I never thought I would say this again, but I think Palm just leapfrogged the competition, including the iPhone. The only bad thing about the phone IMO is the name, which is kinda lame and forgettable...
The device itself is beautiful, though, it has a great screen yet remains compact. The UI is very modern and looks intuitive; it has true multitasking and smart notifications. It has that keyboard still missing on the Apple phone, better GPS, Stereo BT which will be an industry standard soon. I love the multi PIM integration, very clever!
Only one question remains in my mind; can Palm recreate the enthusiasm it had generated among the developpers over the years and compete with the amazing collection of cheap and great iPhone Apps? That will be tough. In any case, I think I'll buy one.
A great iPod Touch case at a bargain price
While browsing for a new case for my iPod Touch, I came upon a brand that I had never heard of, Kroo, and decided to try their 'Back Shell", which looked intriguing.
PROS:
Simple, yet elegant design. Multiple colors.
Slim factor, doesn't add any bulk.
Easy to "snap" in place.
Perfect fit with no gaps.
Provides better grip when holding the Touch, like for reading.
Cheap! ($7.99 at Handheld Items).
CONS:
Will not protect the screen much so you need a screen protector.
It's not a carrying case.
Review: Give your iPhone/iPod Touch the cradle it deserves!
There are a lot of Palm Addicts who migrated to the iPhone or the iPod Touch and a lot of those remember the good old days when every Palm came with a decent cradle. If you have an iPhone and you want a cradle the options are pretty limited. Many will consider the Apple dock, but even with the included mini remote it's hard to swallow the $49 Apple asks for that cheap piece of plastic they call a dock.
I personnally think the iPhone and Touch look amazing, and they deserve better, so I set out to find a deserving cradle to put my Touch on display, and I found the perfect one; the PED3, from Thought Out.
DESIGN: This is the coolest part of this cradle IMO. It's a piece of art, with or without your device in it, and when you put it on your desk it's going to get noticed, I guarantie it.
QUALITY: This thing is heavy, it's made of steel, in the USA of all places... The heavy base means it's not going to tip over. Each "finger" has a rubber boots that protect your device and will not harm it.
CHARACTERISTICS and FIT: There are both a Touch and an iPhone model, and each will be a pretty good fit out of the box for their respective, "naked" devices. However, if you have a case, fear not. The fingers can be widened (with pliers in my experience) to fit your case dimensions. Real simple, and effective. The holding "hand" is easy to insert in one of two holes in the base, and it rotates all the way around. There is also a space in the base for your charging/syncing cable.
FUNCTION: OK, so how does it work as a cradle? It's great. The fact that you can rotate it means you can use it in portrait or landscape, meaning you can watch movies, for example. The device doesn't slip out, thanks to the rubber boots. The charging cradle also stays in place easily. One really neat touch is that the two holes for the hand have a rubber insert that give you another degree of angle control, so you can really adjust it to the right viewing angle in all directions.
CONCLUSION: Thought Out sells this for $40, and to me that's a bargain when you consider the quality of the product and the fact that these days $40 is what you have to pay for a decent iPhone case. Though Out also has a car model and a neat "flexible coil" model, the Naja, that you wrap around anything you want to enjoy displaying your device in the most unexpected places. Check out the website and watch the demo videos. My only regret; that I only have one. I wish I could have one at work, one next to my home computer, and one on my bedside table...
Review: Proporta Mirrored Screen Protector for iPod touch
The first thing I usually get after I buy a new PDA or Smartphone is a Screen Protector. Over the years I have tried just about everything; from the cheap ones you get at Walmart to the expensive ones you get at more specialized online stores. One that I had never tried, though, was the "mirrored" kind, so I decided to give this Proporta one a try.
