Moving from Palm to Pocket PC

(Originally published on infoSync) I’m actually very happy with my trusted old Handspring Visor Platinum, but some days ago, I received a HP Jornada 565 from infoSync HQ so I could play around with Pocket PC 2002 and familiarize myself a bit more with the platfrom. My switch from a Palm OS to a Pocket PC device prompted me to write this column, in which I thought I’d let you in on what I found to be the most troublesome differences.

To start with, I have to admit that it’s not really a fair match. On one side, you have 8 MB of storage, a 33 MHz Dragonball processor and 16 shades of grey, while on the other side, there’s a 206 Mhz StrongARM processor, 32 MB of storage, 65,536 colors, full sound and a Compact Flash expansion slot which works wonderfully with the CF cards for my Canon Ixus digital camera. I don’t even want to mention the price of the two devices here. So this is not really a match but rather just a look at two worlds.

I’m currently sitting here at a table in Brussels typing this with the Jornada next to me. It’s off now, to conserve power, because it just gave me a warning that I should charge it as soon as possible to avoid data loss. I charged it Friday afternoon, right before leaving from Germany to Belgium for the weekend. I admit, it had some heavy usage, but it needs to survive a weekend in my mind. From a simple comfort side, my tech stuff has to survive a weekend without eyeing for the charger. So much for having a cool color screen.

I love the CF slot, period. No questions asked. I have storage cards here and can use them for MP3s or other things. With cards of 512 MB available now, this thing can replace my MP3 player, which packs 6 GB of MP3s — but I also have to say that I don’t really need that many MP3s with me for short trips (for longer trips, I bring the iBook with all the MP3s ;).

But now for the interface, which is the main issue of this column. When I turned the device on, I noticed the similarity to Windows right away, which is actually a good thing as you kind of know your way around. The problem is, it’s not Windows and you will soon find out. You have a Start Menu, which can only hold 9 applications. It’s actually more of a quick-start menu. There is also an additional programs folder which works similarly to Palm OS with icons for each application on the screen and folders to order those. That really makes the Start Menu a neat kind of thing, but sadly I mistook it for its Windows counterpart.

Next up, multitasking. On a PPC you can run several applications at the same time, which is not possible on the current Palm OS. That allows you to, for example, play MP3s in the background and/or to stay connected with MSN Messenger while doing other things. Once you get used to it, this is actually very nice. Play a short 9 holes of golf and quickly check your tasks list without needing to save the game or start all over.

Now comes an annoying part again though. Closing applications. Let’s presume you have the Task application open and you are currently editing a Task item. You’re done. What now? So let’s close it — but how, since there’s no “Save” button? Upon closer inspection one notices that there is an OK button on the top right, which when clicked will actually “Save” or “Close” (when there is nothing to be saved). Color me stupid, but if I want to save, I want to save, not OK. Then, in the main window of the application, there is a little X where the OK was, which arguably stands for “Close”. But it’s actually not close but minimize, as the application remains running and is moved out of sight. The so-called remedy is a task switcher, which lets you easily switch between running applications or fully close them. I don’t like running apps — I’m not sure why, even though it’s nice to play MP3s in the background. But if the button means minimize, and if this is supposed to work like windows, then make it look like minimise. For all I care, put an X and a _ next to it. Then one can perform both tasks. Microsoft was really annoying the hell out of me as my entire body said “I know how this works.” Just to realize that I didn’t.

Synchronization works wonderfully, even though I was surprised why my IMAP connection to the mail server was always braking down on the desktop. This is due to the fact that if you configure an IMAP account on the PPC to check regularly, it will also do that via the cradle, which is actually very nice I have to say, but it would be good if I could somehow turn it off easily. Now, when I put the device in the cradle I need to go through the preferences, turn it off, and go into the preferences again to turn it on before taking it out (’cause I like having my mails with me).

Now comes the annoying part though; Notes. I have some 200 notes in Outlook, nicely ordered into categories, and when I sync them, they all end up in the My Documents folder (yeah, there’s a folder structure on the PPC including a WINDOWS directory), all 200 of them, and the Notes application couldn’t care less for the categories I set up. Mightily annoying. Creating folders under Notes in Outlook does not do any good either. In a sense, this wasn’t so bad though, because I decided to put many of these notes in one single Word file and move the Word file to the PPC. I wanted to create nested folders for it in the My Documents folder — but that wasn’t possible either. You can only go one folder deep. Ok. Survivable, but strangely enough looking like Windows but not acting like it.

In the end I got the Word files moved to the Jornada, Notes almost emptied, and am actually partly happier as the Notes length limit on the Palm greatly annoyed me. Yeah sure, there are workarounds, but these things needs to work right out of the box.

What I also noticed is that many things need a lot more clicks than on the Palm, such as opening applications that are not in the Start Menu (I need a Today Screen plug-in to put apps right on there), or changing a Calendar or Task item, which requires opening them and then clicking Edit.

In the end, after this initial one week, I am not sure if I want to go back, even though I believe that the Palm has by far the better interface for doing what you are supposed to do with a PDA. The nice thing about the Pocket PC is that it stretches the limit what you do with your PDA, partly due to the color screen, partly due to the good expansion capabilities and partly due to the different OS that allows for multitasking.