The inPhonite Migration: Calendar
Posted on | September 19, 2008 at 7:37 am | 6 Comments
Admin Note: I somehow accidentally disabled comments on yesterday’s post. Thanks to Bill for the heads up. Sorry about that! It’s back on. Also, my webhost claims to have recreated the problems we’ve been having with the site and says they did something to fix it, but it might not go into effect for 24 to 48 hours. I’m dubious. It still appears to be having problems this morning. They also say to clear the cache and cookies in your browser, though I don’t see how that can help.
Yesterday, I talked about the adventures I had importing my contact list from my Palm PDA to my iPhone. I eventually got those into Outlook and the iPhone without too much hassle, but learned a lot about importing and exporting in the bargain. The calendar is a different matter.
First, a little background. On my Palm, I use the DateBk6 app for my calendar functions. It greatly extends the functionality of the native Palm calendar, while still using the built-in databases for the Palm calendar, tasks, and contacts applications. Basically it brings the data for all of them together without modifying the structure of the databases. However, it does add some tags to some database fields, which are hidden in DateBk6 but which show up when you view the databases in their native applications. I was really hoping that there would be an iPhone version of DateBk6 released eventually, but I’m beginning to doubt that will happen. The developer is concentrating on a new multiplatform desktop version of the program not tied to the Palm databases, but it sounds unlikely a native iPhone client will be available due to the technical limitations. And I don’t see anyone else out there rushing to develop an iPhone calendar app or extend the native one. So it looks like I’m stuck with it.
As I said yesterday, I purchased Outlook 2007 in order to sync contacts and calendar data with the iPhone. I tried every which way I could think of to do this, including exporting the Palm calendar data to Yahoo Calendar (which also syncs with the iPhone), exporting the Palm data directly to Outlook, and exporting the Palm data to Yahoo and then exporting that to Outlook. None of it worked very well. Somewhere along the way, recurring events lose their recurrence data. All of the event/appointment names had a comma appended to the end. Notes got partially cut off. And many other problems. I attribute some of this to the extra data that DateBk6 puts in, but I don’t think that accounts for all the issues.
Eventually I just gave up and entered my appointments by hand. I looked at the calendar in the Palm desktop and then copied every event into Outlook. Luckily, Outlook already had recurring events setup for contact birthdays, so I didn’t have to enter any of those. (That was something DateBk6 did automatically also.) And holidays can be added automatically to Outlook also. So really I only had to enter my appointments and recurring events. Didn’t take too long, but it was a bit of a pain.
One unusual thing about the iPhone calendar is that the choices of repeats for recurring events are not very complete. For example, I need to have an event that tells me when my eMusic downloads expire. That happens every 30 days. Not on the same day of the month, but every 30 days exactly. Curse you, eMusic! In the iPhone, there’s no way to specify a recurring event with that kind of repeat period (you only get “every day”, “every week”, “every 2 weeks”, “every month”, and “every year”). However, Outlook has a large variety of repeat choices and it lets you specify “every [n] days”. The strange thing is that you can specify that in Outlook, and when you sync with the iPhone, the custom repeat will suddenly appear there (labeled as “Custom, Every 30 days”). There’s no way to create a repeat like that on the iPhone, or edit an existing one to change the number of days, but at least it does allow you to set it with an external application. That’s just alien.
Another weird thing that happened during all the importing and syncing is that a recurring appointment that I had in Outlook for every Wednesday at a certain time got changed to every Sunday and Wednesday at that time. I changed it back to just Wednesday and now it seems stable for now.
So now I have a somewhat functional calendar in my iPhone. Really, the most important thing for a calendar app is that it reminds you of important events. This fulfills that requirement, especially if I set alarms for the events. However, there’s still many ways in which it fails as a PIM (Personal Information Manager) compared to the Palm PDA in general and DateBk6 in particular. DateBk6 integrated and linked the calendar, contact, and task databases in a way which was pretty comprehensive. The iPhone calendar doesn’t link with anything. For example, you can’t stick a contact into a calendar event and have it go to that contact when the event happens. Heck, if you put a phone number inside any of the text fields in a calendar event, you should be able to dial that number by touching it (like in the iPhone’s Safari web browser). But you can’t. That’s a major lack, in my opinion.
One of the main features of DateBk6 I use is the “Daily Journal”, which basically sets up an appointment/event as a note for each day which you can continually update throughout the day, and it appends the new text to the note with a timestamp. This functionality, except for the timestamp, can basically be duplicated in Outlook and the iPhone using the note field on an “all day” event, but journaling is kinda hard on the iPhone using the virtual keyboard. It was easier on the PDA because I could update my journal using the bluetooth keyboard peripheral (or the Palm desktop app if I was at home). Plus, the iPhone generally doesn’t like to sync events more than 30 days old, so keeping a record of the past doesn’t work very well. Right now, I’m using Evernote to duplicate that function, and that way I can update my journal using the iPhone in a pinch, or with the web client if I’m near an Internet-connected computer, or by using the PC or web client if I’m home.
DateBk6 also integrated the Palm Tasks with the calendar in a cool way, even doing things like creating “Floating Events”, which are basically ToDo Tasks that don’t appear until a certain day, and then keep appearing on every subsequent day until you check them off. The iPhone doesn’t have any ToDo or Task application at all, but at least that is one area that the third party apps seem to be trying to cover pretty thoroughly. That’s one of the next things on my migration list to try out. For right now, I can handle due dated ToDo’s in a rudimentary way using the calendar appointments, but there’s no way to do just a general task list with the native applications.