Installation and quality: OK, I don't know if it's just me, but I always mess up when I install those. I clean the screen up, and then after I install the protector I look at the result and ther's always a bubble or a piece of dust under there, which drives me crazy. So, I always buy multiples. This time, though, I was able to do it right the first time, and it really speaks to the quality of this product. I didn't even have to try to avoid bubbles, it did not make bubbles, period. The plastic is sturdy and installs easily; definitely the best one I have seen to date.
Does it work? Yes! And it's just beautiful. When the device is off, and especially if you don't have a case, the device looks like it's silver front and back. It's quite stunning. It's perfect as mirror, especially for the ladies out there, but the protector just makes you iPod look even more cool with it. And of course, your device is protected at the same time.
Pros/cons: I already mentionned the pros, but there are two disadvantages as well. Because of the nature of the protector, it makes the screen a little darker, not that big a deal, since the screen can be set really bright, so that's and easy one to fix. The other one is tougher. With the protector on I noticed more glare, meaning you have to hold the screen at the right angle if you want to eliminate that glare. In my experience, 90% of people won't notice, but it's going to drive the other 10% nuts. Whether you love this product or hate it will depend on which category you fall under. If you want to check it out, click here.
I used my Treo to lose 40 Lbs in 56 days...
Going on vacation to the French and Italian Riviera is a strong motivator to lose weight, but I couldn't have done it without my Treo and a little program called "Diet & Exercise Assistant".
I am not saying this would work for everybody, because one has to find out what motivates him/her to lose weight, but for me, knowing how well I was doing every day really helped. Every day I used the program to find out how many calories I "lost" compared to how much my body used, and I knew for sure that I would lose weight. It's just simple math, really; if you eat fewer calories than you burn by just sitting all day (I work in an office), than those calories have to come from your "reserves".
Diet & Exercise Assistant has a food database that you can use, and you can customize it to add the foods you eat on a regular basis. Inputting all this becomes really simple and fast once you have entered your favorite foods in there. And you can make sure you get enough protein, fiber, etc. Very Good!
Who will start developping for the iPhone?
I am like probably many current Palm users, I am ready to try out the iPhone 2.0 and see what it can do. But I have a bunch of Palm apps that I rely on on my Treo so I am wondering which developers will cross over. Here's my wish list:
Astraware: Come on, can you imagine Bejeweled and Solitaire on the iPhone? I can...
eReader: I am really hoping Fictionwise will develop the eReader software for the iPhone. If not that would be a major blow for me and all my eBooks.
SplashData: Splash ID is a must when you are out and about. Can't imagine the iPhone without something similar to carry all your sensitive info.
Resco: Their programs are too good not to see them on the iPhone.
Handmark: Monopoly, Scrabble, Warfare...
Access on your Palm (the other Access...)
DDH HanDBase is a sophisticated Database for your Palm or Windows Mobile
Device that can take on so many roles, once you get a handle on even a
fraction of all it can do, you'll be wondering how you lived without it.
DDH just released version 4.0, which adds several new features, the most important of which are new security features, with 128 Bit SK encryption, which means that now you can even safely use it as a program for your passwords and other sensitive data.
It would take a lot more than this little review to explain all the ins and out of this App, so I'll start by saying that it's as close to a full-fledge Desktop database program as I have seen. And even though it can sync with Access on your Desktop, you can do all the designing and tweaking right on your PDA or phone. You can even create a new database on your Palm and after syncing it will create the table in Access on your PC. Nifty.
Even if you're new to Databases, DDH has really good basic training videos to show you how to set up your databases, and how to sync them. And if that is too much for you, you can go to their database library and download databases that were created by other users, this way you can start right away.
On my Palm I have a program for basic lists, one for tracking mileage, one for shopping, one for passwords, one for thoughts and ideas, one for my checking account & bills, plus I use Docs To Go to track my client hours in Excel. All this could be handled easily by HanDBase.
