Dear Palm: It's time to fix Calendar 216
Tue, 20 Oct 2009 9:13 am EDT 
The core functions of any Palm device have always been the PIMs: Personal Information Management. That’s your contacts, memos, tasks, and calendar. The contacts app is quite good with the Synergy unified contract, Tasks is has seen some minor improvements, while Memos feels almost toy-like. But that’s not what bothers us the most, for that you have to look at Calendar.
Don’t get us wrong, we think its great that you can pull down our calendars from Google and Exchange and show it all in one view. We like how easy it is to use, but to be frank, it’s simply too slow and too limited. What do I mean by too slow? When I swipe to a new day, it can take seconds for the gray loading overlay to disappear. That wouldn’t be so bad if I could still swipe to another day, but I have to wait for that day to load before I can move to the next. When I move to a day that has several events scheduled it takes even longer to load, which leads me to suspect that the calendar is checking for changes of for each event before letting me interact with or move on from that day.
This makes me wonder where that background multi-tasking is happening; calendar data is on the order a handful of kilobytes, couldn’t this all be synced regularly behind the scenes? Maybe it is, but then I have to wonder why I have to wait for each day to check for changes first - just start a full sync of upcoming days the instant I load the calendar.
Then there’s the month view. Why can’t I be shown the colors of what I have planned that day? It’s good to know that I have something that day and the general time of that something, but no calendar colors means that I have no indication what was scheduled for that day until I actually open that day.
The week view is a touch better, in that I can see the time that I have something scheduled and even what calendar it’s in, but if I want to see any details of that event, I have to click on that day, wait for it to load, and then find the event. In my old Palm OS calendar I could go to week view, tap on an event, and get a small pop-up window of the details of that event. There is little reason for the webOS calendar to lose functionality from the aged Palm OS calendar.
Now let’s say I want to schedule an event for Wednesday in two weeks. If I try to add the event while looking at a different day, I have to know the date that I want to put it on, since the date picker provides dates as a scrolling list of numbers. This does not work if I don’t know what date Wednesday in two weeks is. There are two options that I would consider to be a reasonable change, either add day-of-the-week abbreviations to each date (e.g. 22 H for Thursday, the 22nd) or put in a full month view so that I can easily find Wednesday in two weeks.
The last bone I’m going to pick today with Calendar is the lack of an Agenda view. For as web-connected as webOS is supposed to be, an agenda view for Calendar seems like it should be a no-brainer. Again, this is another old Palm OS calendar feature that seems silly to have been omitted from webOS. But it can go a step beyond the old Agenda view and give us options to view current weather, stock market updates, news headlines, and more, along with a list of my upcoming appointments.
I’d also love to see an agenda view with the ability to display upcoming/past due entries from Tasks, but I know that the Mojo SDK is currently limited in such a way that I can’t pull data from apps - only add data, so that can wait. Oh, and maybe you could update the SDK so that apps can query data from other databases. That would allow, for example, an app like Fandango to check my calendar for conflicts before letting me purchase a movie ticket, and then it can add the movie time to my calendar like it does now.
So, of all the core PIM apps, Calendar is the one in the most need of work to regain lost functionality. You’ve read my desires for an improved Calendar app; how do you want to see Calendar improved?
216 Comments
The Pre calendar sucks, there's no gentle way to say it. Palm totally missed the boat on this. But I'm not really surprised that it hasn't been updated. None of the updates to date have done more than nibble around the edges of fixes the missing features and capabilities of the Pre. I seriously think Palm doesn't care about the PIM apps. They're going after Apple's core consumer market, not the business user, and consumers seem happy with the weak PIM apps on the iPhone, so why should Palm be concerned about them. It's much more important to devote resources to maitaining sync with iTunes, isn't it?
I think Palm has abandoned the user who cares about PIM apps. And from a monetary standpoint it probably makes sense. But I'm afraid they've probably lost me as a customer. Android is looking better and better.
"Android is looking better and better."
+1
webOS has to many deficits for me. the first half of the year I was looking forward to the phone, but I have not bought it, since it is available in Germany. And if there wont be serious improvements in the near future, I wont buy a webOS phone.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/19/motorola-droid-hands-on/
You're being ridiculous. First iTunes sync does not take a team of people hours upon hours to reconfigure, Palm has stated it takes a couple hours tops to restore syncing. Next, I happen to enjoy the extra simplicity I get from letting iTunes handle my playlists/smart playlists.
Lastly, you sit there and shit on Palm when you have absolutely no clue what the he'll they're working on behind the scenes. Frankly I couldn't give two shitts about the calendar and I use it EVERYDAY. the web browser needs to be tweaked (why can't I just tap and hold on a link to get a dialog box to openit in a new card? why do I have to pop open the keyboard to press Orange + tap, hold?)
The music app needs to be fixed (needs a scrubber, ability to make playlists, and possibly a podcast downloader), Messaging could use a few more IM protocols and less battery drain, and Phone could definitely benefit from visual voicemail.
I feel like you just did a very good job of proving his point.
Might I add some form of contact integration with calendar is necessary. I make appointments with people, but the calendar only recognizes text and can't see my contacts.
I agree 100% and would add that ALL my task and ALL memos are also related in some way to contacts. Also, history should be a option that is defaulted to the on position.
Bruce
"People centric."
Like Google Calendar already does.
The point about iTunes isn't that it takes time, it's an indication of Palm's priorities. They really, really think this iTunes sync) is important. That says volumes about their priorities, to me.
And yeah, all those other things need to be fixed, too. Yet more examples of how far behind the competition WebOS is. Thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate your support. (;-)}
Your eloquence belies your intelligence. Or, does it?
I definitely have to agree! I know it's a 1.0 device but I can't believe Palm would slack off on their #1 feature that they are know for: PIM. I have no idea how they can market webOS to business much less consumers with the poor speed and overly simplistic PIM features they currently have.
webOS has a bright future IMO, but as it stands right now, the Pre and webOS are nothing more then a "jack of all trades; master of none" device!
I partially agree to your comments about PIM:
The Palm Pre is supposed to target the busy professionals and entrepreneurs.
Sorry, but I am NOT interested in Games and a like. And social networks are presently a nice to have, but - at least for me - not important to survive as a business.
However, PIM is essential to me.
Especially the address book is very important to me. Carrying over 2000 addresses in the AB. Contacts ranging from business, family, friends, club members, etc. Many of them belonging to more than one category.
Further, I make heavy use of the Tasks/ToDo's for planning my day and all my tasks. Also there, I rely heavily on the categories, tags.
So it is a killer argument to have proper PIM.
