My Treo vs. My iPhone

Okay. I have been playing with an iPhone for a week now. Here is how things are going.

Qwerty / navigation
This is too early to say, but I get the feeling I can adapt to this Apple’s virtual keyboard. Only time will tell.  As for this whole “hold iPhone on left hand and use index finger on right hand to touch”  that Apple is try to force people to adapt to is just plain nonsense if you ask me. Fortunately, you can still manage one handed use of the iPhone in most cases. The Accelerometer is driving me nuts. There needs to be a feature to turn this thing off cause it is just rotating the screen at times when I don’t want it to.

Now lets compare some applications side by side. Please note some of these apps were created by my company so excuse any slight bias.

Sms on Treo vs Sms on iPhone
This is one big lawsuit waiting to happen if the folks at Sunnyvale were smart enough to patent threaded smsing as Apple essentially copied this and made it fancy.

Iphone safari vs, Treo Blazer
The Treo blazer browser gets the job done, but of course Safari with the real internet blows it away, although Apple needs to to support Flash cause I don’t know how you can claim the “real internet” without the Flash Player.

iPhone Phone app vs DialByPhoto

U.I. goes to DialByPhoto hands down. With the ability have photo contacts and customizable layouts and backgrounds, you can’t beat this.  I have over 700 contacts and this finger scrolling on the iPhone is cool but is a bloody waste of time and pretty much useless if you have ever used the search and dial feature on Treos.

See the full gallery here.

Google Maps on iPhone vs Google Maps on Treo.

The one on the Treo gets the job done but the one on the iPhone is just freaking unreal. iPhone Google Maps wins hands down.

IPhone Memo vs TreoMemo

I think TreoMemo has a better stickie pad skin and has options for more skins.  However, on the iPhone things are more fluid and crispier because of a more powerful OS. On the functionality side, the iPhone Memo is a piece of crap if you have used TreoMemo.

Why? With TreoMemo, you can
- set mp3 alarms( its one thing to write a memo and another thing to remember )
- search memos
-sort memos
- type to get a memo( wait till you have tons of  memos to see how important this is)

iPhone Weather vs TreoWeather

They are both sweet but I would still take TreoWeather for the ability to customize.

See full gallery here.

iPod on iPhone vs mOcean on Treo

This is a tricky one. mOcean is essentially a duplicate of the original iPod. It takes the original iPod and makes it a touch screen. So the question here is do you prefer the original iPod or the new iPod. Personally none of them impresses me anymore mainly because I have worked on an upcoming media player that blows away both of them.

See Full gallery here.

Some other Factors

Ringtones
No Ringtone Support on iPhone, although we know this is coming in way that screws the consumer and forces them to pay up. With the RingCare Suite on my Treo, I can create and manage any ringtones I want. The power of creating ringtones is one of the best experiences on my Treo.

Sprint TV
Try going shoe shopping with your girl or being stuck at the dmv and you will realize how sprint tv can be a savior particularly with NFL network and its cast of characters that include Ocho Cinco and Neon Deion

Summary
So what now? Well, at least for me, these two devices can actually coexist. It is really simple for me. My Treo will continue doing contact management, telephony and things that iPhone won’t do well or won't even do , while I will use the iPhone for web browsing on the go and hopefully skype. Oh by the way, big confession, Many of the apps am showing on the Treo are not built in. They are 3rd party apps you have to purchase, something Palm could have easily rectified if they would have just listened to a little bit of advise

Comments

[JJ]

Hi there! So i came accross your blog while browsing and i just had to show some love to a fellow Treo fan! Although i see you're deviating to the other side. I have reached the end with cellphones...as long as Palm keeps making the Treo i'll keep upgrading..
Do you know where i could get free ringtone manager-full version? Yes i'm too cheap to buy...sum it up to my ijebu blood....lol.
Love your blog cos i'm a closet tech freak! Will definitely be back.

[Kevin]

So whats this upcoming media player called? ;)

[Gadget]

I love the UI on the dial by photo, and sending a sms is so much more pleasant,i wish we could see threaded text like that.
Dial by photo has brought my Treo back to life!!!

[Ken]

This upcoming media player.. Is it for palm os or windows mobile?

[Mach Vira]

Pues no se mucho del ingles pero creo, para mi, es mas conveniente tener un treo que un iphone, claro debemos tener en cuenta que las actualizaciones futuras del software para iphone pueden ser mejor que palm pero por lo mientras le apuesto a palm. gracias

[AWright]

So now that you have had ample time to play with the iPhone and its GUI, do you see any areas where you acn push the envelope on Palm OS (and other) products that you have worked on? Besides just the look, but going into functionality and usability?

By the way, I noticed your work with VolumeCare and RingCare. Very nicely done. Seriously, if you aren't working on a complete PalmOS shell (along with everything else) you really should. Your look is functional and distinctive and would most definitely work OS-wide.

[AG]

Say it ain't so... The world's premier Treonaut jumps ship to iPhone ;) It still say Jobs crippled it.

[Chan]

Hi There!

Seems the Treo still shines regardless the Palm's abandoned OS. This plainly due to the fact Palm still holds the crown for most number of apps available to the platform. But even without a real SDK I guess Apple is going to beat this head on.

As a matter of fact I hate Flash (even with more than average quality your site) and it seems Apple's omission of Flash from iPhone send the warning to the Adobe's Microsoft like need to dominate mobile industry with Flash Lite.

At the end I guess consumers will win cause I am pretty sure Apple has some killer app up on their shelves to jump start mobile web without Flash and proprietary stuff but Ajax and CSS.

For the extreme end they will have apps written by themselves with their OS X core functions if it can't do it with web functions. First they seem to relax a bit throwing the ball to open developers to come with some killer apps for the iPhone with wed 2 capabilities.

Seems pretty interesting times ahead, what do you think?

[Chan]

Hay, what's this killer Media Player anyway?

[Selmi]

flash is not important even on pc and i think its absolutely low priority issue for any phone.

in fact i usually don't even install flash plugin at all and i am doing fine, there is less ads and much better loading time. if i would have flash on phone only what is interesting for me is if i can switch it off. of course there are pages which don't work without flash installed, but honestly, they are not ones i visit often (if ever)

google maps is terrible dissapointment, on page they write whey support gps and show actual location - well not on treo :-( i hope iphone version behaves better

personally after what i read i will stick with treo. and to be honest best phone i ever had was old siemens c35i, b&w display, memory for only 10 sms messages, but i could use it 10 days without recharging... treo i recharge every day and i wonder how iphone behaves, but i don't expect much better.

i also look forward for Neo which looks very promising (http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973 ) and also for possibility to install linux to treo devices (using OpenMoko, http://www.mobilelinuxinfo.com/368/openmoko-openembedded-on-a-treo-650/)

anyway, iphone looks like nice toy, when someone will hack it to make it work with 3rd party apps i will think about it.

[katra]

you guys are forgetting the most important part of this blog....

iPhone by it's self is a beautifull device hands down...everything you need and then some...

treo with out dialbyphoto....is a piece of shit...(treo comes with out dialbyphoto anyways)..treo has the most boring and ugliest UI in the market.

i highly doubt anyone disagrees....lol

(previous owner of treo...now proud owner of an iPhone!)

"google maps is terrible dissapointment, on page they write whey support gps and show actual location - well not on treo :-( i hope iphone version behaves better"

If you have a gps receiver, you can install a piece of freeware called "Where Am I?" which will get your coordinates and send them to google maps.

[tajuana]

how can i watch tv or movies on my 700wx treo

[snydez]

now this is what i call a comparison :)