It did not take me long to find my first big fault with the iPhone. Everyone needs different things from a device. I really need a personal information manager (PIM). Basically, I need a great PDA with a phone, e-mail and web access. The iPhone is not yet a great PIM.
The calendar feature is sufficient but is missing a number of features that I would expect in an advanced device like the iPhone. First, I would like a weekly grid view. Currently, you can see a list of upcoming appointments, but if you have too many or too few, you will get more than a picture of your week on the screen. I was surprised to find that the weekly grid was not there, especially considering how useful it would be to allow the user to turn the phone sideways and work with the grid in a landscape orientation.
I also miss having a real task list. My last phone, a Treo 700p did a great job with this. A task list should give me a checkbox for each entry, a description field and a due date with a reminder alarm at minimum. Ideally, it should also allow me to categorize my tasks and give them a priority. Actually, all I am really looking for is true iCal integration, which I don't think is too much to ask.
All of these things would make the iPhone a better PIM. I hope some of the changes come soon. However, I suspect that we may need to wait until Leopard. There are many changes coming to the PIM features in OS X. I think that this may be the real reason why the iPhone lacks so many basic PIM features.
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Thanks for the review.... I have been a dedicated palm user for several years, and recently purchased a used palm treo 650. I have been curious about the iphone as organizer. Seems that the iphone is lacking these tools, so I will consider a palm centro instead of an iphone. Hopefully I can get a used one too!
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