More fields and very important:
Support for categories/tags for at least contacts and tasks, preferable also for notes. (Does calendar has categories / tags? Or only different calendars? If not yet, there we also need categories/tags.)
Nice to have would be multiple categories, tags per contact
(and also for tasks, etc.).
So if the PIM is upgraded, the Palm Pre is one major step closer to be my next device.
Greetings from Switzerland,
Rolf
Wife has owned 5 Palms in the last 15 years, but will never trust Palm again after the Pre. It's disappointingly, unbelievably unqualified for business use, or even personal appointments.
She says that dropping 'arrow' keys was a serious oversight. All her old Palms had many valuable features that are just missing on the Pre. What'd they do? Hire a bunch of kids that never saw a Palm before?
And the Calendar app has all the qualities you'd expect from a toy.
All Calendar alarms let out a weak 'ding-dong' and that's all, with no possibility - anywhere - for any other sound, period. Toy. Sure hope you don't carry your Pre in a purse; you didn't hear it? Aww, you missed your meeting. Toy. I need to know the correct future date before I can go to it? Toy. Do mental jiu-jitsu to make up for all the Calendar's shortcomings? Toy.
I got a Motorola CLIQ (Google Android). Calendar alarms on it were similarly crippled, but I found out how to fix it (add a folder named notifications to the included Micro SD Card and put MP3's in it - done). My Calendar alarms are now a 4-minute, cancelable song titled, "Aren't You Jealous?" Haven't missed an alarm yet.
iPhone has about 70,000 apps. Android has over 1,000. Pre has about 80. Toy. It's supposedly open-source, but I read an awful lot of complaints from developers about undocumented API's that really screw them up, especially after forced updates. No wonder there are only 80 apps. And don't bother trying to free up space by getting rid of the NASCAR or NFL apps - they don't come out.
If Palm's philosophy was to chase iTunes kiddies (I'm ignoring NASCAR and NFL) rather than legitimate PDA/PIM functions for business and personal use, well, I guess that qualifies the Pre as a music toy attached to a $200 phone. Wife would probably like her Pre more if it looked like an iPod and she were an 11-year-old girl with a big allowance and her own iTunes account.
It's sad that the developer community seems to be made up of ambitious kids and young adults, working alone, on their own time, and can come up with important fixes and useful apps, but Palm - the guys who actually wrote the code - can't figure it out. It sort of looks like the genius behind it all must have moved on, and the guys left behind are just lamers who work cheap. It may or may not be rocket science, but these guys are clearly in over their heads. They seem to have forgotten that the purpose of good software is to intuitively help us with all those dull, repetitive tasks, not the other way around.
I second the *toy* PIM functionality. Such a good OS.. such a bad PIM. Where did the former PalmOS PIM developers go?
And what the heck are the guys at Palm use for their schedules? I guess not the Pre calendar or ToDo.
Very very sad.
I concur. Also, it takes a bit longer than it should if you want to add a quick appointment. It should only take 10 seconds to add a quick one containing "Title", "Date" and "Time"
My main gripe is that all-day events don't show up in the month view. So if you quickly need to check if you're free a certain weekend, you might think you are when in reality there are all-day events that weekend.
How many updates have come out now, and this OBVIOUS oversight has yet to be fixed? Seriously, come on Palm. Don't be like Apple, who almost always gets a product 98% right and misses the most important 2%.
There are other issues, like WebOS getting slower after a heavy web browsing session. This is just embarassing.
Please fix these things.
Re: all-day events in month view, there's a patch for that.
And that patch doesn't work in WebOS 1.2.1 (or 1.2.0, apparently, but I've only tried it with 1.2.1).
All well and good, but why should users have to apply an unsupported patch to fix something that Palm should address? And since such a patch exists, one would think that all the leg work is done, so Palm should be able to get it done in short order.
Yes, I know that testing is required... but it's been how long...???
but it's been how long...???
Lest we forget... about four months? Yeah, they're due. But in the grand scheme of things the night is still young.
I like the pre's calendar. It's not great, but better than anything I have had before.
My personal list of improvements would be:
1.) fix the lag issue, which you have already mentioned.
2.) let me enter events into the last half hour by tapping on it. right now, when I try to enter my appointments on the half-hour, it automatically puts it on the hour, even on top of another appointment I may have at that time. That just seems wierd to me.
3.) you already mentioned the agenda view. I have the agenda program from the homebrew forum, which I put on my launcher, instead of calendar. I would likean agenda view, but I would also want to be able to set it as the default view. Which brings up being able to make any view the default view.
I like your list. I also use agenda from homebrew exactly like you do.
I would also add this to your list:
4) Make the date picker show a month or week view. This applies to more than just calendar, but it's most frequently encountered in calendar.
Early Palm had serious human-factors engineering looking at every interface to ensure the smallest number of clicks was necessary to perform a task. They seem to have abandoned some of this experience in favor of a "pretty" interface, which is a mistake!
In the classic Palm calendar, navigating from one date to another is intuitive and fast. For the Pre, it is slow and clunky. The month view of the classic Palm interface would be much better. For people that like drop down lists, let them keep using them, but they are very slow compared to the classic interface.
I keep looking for something that had the user friendliness and productivity of the original Palm PIM apps and there is nothing out there. I gave up on my 700p because of the lame web browser and lack of wi-fi, but I miss everything else about it.
I'm currently using a Treo Pro and my girlfriend has a Pre. Also looked at the Hero, it doesn't even have a week view for the calendar. None of them compare to the Palm operating system when it comes to PIM functions.
The strange thing is, their beauty was in their simplicity. Since they were simple, why can't they be duplicated? What could be so hard about making a memo app like the Palms, it wasn't that complicated.
Why can't task lists display as many tasks as you could see on the Palm? Why can't you easily switch categories.
Did you ever se the program MyWeek on the Palm? What a great way to view your weeks appointments.
Everybody seems to be focusing on the bells and whistles to wow potential customers. But there still has to be a huge market for people who want solid PIM functions.
While I agree that the calendar needs serious work, I must admit that I've seen a great improvement in the lag issue after installing the 1.2 update. At least for me the lag is diminished to the point that the calendar is actually usable.
I can only think you've never used a phone with a first rate calendar, then. Compared to the calendar on the Treo 600 (what, 4, 5 years ago?), the Pre calendar is a pale shadow. Compared to DateBk6, or Agendus, or even Outlook on a Winmob device (and I hate Winmob), the calendar on the Pre is even worse.
Yeah.. Datebk6. THAT's how a calendar MUST be for real life besides oneappointmentperweek.
Miss that the most.
I'd start with just the basic function of geting Facebook to sync at the right time. Not all of us live on the west coast. It's a shame that synergy can't do something as basic as that.