And best of all, instead of entering all the info on your Palm in Table Format (think about all the scrolling you would have to do), you can create forms (on your Palm or PC) to make it easier to enter data or view fields. One touch I also liked is the ability to do one way syncs, something I have never seen in a Palm conduit. I am not talking about one side overwriting the other, I am talking about your Palm adding to the database info after every sync, and that's it. This way, you could create business database entry forms for employees in the field, and have them sync to the PC database when they come back to the office. Very useful.
In conclusion, I have tried other similar Apps and they all had something missing. This one has it all, and while $40 may seem steep, when you think about all the uses you can get out of it, it's a bargain.
DateWheel Review
There aren't many Palm Applications with a simpler purpose than DateWheel. All it does is calculates days, business days, weeks or months between two dates. But it does what it's supposed to, and is easy to use. Basically, you give it 2 pieces of information and it'll calculate the third (a date or the interval amount of days).
There are many professions that require calculating lead times, due dates, delays, etc. and if you have ever had to do this manually, you know that it's not as easy as it seems, and when you're done you always have that feeling that you may have made a mistake by a day or two. If you're one of those professions, DateWheel will take the guessing out of the equation and give you the correct answer, fast. You can get an actual plastic date wheel, but come on, this is the 21st century... You already have your Treo in your pocket, use it!
This App is too cheap and too useful not to buy it if calculating dates and day intervals is part of your job, so go check it out.
Trip Boss; The king of all travel Applications...
Trip Boss is a program which has only one purpose; gather all your travel-related information in one place, for easy retrieval.
I am now planning a trip to France so before I got Trip Boss, I had started entering information into several Apps, like Date Book for my itinerary info, List pro for my To Do Lists, Memo Pad for reference info on the places I will visit... And that's just the beginning. What if I wanted to track my expenses and fuel consumption/mileage? Check the exchange rates? Write a journal of the trip? Calculate tips? Do a budget for the trip? Check the status of a flight? How many Apps is that? That's 9 separate programs at least by my count. Trip Boss does all that, and more, and you don't have to keep going back and forth between Apps to find the information, it's all right there, neatly put together.
What I really like about Trip Boss is that it is intuitive to use (the principle of it is based on a actual paper travel log book), yet highly customizable. If I had to picky, I would add a tab for personal info needed during trips, like credit card numbers, passport numbers, that sort of thing, which would of course be encrypted.
Bottom line, if you travel a lot for business, get this program, you need it. If you travel overseas, get it, it'll save you a few headaches. The only down side for me is the price which, at $35, is at the top of the food chain for Palm Apps, but once again, when you consider how many Apps it can actually replace, it's not a bad deal.
Mini-review: DialByPhoto 1.4008, Downgraded?
I have always been a fan of GX-5 products. I have bought Dial By Photo, Treo memo, Treo Weather and the now defunct Pocket Tunes Superpass. Their Apps look great and work great, more Apple-like than Palm-like IMHO, which is a plus to me. However, I had a bad surprise last week with their latest version of DialByPhoto.
I had to hard reset my Treo 700P so I had to re-download DialByPhoto. I got the latest version, and was expecting to set it up the same way that I had it in the past. I was shocked to find out that the current version of Dial By Photo is now a stripped down version that lacks a bunch of features, features that were available from day one when I bought the App. Worse, you can get those features back, but you have to upgrade to their new product: Ultimate Phone, for $5... Yes, it's cheap, but I don't need the new features in Ultimate Phone, so would I have to pay to retain the original product functionality?
For example, if you want to see your photo icons at the bottom of the screen, so you can see your picture, you need to get the new program. If you want to make a quick search on Google online, you need to upgrade. There are other tweaks to the program that do not appear in the menu anymore.
In all my years as a Palm user I have never seen this. It's basically a forced upgrade; if I want to keep the features I have come to rely on for a program I paid for, I have to buy an upgraded program. I sent an email to support and have yet to hear back from them. That's not good.
The program is good, it looks fantastic and does what it says, so if you buy it today, it's still a good buy, but for the early adopters who supported the company with their purchases, it really feels like we're being cheated...