here's what I'm using now: a frustratingly imperfect palm Tungsten T with palm desktop. I sync it with my powerbook and have it set to just copy info to my desktop. I am so fed up with this piece of equipment. I spend more time resetting or re-installing the software (right now it won't work because it's missing "localization") getting the stylus to work properly....just simply getting the stupid thing to work at all. It's a second-rate game platform for the road (I bought a gameboy instead), it plays music....OK but poorly enough that I never listen to music, I ended up using only calender and alams and contacts plus To Do lists. A year and a half after abandoning my paper calender I feel this has been only a partially successful experiment.
So, that off my chest, I'm finally considering getting an ipod, being the last remaining person in NYC w/o one. I want to use it for audio books, especially in the car, as a hard drive so I can carry a lot of photos on the road (I take a LOT of photos) and backup photos I take away from home that I usually dowload to my Powerbook and an external hard drive (thus cutting out carrying around a backup drive) and also incidentally ;-) to carry music (our total collection is a bit over 20GB at this point).
So looking at that, I think I'm going to spring for the ipod Photo 60GB. That's about 20GB for music, another 20 for photos and hard drive functions and 20 to grow on (ok, maybe 40 GB would be enough....I don't know, I go back and forth). But here's the question: can I just cut the Palm device out of the loop. I hate to just dump such an expensive device while it is still "working" sort of, but it's not doing its job. The main thing I would seem to be giving up is bluetooth syncing to my Powerbook but I think I could sacrifice that if the system worked a little better.
Please weigh in, as people have different systems they like.
1-should I continue to use Palm Desktop for calender, TO Dos and contacts and sync it to the ipod. How complex is that. can I still copy my calender to the second computer that is just acting as a display for the calender?
2-does the ipod even DO To Do lists or something similar that I can view? I suppose I wouldn't be able to input on the road but at this point a small pad of paper would work better than the Palm device is anyway and I could input at home. I gather I could also do voice memos for that.
3-what if I switch to the Apple apps for calender and contacts. Can I transfer my info from the Palm app to the Apple apps w/o too much chaos? Is that even possible? What would I have to do. I'm using isync now only to sync my Safari bookmarks but I suppose being able to back up my stuff to my .mac account would be nice. Does this work?
4-How are the Apple apps working anyway? The last time I looked at them seriously was when I got the T about a year and a half ago and there seemed to be some defects that people were complaining about. I only use Address Book to keep info for people I contact in ichat at this point. Will they function as good as, worse than, better than Palm desktop.
5-incidentally, am I missing something with the T that could be fixed? Or is it just a half-assed device.
Any additional factors I should consider? I've been trying to read various things in ipod support to get an idea of what I'm in for but I can't get a clear idea of what is best here.
So your feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
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