Yeah. I had to import my Facebook calendar into Google Calendar and then sync that down to my Pre. GCal gets the time offset right, and even if it didn't, I think it has some manual tweaks for correcting time zones.
Palm should just buy the Homebrew Agenda program from its developer. I don't even use the calendar icon anymore, thanks to Agenda...
Agenda is where it's at. Also I use it together with Quick Event. I love those 2 programs. It takes away some of the bitterness. Now I would also like a down-loadable maps for those trips off the grid (with updates of major roads) and a good idea organizer. Evernote is not a good solution for me. Instead I've been using Gmail drafts to jot down notes and sync them later.
Also I would like to have an undo button.
Instead of dials that go up and down, they should have circular-wrap dials or something.
I think the notes/memo function needs to be completely updated also. It is pitiful, just like the iPhones. The old Palm OS Memos were much better.
Palm could fix it easily by working with Evernote to create a WebOS Evernote App that can store the notes on the Pre itself instead of just in the cloud. Otherwise, make the new Memo app like the old one.
seeing how limited the standard webOS programs are, it questions palms statement about how easy it is to develop webOS programs. if it is that easy and goes that fast, as palm likes to mention, why isn't palm able to build some solid standard programs?
I totally agree with you. I have never thought about it this way better and makes perfect sense. If it is that easy why are these things not being done.
Because Palm is being lazy. Independent developers seem to be able to create some patches/apps within a few days, or weeks at most. Palm is dragging it's feet with a whole development team. If this phone were everything we were promised when they first introduced it, it wouldn't even have to try and compete with the iPhone. It would be something entirely unique, with an eye on productivity over hip/fun.
I believe the development is being held up by the SDK limitations. Palm IS releasing more advanced SDK capabilities regularly. The more rock solid they make the programming environment the better in the long run, and rock solid takes a bit of time. (someone with more insight than myself please comment)
maybe. but when people walk into a store and try out a phone hoping to buy they don't care about any of those excuses.
I've never had an issue with the speed of the calendar. When I see these complaints I wonder if I must be the only one who feel this way. That said, I do have a problem with the fact that you can't send invites from events you create on the pre. I'm hoping that can be addressed in upcoming updates.
Try having several calendars - personal, family, sports team, holiday... - you will soon see how slow the response is. I was able to speed up the app slightly by reducing the number of calendars, but how lame is that?!?
Palm needs to get this core app fixed now!
Man. Can't properly sync, can't tether, can't even get the *calendar* right? I keep holding on to my 755p in the hope that they'll sort the first two our, but they can't even get the third - as basic as it gets - right?
Android, here I come.
Yep, I still find my 755p to be superior, in terms of actually getting work done, to the Pre. I'm still unconvinced Android is the answer, however. But my Treo has life in it yet. In another 6 months, I think I'll have a better idea which way to go.
Dear Palm,
It's time to fix the tasks. I live and die by the tasks. What's missing? Repeating tasks, powerful sorting, and a viable desktop management environment. That's all. It's simple. But until I get them the Pre is a phone only for me. I have used the tasks functionality heavily on the Palm since my first Palm 1000 back in 1996. I stayed with Palm until the mid 2000s when I left for the HTC Blue Angel, a device with the pre form factor (albeit a larger screen) But WinMo blows and I was so excited to get back to Palm. However, I'm just using the Pre as a phone (with a really great contacts app) and still using a T3 for PIM functionality because I rely on DateBk 6.
I've tried the web interface to todoodle and RTM, too clunky, and I refuse to use classic as a matter of principle.
To be honest, Palm doesn't really need to fix the PIMs, I personally feel that the PIMs they provided out of the box were always pretty weak. What we really need is Pimlical, Agendus, or Pocket Informant for the Pre, and hopefully soon!
Anyone have some insider information on these products?
I agree regarding tasks! From my Pilot and Treo days it was singularly the ONE portion I used daily. Quick and unobtrusive, and most importantly, SYNCABLE.
How this has been lost is just mind boggling. I'm really disappointed that the PIM portions of the Pre are so substandard to a 10 year old OS, from the company that perfected the PIM!
Don't get me wrong, I love the pre, but I feel i'm LESS productive with it in many ways, since my workflow for my tasks has been obliterated.
Was not anyone on the Pre development team an adherent of GTD??
+1 for both parent & grandparent.
Another one here that wishes they'd fix tasks.
It was actually my most used app on
my old Treo. I used it for work tasks, shopping
lists, checklists for trips and events and misc lists
of anything. I reuse the lists over and over for years
and add new frequently.
The view was simple and dense and useful.
The Pre's tasks are toylike and almost unusable
by comparison. Not to mention that I've been
unable to get tasks sync'd off my Treo to Pre either
directly or through Outlook.
Hear hear! I am stuck with my Treo 755 until they fix tasks and notes and have FULL DESKTOP SYNC! My Outlook has never synced correctly with Google Calendar and I don't want my calendar on google anyhow. (My patients' private medical appointment information should not really be in "the cloud"). I cannot beleive that this was not available on release. I have been eligible to upgrade my phone since July but I will not purchase a Pre until these issues are fixed.
Indeed. I wish they could put Stewart Dewar (Pimlico/DatebkX fame) in charge of fixing this.
DateBk is soooo good compared to the Pre calendar. Steuart Dewar licensed a dumbed down version of DateBk to Handspring for inclusion on the Treo 300. That SEVEN YEAR OLD CALENDAR is STILL better than the Pre calendar.
It included tasks. It included an Agenda view. It included categories. There was ZERO lag between views.
Please Palm... fix this. This laggy weakling of a calendar is still giving me buyers remorse and makes me miss my 755p. I can't live on hope and potential forever. At some point you have to bring the goods and deliver on this VERY basic and essential functionality.
I could not agree more. I am totally dependent on my DateBk6 calendar on my Treo. Palm should contract with Steuart and give him full access to the OS (not just javascript). He would be able to write a kick-ass calendar app. OR just set him up to port Pimlical over to the Pre and bundle that with the Pre. Just as good.
aviduser
I LOVE THIS IDEA !!! find someone that gets it... and pay them to do it.
Yes, that was my first thought when I saw how bad the Pre calendar is for the first time.
But they even didn't answer him on his numerous requests about ANY needed webOS information. Very sad but true.
I agree to 100% that the task part become lousy, as you can see in my BIG comment on nexy page... And I did point out that just a week after the PalmPre came, without any reactions then - but that was maybe to early and people was maybe to occupied with the candy of Pre to notice that the really important functionality suddenly was missing!?!
I would really like to see all day events some how show up for the day in month view. It could add a colored border to the day cell to indicate this.
