day events, and the failure to support scrolling of all day events.