Well, I finnaly upgraded my aging Palm. I’ve been a palm user since they first came out, but it looks like the technology curve has overtaken them and, it was time to change technologies.

Although there are many options, for my purposes it came down to a choice between the iPhone and the Blackberry. I finally decided on the iPhone because I did not want to be dependent on another network (besides the Internet) for my email and I wanted as much screen space as possible, which meant no keyboard.

The original iPhone has never been available in Canada, but the 3G was going to be released and by my existing service providor. This can also mean qualifying for a discount if you’re a heavy user (I am and I did). Call customer service to see if you qualify. THis also meant changing phones was a simply as changing SIM cards.

First the positives, the screen is huge, filling almost the entire front of the phone and the resolution is fantastic. The detail and colour are the more impressive I have ever seen on a postable device. The communications tools are solid with tremendious focus on the user interface. The mapping software links with the GPS and the contacts list, so if you’re searching for a new client’s office, it can find it and your own location with ease. You can also dial their number and save the contact with equal simplicity.

The keyboard comes up when required and does take some adjustment, as there is no tactil feedback like physical buttons. It’s no big deal and I was comfortable after about half and hour. I also like that the keyboard will guess at the right spelling and catches many of your typos quickly.

An impressive system, however there are some negatives.

First, on a PC the only desktop interface is MS Outlook, which is an additional expense if you’re not already using it. The Palm’s desktop interface should be a design lesson for all smartphones, as the Blackberry has the same problem. Why does it not occur to these manufacturers that users need to backup their data onto a desktop and may want to access it there. My data is worth more than the phone or even the desktop, we need better tools to protect it.

Second, the iPhone comes with neither a task application nor a robust memos app. PDAs have had these since the beginning why does Apple think we no longer need them? This was the most frustrating part of getting an iPhone. The most common advice was to learn not to use them, which is fundementally wrong. This is a tool and it must adopt to the way I work, not the other way around. It never occurred to me that the iPhone did not have a task and memo app by default. I might have considered a different option had I known in advance.

(BTW, there is a stock memo app, which lacks any real functionality for anything other than a brief and disposible note)

Luckily, there is a wonderful collection of applications available for the iPhone through the app store, which is part of itunes. The interface is clean and there is a collection of both free and purchasable apps. I spent a significant period of time downloading and evaluating task and memos apps before finding a good fit.

Appigo makes a memo and a todo app (called todo), which are just great. Tasks can be divided into different catagories and repeated tasks automaticxally scheduled. You can look at tasks in a partocular catagory or the complete list of tasks due today, tomorrow, and in the future. I use the all task view quite often, as it lets me know what I need to get done. Although these are great apps, I wasted a lot of time and money finding them, when they reall should be part of the stock package.

Even more useful, it links to several different storage services. I use toodledo as my online data backup. I can sync to this directly from the phone, with no need of a desktop, and access the data from a website. Changes are synced the next time I select it. The memo application links to the same service and gives me the catagory options missing from the stock app.

On the photography side, I can easily download my portfolio with the pictures at 420 on the long side. Since the phone is GPS aware, I can shoot reference photos with the location information already in the metadata. The app store has an entire section for photography. Many of the apps are links to your favorite blogging service, but some are specifically useful to the professional photography. Hyperfocal and DoF calculators can be very handy, amongst others.

The wifi interface is great. Once it knows a network, including secured networks it remembers the access information for the future. It also switches seamlessly to the 3G network or another WiFi network as you move between them.

The only downside to the WiFi interface is a business rather than a technical problem. If you leave your service providers area, in my case Canada and travel to the US, your roaming charges are prohibitive. The cellular phone chages are massive, but the data chages are 6000x my local costs. 6000x. It costs me about $30 a megabyte fror data the moment I cross the border. There is no logic to this and the cellular providors should work out a better arrangement. If you phone is unlocked, which is not available for the 3g, you can switch SIM cards to a local providors. Otherwise, you must search out WiFI networks just to check your email. This reminds me of the old days of searching out phone jacks for modem calls, but I reall thnk we should move past this.

Nonetheless, for everything except photographic work and long documents, I can use the iPhone instead of a laptop. On my last few trips, I have even left the laptop at home.

All and all, the iPhone is a fantastic business and photography tool, but it does have a few rough edges. Despite that, I’m very happy with mine.