Derek, the Agenda homebrew app is amazing. I use it everyday. I hope you have some time to download it and try it out. It would be great if palm would buy this guys app.
I have to agree completely with Derek. The best things on the Treo 755 were the speed to access the calender and shortcuts like holding the function button and then being able to go a week at a time with the nav button but then again we had functional/programable buttons that are missing now. I must say that the speed has improved dramatically with 1.2.1. Prior to that it would take >10 seconds to load the calender (I timed it) and now it's "only" 5-7 seconds-which is 4-6 seconds too long.
I agree, Palm YOU HAVE TO SPEED UP THE CALENDER. There are no two ways about it. Oh, and please give us an agenda view. AND allow us to ADD a calender event quickly somehow, preferably throug universal search.
I live by the week, often with need to jump down the month - so I really wish Palm would make the views for those better. I need to be able to see events occurring in both the week and the month without leaving the view for either - especially since if you pop to the day view from either of these views, a back gesture takes you to the card view instead of the view you just left. While the iPhone never had a week view, it at least let you see the schedule for a day in month view at the bottom of your screen. This would mostly alleviate the issue of the gray boxes in month view for me.
But the killer is week view. I need an awesome week view. The best I ever had was PocketInformant on the iPhone (screenshots here: http://bit.ly/YNMLy). It'd sort your view so you had a Agenda view for the entire week separated into boxes, plus showing you a mini-timeline of your day (great for me, since I hate normal Agenda views). In addition to that week view, there was one where it'd show you a timeline version of your week at the top and the bottom part of your screen was your day - basically the iPhone's month view condensed down to one week instead of all four.
i agree with most of what was said here. i love the agenda program in the homebrew apps.
one more thing i would like that i didnt see mentioned is the ability to copy an event and paste it on a different date. my old winmo phones had this, and when i have an appointment, when i go to schedule my next one, its easier to just copy and paste it into a different date/time rather than type out all of the same info. the problem is compounded when it takes 15 seconds to view the date i want to set it to before i can even determine if that date is feasible.
+1 on how wonderful it would be to be able to quickly copy an entire calendar event to another date/time.
I would also like to be able to send/generate meeting requests from the calendar - not just appointments.
Make the calendar fixes P2, and work on the phone (isn't that right, this is still a phone??) first. Too laggy, unresponsive, often requiring close of dialer app 2 or 3 times before a call can go through.
For those of you carrying a Palm Pre as an emergency calling device, DON'T! You could easily die before you can finally place a call. Dialer is without a doubt the greatest POS on the market.
I will glady show a youtube video of my Pre and my gf's Pre as we have NEVER has one issue with the dialer.
I keep seeing this and wondering why so many people have issues with it. I'm thinking maybe some of these patches could be slowing down our phone?
Try a free reinstall or something...mine works great.
I think you need to check into possible hardware or software issues with your unit. My phone dialer has never been unresponsive, and I haven't ever had to restart it to make a call.
Floating events!
I have seen that if a facebook event's time gets changed, it does not reflect in WebOS, but of course shows correct in facebook.
Maybe this isn't an issue with me because I don't have my calender synced with my job. It takes maybe 1-2 seconds to pop up my monthly view (with the patch) and going thru days has never been difficult.
Yep. Weekview is what I really want. Used datebk on palm and agenda one on win mob. It is by far the most useful view.
Tasks I like. Simple and easy and it syncs with exchange. Most of the task programmes on android or the iphone are far too complicated.
A week-at-a-time view with readable details would be a big win.
I agree regarding the weekview.
This is a must.
Regarding sync:
My wife and myself run 2 businesses. We therefore run several websites at a hosting company.
There is also the groupware. (Horde) Which has a SyncML inteface.
They have even free funambol (SyncML) clients for outlook, iPhone, WinMob.
Since I am not a big fan of trusting big players like M$ or Google (despite liking many of eg. Google services), I would like to have the OPTION to choose, where I want to host my data in the cloud.
So what I'd like to have:
Open the synergy account for other SyncML accounts. So one can configure its own Groupware sync.
Important for all PIM parts: Contacts, calendar, ToDos, Memos.
(=Still in the cloud but less risky as at one large provider, like Google. Which is more attractive to get hacked.)
Greetings from Switzerland
Rolf
I would just like to see upcoming appts displayed on the Home Screen. When I want to schedule something I used to be able to look at the screen quickly and just see if I had anything coming up over the next couple of days now I have to click on Agenda or open the calendar, then go to the day etc. That is one thing I really miss about my old Windows Mobile phone.
It is nice that Palm keeps putting out all of these apps but how about making some changes to the actual OS that is a perk for those of us that have been on board since the beginning waiting to see WebOS grow.
I don't have the time today to read all of the other entries, but I imagine I agree with most if not all. I would like to suggest that Palm look at "DateBook6" as an example. I used this app on my trea and loved every thing about it. I would think that many of it's functions could be incorp'ed into the pre calendar. Maybe having a view where you can see text on the month would be a great start.
Thanks, for listening
agreed.
How about make Universal Search be able to search through everything in the calendar
Also, for those of us who don't use a Google/online calendar, is there an option to completely turn off Google and Palm Profile calendar updating?
SEARCH!!!! That is the thing I miss the most. I'll grant you all that there are plenty of other annoyances with the calendar app, but for now we are resigned the old guess-and-browse method of calendar search. Pain in my butt.
Also, what's up with reminder times? On my Centro, I could set it for almost anything I wanted simply by typing it. Ex. "23 days" or "170 hours". You could pick a time such that it would remind you at the most useful time. I got in the habit of setting remindersto go off 5 minuted before I would leave the house in the morning.
No question, the old Palm calendar was the bomb, I only hope my beloved Pre can have all these features someday too.
It looks like I'm in the minority here, but I have no problems with the speed of the calendar. I sync with my 2 gmail calendar accounts, have 4 calendars each, and on the order of 12-20 appointments/items a day. Never once have I noticed any lag like what you're describing
I just want to be able to swipe between months.
You can. You just have to swipe up and down, not side to side.
sometimes swiping left is delete.
sometimes swiping up is delete.
sometimes clicking the trashcan is delete.
the same goes on with other gestures...
Ooo, thanks for this tip!
That said, this has got to take some sort of prize for most bone-headed UI choice on a smartphone. Day view uses side-to-side swiping. Weekview uses side-to-side swiping. So of course, month view uses up and down for UI consistency...oops.
The pathetic thing is, the side-to-side swipe is apparently unused in month view, so there isn't even some lame design excuse for the inconsistency.
It's because they're mimicking the way you look at a real calendar in the month view. Do you flip the pages side to side or up and down?