Yet another DateBk6 feature I’d love to see in the iPhone calendar is the template system. In DateBk6, you can have appointments (with contact information, notes, etc) saved as a template, so that if you need to insert an event that looks a lot like a previous event, you just pull it up from the template list and save it on the new day. For example, after I got my haircut this week, I set up an appointment for another one in 8 weeks. On the Palm, I just went to that date, pulled up the “Haircut” template, and inserted it. It even knew to insert it at my usual time, and it already had the link to the contact information. No typing or data entry required. If I had been using my iPhone to mark the appointment, I would’ve had to stand there and type the whole thing in by hand (event, location/phone) using the virtual keyboard, which I’m still not very fast with. And remember, the iPhone doesn’t even have copy/paste (yet), which might help in this kind of scenario.
And of course DateBk6 has a number of built-in views (and some customizable ones) so that you can see the calendar data in almost any way imaginable. The iPhone has three views: List, Day, and Month. Boring. I’d at least like to be able to set up the iPhone calendar as the default home screen like you can do with any of the DateBk6 views on the Palm. I want the calendar to always be displayed when I turn the phone on. But the only way to do that is to be in the calendar when you turn the phone off.
In summary: The iPhone calendar app is extremely primitive, but it works well enough for basic functions. However, it’s hard to import events into it from other (non-Outlook) applications. The whole PIM/calendar thing is really ripe for a third party developer to come in and wow us with a great application. Or with any application at all. But no one seems to ready to step up, and Apple doesn’t seem real concerned with making the native app any more robust. In order for the iPhone to be a real smartphone and a PDA replacement, this must change.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 57°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Radar In My Heart” (Bill Nelson)
- “The Compromise” (The Format)
- “In The Winter” (Fastbacks)
- “Paranoid” (Big Country)
- “C.B.T.” (Get Him Eat Him)
- “Surround” (Dada)
- “Westby” (Kathleen Edwards)
- “Writhe” (The Point)
Pet Peeve of the Day: This should’ve gone in yesterday’s post, but there’s a problem with the contact birthdays on the iPhone. Many of the birthdays (such as mine) are one day off from what they are in Outlook. This bug only affects the actual birthday field for a contact, and not the calendar or the recurring birthday events that are automatically added to the calendar when you specify a birthday for a contact. From reading the thread on the Apple Discussion board, this appears to be a universal problem, and no one can figure out exactly what the pattern of affected birthdays is, though it appears to have something to do with Daylight Savings Time. So far, Apple has not addressed or even acknowledged the issue. I guess from now on, I get to celebrate my birthday a day early. Not that I don’t anyway.
Disgusting Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “cilantro 10 for 1$”.
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Castlevania: PoR (DS). I finally defeated Gergoth with the Blank Book!
Comments
6 Responses to “The inPhonite Migration: Calendar”
September 19th, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
I’m afraid of anyone who schedules haircuts 8 wkd early!
My biggest problem with the iThingy is the inability to add ringtones for SMS and that there’s no reminder capability for text messages. I need them to be able to wake me up so I don’t have to carry another phone or a pager.
September 19th, 2008 @ 11:53 pm
Sometimes I think Rog is a bit insane, but not in this case. I also schedule my haircuts 8 weeks in advance. I just make the appointment for next time while I’m there. Saves having to call in and do it, and trying to remember exactly when I’m due for a cut.
September 20th, 2008 @ 8:51 am
Telling you to clear your cache and cookies is like a doctor telling the husband to go boil some water and get clean sheets. It isn’t really necessary, except to make him feel like he is contributing and to get him out of the room so everyone else can get to work.
September 20th, 2008 @ 10:43 am
You know, Sue, that’s entirely too sensible.
September 30th, 2008 @ 5:13 am
Thanks for your detailed descriptions. I’ve been having a particular problem with my recurring appointments in Outlook that give rise to a custom recurring definition in the iPod touch I just got (software 2.1.1) when I sync with iTunes (8.0.0.35) on Windows XP by USB – I can’t seem to get the end date to be sent to the iPod! So, for example, if I have a monthly event over the summer, it ends properly , but if I have say an event every Monday and Thursday over the summer, the end date is not documented in the iPod and the events keep getting shown after the summer.
I tried something called CompanionLink, but it seems to rely on the iTunes sync. I had become used to Pocket Informant on my old Pocket PC (until the Pocket PC was just crashing too often to be functional, thus the iPod touch – which even if the calendar won’t sync completely has allowed me to move enough programs off the Pocket PC to have it trimmed down and working better again!).
Any suggestions about the lack of end date syncing for custom recurring events, other than waiting for an Apple update (how, by the way, can i make a request to Apple? – it wasn’t too clear to me from their website).
September 30th, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
I don’t think I’ve tried to do what you’re trying to do, so I’m not sure I can be of help.
The only thing similar is that I’ll have like a recurring “vacation” event in Outlook that starts on one day and recurs every day for five days, so the end date is five days out. When the iPhone gets synced, it has individual all-day vacation events on every one of those five days, but if you edit any of them, there is no recurrence and no end dates. I think it’s just a difference in how Outlook displays/processes events vs how the iPhone calendar does it.
Apple has different pages for feedback on different products. Here’s the one for the iPod Touch:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipodtouch.html