I just came from a trip to Atlanta GA this past weekend and had my Treo 755p as my traveling companion and guide. I don't travel that much and I discovered just how many utilities Palm OS offers for frequent travelers. I thought I'd share how i was able use my Treo and what programs i used.
1. Planning the Trip with Agendus Pro - the Agendus Pro for Palm OS has a feature which allows you to create trips and create flights, meetings, tasks, transportation arrangements, hotel accommodations under an assigned trip, and have all of them lay out in your Agendus Calendar in a way that is very easy to understand and very easy to draw information from. For the Flight information, Agendus handily listed down a whole assortment of Airline names and you could easily put down Flight numbers, Airport Codes, Date and time of departure/arrival. You can also input the Hotel name, telephone number and website, as well as check-in and check-out times. Of course, the weather panel in the Today page is always handy.
2. Using Pocket Tunes as my iPod - i have preloaded my 8gb SD card with audiobooks and podcasts that i can listen to while in the plane and at the airport. Using my Shure i2cT headphones, there was enough noise reduction to calm down the noise of the plane engine and let me enjoy my music inside the plane. I think the Treo is such an underrated media player. With the right kind of headphones, you can rock your music the ipod way. And ain't it ironic that i do have the iPhone skin for my Pocket Tunes :)
3. Monitoring Flights with FLIGHT STATUS app - this was a gem of an app that i recently picked up in the Treocentral forums. You can input the airline and flight number, and this will give you expected times of arrivals/departures, even Gate numbers! For the entire trip i never had to scramble for the nearest Flight monitor screen in the airport to get the Gate number. All i needed was FLIGHT STATUS, and i must say it is very accurate. The utility of this app is IMPRESSIVE!
4. Streaming videos from my home hard drive using myOrb and Kinoma - while passing time in the hotel room, i was able to access my vast collection of movies and TV shows in my home hard drive by using myOrb software on my home computer and Kinoma 4EX on my Treo. I was able to catch up on some shows i was watching at home from my hotel bed! :D Sweet!
5. Time Zone support of Palm OS - i thought this deserved a special mention. Before Palms, when traveling, i had to keep track of differences in time in the different places i travel to. I also had to adjust and readjust my wrist watch to keep track of time. Those days were gone. With the calendar's great support for Time Zones, you're Palm can get you the real time and give you a better idea of how much time you had between flights and never miss any again. Turning off your Treo before flying and turning it back on upon landing does have its benefits.
While i did see a lot of people using their iPhones in the airport, in the plane, I dont think they have some of the utilities that Palm OS has to offer for frequent flyers. Most have them just for the coolness of it, and not really have any use for it in helping them travel and organize their trips. It is again a testament to the versatility of Palm OS, and again gives us hope that with Palm's new OS, we will continue to have different utilities at our disposal for whatever needs we have.