"real calendar"? What is this "real calendar" of which you speak? What operating system did it run on?
Seriously though, consistency matters. If you make an analogy to paper calendars, you could make the exact same argument for day view and week view mimicking tearing off the previous $TIMEUNIT$'s page. But they didn't, and I suspect most Pre users never noticed they could move month-to-month with a gesture. Poor design.
You sir, are a scholar and a gentleman (my apologies if you are female).
My main complain about the calendar app is the date picker. I much prefer a small month view where I can tap on a date instead of the current, tap, scroll, tap for month then tap, scroll, tap for date. There are many times when I know I want to pick something like "next Tuesday", but i don't know the date.
All the basic apps are a letdown for me and don't compare with the original PalmOS apps. It seems like so much attention to detail was put into the new features of the phone and they just let things slide with the core functionality.
Yes, a "month view" dat picker would be far superior to the three separate fields.
+1 Second that.
Don't forget that all Facebook events in the calendar are converted to PST time even though they aren't PST. Made me 3 hours late for a couple events.
You missed a very important problem that I'm seeing with the calendar application when syncing with an exchange server. When you click snooze on a calendar reminder or even completely ignore it when it sync's with exchange it removes it from your reminder.
Net result, if you have a Pre syncing with your exchange account you will NEVER get a reminder on any calendar events on your desktop with Outlook installed!!!! ahhhhhhhhhhh I only see a reminder for couple of seconds then as soon as you do anything on the Pre it removes the reminder from the exchange account. You have no clue how frustrating this is. I have pretty much missed every appointment since I got this Pre it is not working nearly as well as my Treo 755 with Palm OS. This needs to be fixed before anything else!!!
@whoamib
I would purge all calendar accounts and reload if I were you because that behavior is NOT normal. I have 3 calendars synced to my Pre (Outlook EAS (via OWA), Goodle 2-Cals, Sports) and I average 3 meeting reminder per day and get them all on the Pre AND desktop. The ACTUAL problem there is not being able to increase the reminder from 5 minutes! To est speed, I ran Cal 10 opens and view switches for each view and came up with the following.
Open Cal App (ALL) = 1.6 sec
Switch to Week (ALL) = 1.8 sec
Switch to Month (ALL) = 1.2 sec
Open Cal App (Outlook) =
Love the Pre, calendar is my biggest issue. I constantly keep people waiting in a meeting while i check my calendar and you wouldn't believe how frustrated these people get with me.
I agree whole-heartedly!
I hope Palm listens. The concept of synergy is powerful, but the execution is L-A-G-G-Y.
Overall I love the calendar. I only have one minor change request. I want to see different default calendar entry durations, specifically 15 minutes. I do a lot of scheduling in 15 minute increments and it's a hassle to set an appointment and manually change each one to 15 minutes. But other than that, I really don't mind the calendar and like the way it works.
Another issue that I am having with the calendar is that I cannot accept appointments that are sent via emails. I have tried and tried to figure this out with no luck. My wife and I send calendar events back and forth frequently so we know what is going on in our busy lives. We both had blackberry curves and it worked perfect. When I switched to the PRE, the only thing I get in the email is a bunch of lines of words. The PRE cannot handle the appointment message contents for some reason. This is a major downer for me. I have to wait to get home to my PC to open the email and accept the appointment into my outlook calendar and then sync that with my google calendar. Then finally the PRE calendar syncs. That is ridiculous. This alone is enough for me to switch phones as soon as I'm up for an upgrade. Not counting the beta (like) OS and software and the flimsy feel of the phones build quality.
It's baffling that the Pre can't send calendar events over bluetooth
I agree with some of you but I also have an iPhone and it took Apple 3 versions of the iPhone and 3 years to simply add MMS and a couple other features found on the cheapest of phones for years and some of these "new" things only work on the newest 3GS iPhone. A big slap in the face to older owners and now Apple is locking down the iPhone from jailbreaking with every new update and new iPhone. Palm is very open to this and thats great.
Palm has already released a couple updates and I heard a rumor another is coming in the next couple weeks. For what doesn't come standard on the Pre there are homebrew apps for many things already.
Anyone who bought the Pre should have realized its version 1 of both the hardware AND OS. I went thru these same growing pain with the original iPhone and expected it with the Pre. I have some frustrations too dont get me wrong but for most things it works well.
"A big slap in the face to older owners and now Apple is locking down the iPhone from jailbreaking with every new update and new iPhone."
there is a reason I don't have an iPhone. but this does not make the basic apps on the pre better. the pre has a great concept with the card and the notification system. but beside this, the basic apps are lacking in -- more or less -- every area.
I'm sick of hearing about how Apple did it, so it's ok if other companies do it. No, it was no ok when Apple did it, and since they got away with it, other companies think they can too. The problem is that they forget that people will buy anything that Apple sticks its logo on. This is not the case for Palm products. Many people have been talking about switching to Android phones due to Palm falling back on old tricks. It's all fine and good that they've sold enough Pres to keep them going, but they'll have no future as a company if they don't get their act together now. The Pre is a failure on what was promised. Go back and read articles from its introduction. Many of the features that Palm promised as have been absent thus far. I was fine with being an early adopter and waiting for the upgrades that should've come within the first few months. Someone who buys now isn't an early adopter and would be getting a phone that's really not that far off from those of us who purchased on day 1.
Seriously. I agree wholeheartedly. I kind of facepalmed when I read the title of this article because I knew this would happen. The article itself is excellent, but the amount of complaining for complaining's sake in the comments is astounding. The phone and OS has been out in the whole wide world for less than 5 months now. Please, let me know of an operating system that was released and filled all the needs of its audience in 5 months. I can understand the need to let Palm know what your gripes with the phone are (and I have a few, too, besides agreeing with every point in the original article), but the extreme sense of entitlement that colors (soaks?) most of the comments in this article is ridiculous.
Someone said that Palm is being lazy?? Give me a break. This has got the be the fastest roll out of new features to an operating system that I can recall in recent memory. Call it what you want, you're early adopters of a brand new operating system and device and you just have to deal/live with that fact in your heads.
Thanks for this post, Derek. The calendar speed is a major issue, and I hope Palm will address it soon. I've resorted to using the homebrew Agenda app to get a view of my appointments without a heavy delay.
Does anyone know how to sync the weather on the calendar? That seems like a really cool feature. =]
Subscribing to Weather is an option in Google Calendar. I have the phases of the moon, too.
I haven't noticed anyone mention this maybe its just me. I would like to make my own account on the phone. For example, make an account green for my work schedule, and another color for meetings. And of coarse make everything faster.
This is another option in Google Calendar. Sync your phone with a google account, then create multiple calendars in that account. The Pre lets you show and hide different calendars.
