Thread: Palm user: is it time to move to the Nxxx?
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gompers is offline gompers
2008-01-29 , 17:04
Posts: 52 | Thanked: 21 times | Joined on Jan 2008
#72
Originally Posted by sungrove View Post
So, here are a few ideas.

A. There are industrial strength PIMs that a business exec would use for his or her complex schedule and then there are simpler PIMs that everyone else can use. ( I don't know, you make up the catagories)

B. So there are these partially functional PIMs we all now know about on the n800 and my guess is that Nokia is sort of hoping that one of them will work out enough to quiet enough of it's critics.

C. So, short of satisfying the business exec which we don't think is going to happen on this devise anyway, what level of functionality do the current PIM options need to arrive at to satisfy the rest of us?

It just seems to me that a 'real' highly functional PIM system is probably not something that Nokia wants to get involved in because of the complexity involved. So, you say it ain't that hard. Well, if it ain't that hard why is GPE taking so long? I mentioned Garnet VM earlier in this thread because it's working quite good for me. And again I guess it depends on what level of PIM you need. Garnet gets shot down because for some of us it's not working right. But if you read through the threads in the Palm section here you can see that quite a few people have it working. And I would remind you guys that the Garnet VM is a BETA. Why are we so impatient with it? It appears to me to do good basic PIMing by syncing between N800 and Desktop .

So maybe the thing to do is come to some sort of idea what we want in a PIM. It appears to me that between the lines there are much different ideas of what it should be/do.

I don't mean to be some sort of shil for Garnet VM. If something on the N800 was working better for me I'd be all over it. But I really don't think Garnet would have to go much further to have a basic stable, usable by the masses rather than the execs, PIM. As it is now, it's quite useable but ya, it's apparently not what it is on a treo.

So, what does a PIM need to be to satisfy your needs?

Neil
I want to see a calendar that looks pretty much identical to palm's, to be honest. I want to be able to add a meeting with a timezone, and have it automatically adjust as I travel, and sync with exchange transparently. (i.e. I live in central time zone, I put a meeting in the eastern time zone in and mark it as such, and when I change time zones, the device recognizes this and adjusts the calendar accordingly, so I'm always working in whatever time zone I am in). I want categories for meetings, contacts and e-mail to carry across between devices. I want "extra" contact information (i.e. birthdays, pictures, multiple addresses, multiple phone numbers etc.) to transfer between exchange and my device seamlessly. I want to be able to search my enterprise directory for contact information. And then I want it to sync all of those things transparently and constantly with my exchange server. I don't want to have to plug it into a cable and press a button. I want it to just work, after plugging in my username, password and exchange server address. Just like my treo does.

To be honest, I'd be thrilled if the n800 could transparently run all palm applications. Tilt it sideways, and give me the 755p functionality, and interface, including being able to dial my cell phone from the n800, and I might consider giving up my treo. The more and more I think about it, though, the more I really just appreciate the n800 for what it is. It's a reasonable media player/ebook reader, and a great little toy for browsing the "rich" web. Those are two areas that treos stink at, and two areas that I love the tablet for.

Unless Nokia is trying to move the n800 into the enterprise marketplace, something like GPE will be just fine, and will suit the needs of most of it's users. I think if Nokia focuses on improving the web experience, and media aspects of the tablet, it could be an incredible device. Moving into the enterprise PIM market would just divert focus from improving those two things, IMO.

I think the tablet's priorities should be:

A. Improve web browsing speed. It's certainly currently usable, but by no means fast. I want desktop-like speed. Sites like Google reader and Google mail are just slow. Scaling the screen is slow. Opening new browser windows is slow.

B. Improve the media player. Canola2 is pretty skin on not much meat. The default player is a lot more meat with an ugly UI. Mediabox is actually the best interface for the tablet, IMO, just not quite there yet from a capability standpoint. Focus on supporting one effort that combines all of these things into one GOOD player.

C. Add support for video chat with MSN, AIM, Yahoo etc. to make that stupid camera actually worthwhile.

You fix those three things, and the tablet is a killer toy, even bordering on a useful tool.

Trying to breach the enterprise PIM market is just spinning your wheels and trying to make the n800 something it currently isn't. Make it excellent at what it is (which I'd argue it currently isn't), and THEN focus on changing what it does. Until then, let the GPE crowd keep working on GPE, and make it accessible to the masses.