I certainly wouldn't mind if the calender was faster but the two things I'd most like to see added are the ability to enter categories (and sync them) and the ability to search the calendar.
I use the calendar as a work log and really need a way to designate events as billable.
People often ask me when the next something or other meeting is. With the current calendar I have to sort of remember when it is. Look at a monochrome month view and see if there's something on or near the date I think it is and then switch to day view and see if I was right.
The thing that makes this most frustrating is that my old 650 Treo was able to do both of these things with ease.
Categories are a must!! This multiple calendar thing is nice, but in Outlook, you can have categories within each calendar. Great for swapping calendars with a significant other or anyone
I seriously miss categories from my imported calendar events from my Tungsten T3. Categories are incredibly useful for calendar events! I don't want to have to create a Google account and then move all my events to different calendars to get this feature back -- I'd rather have this feature built into the calendar like it is in older Palm models.
I agree with just about everything that has been said here: improvements to the calendar, mainly SPEED are a must.
HOWEVER... Those who say Android is better at this are mistaken. My wife just got an HTC Her, supposedly the best Android device to date. While it is faster and DOES have agenda view, it lacks several features: no week view, no attendees view, and you can't choose which calendars can be seen at any given time. Month view only shows a little "tick" mark in the upper right hand corner if you have an event... you have no idea if it's in the beginning, middle, or end of the day. But most importantly, no ability to import MULTIPLE calendars! No Facebook calendar. No Exchange calendar... Only Google calendars... and JUST ONE account at that.
So yeah, Palm has work to do, but so do others, TRUST ME.
I was just about to bring that up, myself. Thanks for pointing it out.
Everyone keeps forgetting that the Pre is a brand new product that is built from the ground out. It is not an upgrade of the Treo. Stuff is not missing from the Pre, functionality has not been implemented yet.
This is a 1.0 smartphone and I'm ecstatic with it and the monthly fee from Sprint.
I agree that there are important changes that need to be made, so that it is more usable for my workflow.
Derek, how about a creating a poll with the top 20 features that people want. Hopefully, this bring bring some focus to the people at Palm as to the most important features that they should be working.
Thank you to all the people of PreCentral for the community that you have worked to develop. And thank you to all of the commenters and developers in the forums. You guys have made this smartphone a better one.
Checking in feeling appreciative (joy),
-Alexei
"Everyone keeps forgetting that the Pre is a brand new product that is built from the ground out. It is not an upgrade of the Treo. Stuff is not missing from the Pre, functionality has not been implemented yet. This is a 1.0 smartphone and I'm ecstatic with it and the monthly fee from Sprint."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
all these truly scares me. Palm OS PIM is the most simple and intiutive PIM even if you put against the current paid apps like PocketInformant and Agendus. I bought a Treo Pro in May coz I needed a phone pda combo until Pre hits Asia (my guess is July 2010). now I'm not sure I should wait anymore.
PALM, WAKE UP! seriously..i mean, you got a community of early adopters beta testing...a free staff of app developers, who share same beta testing pool...
and everybody's like "oh, but they're on like 1.3 of the OS...nobody updates so quickly and with such concern"...who gives a rats ass...
i just got done negotiating with an attorney over a contract for the services of my partner and i...we had LOTSA revisions...sure...but every time i sent her a revision with a question, instead of either adopting my revision or striking it and explaining why, she would answer with another question...over and over...answering my question with a question...
TONS of revisions, no substance.
PALM: stop it...just stop...for godsake...stop it...fix this beautiful goddam phone that we waited for...coming to this website 5 times a day for 6 months to get the details...watching you not let reporters hold it...is this why? cuz it's a prop? upon use it just buckles?
you know...we should all be doing the class action dance over this goddam app limit crap...instead we're waiting...you got guys giving you their own precious time...in front of the computer...delivering an on-screen keyboard for you...a library of patches that are so obvious...pick ANY 10 of them and you'd have a better phone...man.
there was a promise of elegance with this device...we didn't manufacture this in our geek brains...you guys made this out to be elegant..."ooooh shaped like a pebble, designed with lines and curves straight from nature"..."synergy...thinks for you"..."ooooh, cards, run multiple apps"...
dude...i gotta charge this thing all f&@#ing day just to talk on it...there ain't nothin elegant about that...
but, here i am, everyday like a deuche bag, talking my friends and their wives out of the HERO..."no, no...look, see...you can open this up, and this up..oh, and then just toss it up when you're done..." "wooooowww!? oh I do like that one...so the [iphone,hero,mytouch] can't do that?! oh wow...i gotta get that one"....and everytime sizing up whether or not their husband or boyfriend have an iphone before i show them the coin flip app...ya know...cuz' a' how weak the accelerometer responsiveness is compared to the iphone...
i mean who the f*#k do you think drove your stock price up? We HERE are the world's nerd council...the dude at work who knows about "this" stuff..."oh my neighbor works in IT i'll ask him"..."oh hey, you should ask your brother about that, doesn't he work with computers?"
any way PALM...pull it together...i'd say hire me but you can't afford me...my salary and options would screw up that ponzi thing you got going with bono (#2)...
+1
-2
I see now why there were so many revisions! It's because you always use three keystrokes for punctuation when one will suffice!
I keed, I keed.
I don't think the app limit thing is exactly a class-action suit kind of thing. We're also waiting because we know Palm is actually working on a fix.
That being said, I agree with you about the patches. I've been saying this. Why is it that a bunch of guys sitting at home on their comp can just spew these things out, but Palm, with a whole team of developers can't seem to get any of these done in the months that they've had. And it doesn't take a huge amount of market research to see if people want these features. Just look at the download numbers from sites like this.
I seriously wonder what the Palm developers do with all their time. The first big update, which came weeks after the phone was release, had such minor upgrades. Things can slightly smoother, and oh, the system sounds were a couple semi-tones lower. The facebook issue could've easily been fixed. If it's a problem on facebook's end with how they time things, then Palm could very easily create a work-around where all facebook events are re-timed based on the time zone you're in. But here we are months later, and they can't even seem to fix that.
I HATE the Pre Calendar. I need to be able to tell at a glance from the month view what I have going on during the month. I'm waiting for my fav Datebk to have their native version for the Pre (not through the Classics app).
Besides the speed of navigating the calendar (which is downright embarrassing if I try to access it in front of people), the biggest problem I have is the limited choice of reminder times.
On my Treo, I can set a reminder for 90 minutes, or 3 hours, or whatever amount leaves me enough time to get ready and travel to the event. On the Pre, I can't choose anything between 1 hour and 1 day. Why? It makes the Pre a lot less useful than the Treo for event reminders.
really? it is not possible to just say, I want it ring 2 hours before the event or eg 15 min?
Yes, I really miss the reminders flexibility of my Tungsten T3. There you could set the reminder for an arbitrary (1 or 2 digit) number of days or hours or minutes before the event. That kind of interface would be a lot more useful than what we have.
I strongly dislike all of the "rolling" drop-down lists that one must scroll through. I know that in many cases I can use the keyboard to more quickly select, but this falls into the category of human factors failure. Any interface that does the equivalent of making people switch back and forth between mouse and keyboard (here "mouse" is the touch screen) very frequently has failed human factors engineering.
I accidentally ended up with 10 or more calendars in my Pre. I added each of my kids gmail, for them to see how it works, facebook, my gmail, etc. When I removed all but Exchange for work, and my gmail, the speed was bearable again. The calender definitely needs improved, and we need to be able to flip thru days without waiting for the day to download or whatever is going on.
and please let us type in a number for reminders like in palm os. Why on god's green earth would you change this???
How about allowing me to add my Yahoo calender? Yeah, that would be nice ...
or calendar*
Amen!!
But Derek's article only scratches the surface of the calendar problems. He has a good start and my additions are certainly not all-encompassing, but here are a few more reasons why my recommendation to potential Pre customers who use a mobile calendar is "Don't Buy One Yet."
Before the Pre can be considered by many calendar-dependent business users as a serious business tool, it needs to work at least as quickly for data entry and schedule review as competitors. Let's consider these issues as well:
- it takes far too many steps (taps & animated pop-ups) to make an appointment
- Derek mentioned moving from today to tomorrow or yesterday should be INSTANT but I KNOW the problem is on the Pre itself because this horrible performance persists even in Airplane Mode when the Pre CAN'T possibly be polling the server. (those 2-3 seconds per page, just to draw a calendar page, really add up if you need to flip through a week or two) and this is a BIG problem in my world
- the clumsy method for rescheduling appointments - if you want to move your appt to next Wednesday, FIRST you flip to the day you want to change the appointment to so you can find out what the date is BEFORE you navigate back to the appointment you want to change and edit it, because once you enter the dialog to change the appt. there are nothing but numerical options
- the total lack of a search function is crazy - but I wouldn't complain if they would just come out and say, 'Yes. We'll add search in the calendar eventually.' I don't even need it soon.
- Why bother animating the accordion? I'm usually in a hurry to enter new appointments and now I have to go to the day, scroll to the time, and if I happen to have a couple of appointments already on that day, I have to expand the calendar before tapping to enter the new appointment. (Palm, please stop wasting my time and let me select a "no accordion" view permanently)
- the appointment alert times are far too limited - for example, apparently no one at Palm ever puts airplane flights in their calendar with appointment reminders because there is no 2 hour reminder option. Then again, maybe they have a flight marked in the calendar and 2 hours ahead of it, they enter a separate appointment with an alert that says "flight in two hours." (Tell me that's not a waste of data-entry time and calendar space.)
- Having traveled across 3 US time zones recently I discovered another bizarre flaw. Palm's calendar records everything in "Zulu" time unless you specifically go out of your way to enter the abbreviation for the time zone of the appointment. I flew from Tampa to Vegas for a convention and all my appointment times shifted. Lunch meetings I planned in Vegas for 12:00 noon shifted to 9am when the phone powered up in the new time zone. Apparently you can turn this off in system preferences but not in the calendar itself. So if you want some appointments attached to Zulu time and some attached to local time, then you MUST enter ALL appointments with their respective time zone, or leaving off the time zone attaches it to Zulu time. The really strange thing is that All Day events marked in my calendar shifted automatically to one day earlier when I powered my phone back on in Vegas after we landed. (The Wednesday "Pre-conference Day" shifted to Tuesday and the Thursday thru Sat convention shifted to Wed thru Fri!!) Somebody please tell Palm that the International Date Line doesn't run through the middle of the US, and that the code for All Day events might be flawed.
- And why do I have to open an appointment to see when it starts? Seriously? I can't just look at today's calendar and see that I have a phone call at 3:10pm or a flight that leaves at 6:17. Nope. You have to open up the appointment itself to see start and end times.
- My 9 years of Palm OS calendar data is very important to me and ironically it won't run on my Pre. I can port it to the iPod Touch/Mac calendar program and all my categories, notes, etc. runs flawlessly. The Pre always crashes with my historical Palm OS calendar data and I had to create my Pre calendar from scratch.
There's a lot more but I'm done for now.
I know it doesn't matter to lots of new Palm Pre fans, but the "Zen of Palm" is dead and that's a real loss. I personally wish the Pre was much more of a reliable business tool. - I'd love to be able to stop carrying a separate, deactivated phone just to have a worthwhile calendar.
thanks for the valuable information. it approved my decision, not to buy a pre in the near future!
The article and your comments in particular are spot on...I use the calendar as much as I can stand, having an Exchange calendar from work, and maybe 3 more Google calendars, one of which has maybe 5 calendars fed into it...
Getting into each day and being able to interact with it just takes way too long...it can be as much as 10-15 seconds...even with 1.2.1.
Derek and you both hit on a very good, very simple-to-solve problem: the only way to pick a date is with numbers. There's a reason that most web forms that use JavaScript to allow you to pick a date offer a month view from which to choose. They're just better than picking just a number from a list. It adds the ability for users to pick based on days of the week, from how many days in the future to how many weeks or months in the future...all at once...there's just more context and info to inform users' choices.
Bottom line, when someone asks me whether I can do a 2 hour meeting next W, I don't even bother breaking out Pre's calendar, 'cause I don't want to make them wait the 1-2 minutes it would take for me to check whether I'm free and then enter it. I just have to write it down on paper or remember it to enter it later. or via Google Calendar or my Outlook at my desk.
I want to love, be proud of, and boast about my Pre, but there are too many flaws to allow me to do that without compromising my integrity.
+1 Sign that!
Wow, Palm ought to hire a few of the commenters here as product testing consultants. The only thing I can mention that I didn't see is the fact that appointments get lost in day view. When you open the calendar in day view, it defaults to centered on the current time. Appointments that are 4 hours away (or behind) are scrolled off of the screen. Perhaps it would be something as simple as adding arrows and numbers to the top and bottom of the screen to denote appointments that are scrolled off the screen, like so:
1 appt ^ __________
| |
| |
~~~~~~~~~~~
| |
|_________| 2 appts V
+1
Yes, that was another big UI design flaw...
This is the article I've been waiting for!
1. I would like more customization to set the reminder for an event.
2. More options when snoozing an event.
3. Turn it back off so it doesn't auto dismiss an event after the end time passes!
4. Have they fixed the facebook event sync where the time shows up in your calendar incorrectly by an hour or two based on time zone?
I didn't read all the previous posts.. but the only gripe I have..is I can't send invites for meetings. This really sucks for me. I love the phone...even the calendar...but I need to be able to send invites..a la outlook w/ confirmation. I actually use my calendar as a PIM and rely on it..so far it has been good to me. Had it since opening day.
Two words: PALM CENTRO! Just make the calendar like the Centro and you could solve most the problems.
I think palm tried to hard to make a social phone that they forgot their core users, the business execs! I'm not one of those guys, but I really did like the Centro calendar.
Just my two cents.
Palm is now a TOTALLY different company (with the release of the Pre and the resurrection of the company Ed Colligan had almost completely run into the ground).
The "new blood" has no strings to the past. This is good because of the out-of-the-box thinking that brought the Pre to life. And it's bad because they have thumbed their nose at loyal customers (who rely on their historical Palm OS data) and they have shoved aside those few things the original Palm, Inc. did so very well (like the great PIM).
Only the name "Palm" remains. Everything else is new and, unfortunately, customers will have to educate them about the value of the PIM, if that's even possible.
I was hoping they just was fixing the bugs, first and actually did plan to fix the core PIM applications, then...
But if Palm not listen to this vital complains and fix it soon (or at least within the first year - maybe with help of extra payed applications) then are Palm totally dead for me!
if you load tha swap patch and extra cards patch the calender opens very quickly no waiting at all here lol
I just want to be able to set meetings by adding attendees to an appointment! that's a huge feature for enterprise.
I completely agree with the article, especially in relation to the speed of using the calendar. When I am with a client, it can feel like an eternity waiting on the calendar to flip through days. And 1 more point. When one adds a calendar even in Google cal for more than one day as an all-day event, it only shows as an all-day event on the beginning day on the Palm....this definitely needs fixed.
The calendar delay issue has significantly improved since version 1.0 of webOS, but I would like the calendar to be snappier still. I'd also like to be able to tap in the second part of the hour and start an appointment at, say, 4:30, instead of having to manually change it from 4:00 after it appears. {Jonathan}
Ok, am sure the calendar can be improved. But Android sucks worse. I own both the Pre and the Hero. I leave my Pre connected to the wifi and use it for my calendar even though the Hero is my phone. That's how much Android sucks. 400 clicks to get to anything in the calendar
I don't disagree that Android is generally more mature. Its freaking older. Of course its more mature. But don't bring it up in the calendar discussion.
For all those saying the calendar is not important, don't forget that most Pre owners used to be Palm PDA/phone owners and they will obviously feel let down if the calendar isn't up to par. Palm just has to realize that they have a loyal following for PIM apps and should work on keeping that edge. These days, any edge is good.
i'd like to add my 2 cents. Messaging should be on steroids by now. I'm ready for webOS 2.1.
All of my calendar issues went away with 1.2. I have an exchange corporate calendar and a couple of google ones. No more grey screens, instant day changes. Am I just lucky?
No, the calendar is definitely snappier since 1.2 came out. There are still some glitches (not syncing notes to Google, for instance), but it's not enough to make me switch - I LOVE MY PRE!
I'm still waiting for the solution to my non-timed events showing-up on the wrong day. They were synced from Palm Desktop. Will this ever be resolved? I cannot rely on the information that is presented in my calendar unless it was actually CREATED on the Pre!
Also, recently, I had to reschedule an appointment that was created on my Pre. I edited the date & time for the appt to occur two weeks later than was originally scheduled. For some reason, I still received a reminder notification from Google on the original date of the appt. Something isn't syncing correctly with this (either) apparently.
The TASKS application is frustrating as well. I miss being able to define a recurring interval for the task which would cause the due date to be automatically recalculated upon completion of the task.
and please let us type in a number for reminders like in palm os. Why on god's green earth would you change this???
Mickey Mouse calendar. What everyone else said. And why can't I set an alarm except at pre-set intervals? What if I want an alarm 2 hrs before? or 12 hours before the event?
And I still get a 1-2 second delay switching days. This wouldn't be so bad, except the week view is useless for finding an available slot. Since I can't see any information on the existing entries, I can't easily determine if I'm really free at a particular time or find free time during a week for a meeting. I need to navigate through the days to see what the existing items are. The result is that I have to tell people, "Let me call you back" when they ask me when I can meet.
I can see that they might be simple limiting this to the capabilities of the Google Calendar, but the Google Calendar is not adequate nor probably designed for PIM tasks.
Pimlico, where are you?
AMEN - FIX THE CALENDAR.
The reasons I have not switched to Pre from TREO 700P (yes the dinosaur)are:
1. Battery life (apparently remedied by buying seidio)
2. Cloud (Just not totally comfortable with my data in the cloud and no easy way to back it up locally on an sd card). I just will have to get over that--I guess.
3. Network - Waiting for Verizon - poor coverage by Sprint in my area
4. MAIN Thing - I am Totally Hooked on Bonsai (Outliner) to manage my life. Not available except through Classic. Unclear if it will sync yet to pc.
5. Calendar - apparently it doesn't let us have categories..a must have, and from what I read on here it's slow to respond.
6. Daynotez - integrates with Bonsai - so great to be able to just move my completed tasks to my journal and have a nice clean record (apparently only via classic - synching is unclear)
One of these days my Treo will die, and I'll have to switch, but I am hopeful that Pre will have the above resolved.
I do say thanks to Palm for creating a new device and platform, and I am hopeful it will be upgraded soon to address the items that I find important. I assume they are important to other users as well.
If any of you can enlighten me - please do.
Thanks
I still have the issue where accepting the meeting request on my Pre will send the meeting organizer an accept but does not add it to my Pre calendar. It does add it to my Exchange view within Outlook, but does not update on the Pre.
Weird. FIX IT
Wow, look at all of these comments! Does that tell you there's a serious need here? I agree with almost all of the comments here (too many to read them all). I really enjoy my Pre and use the calendar daily, but find it to be quite clunky. I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but there are still several quirks with syncing as minor changes don't always seem to sync properly (either handheld changes to web or vice versa). And I'm still deleting duplicate anniversary entries that got put in when I first imported my old Palm OS calendar.
I'm sure that this has been noted above, but would like to request that we have the ability to add attendees (on at least an exchange basis) to our events in calendar...
Second that "wow"! I'm amazed at how people hate the Calendar. Seems like a decent app to me (but I'm far from a "power" user). Biggest missing piece IMO was an Agenda view, but we have that in Homebrew now, so it all works pretty well for me.