Comments on: A longterm Windows Mobile user switching to Android – Part 6: OS comparison roundup

By: SmartPhoneBlogging

SmartPhoneBlogging — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:20:00 +0000

There are many options available in the android market. Astrid is a great example. Using Astrid you can create all sorts of reminders.

By: SmartPhoneBlogging

SmartPhoneBlogging — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:19:00 +0000

hi, well I think that you can use widgets to generate a very similar outcome as Windows mobile plugins. There is no reason why you couldn’t realize a widget which provides different tabs with different informations. Actually there are already widgets like that available.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 03:07:00 +0000

Oh and I think you left out event notification. Snooze and nag options for alarms and calendars in Android are non-existant. It makes calendar reminders nearly useless. Fixing this costs nearly $6, comes with an ugly interface, not a cheap addon for something that should be a fundamental smartphone feature. Still overall android feels nice somehow, but very,very unfinished.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 03:01:00 +0000

I’ve switched from WinMo to android. Each to his own… but personally I can’t imagine how you can say android home screens win over winmo. It’s just widgets.. Nothing else really. Looks like someone dumped a garbage can full junk all over my screen. And sliding 6 pages is SOO much loess efficient than little tabs like HTC home has (and that’s an old winmo home) . And no sticky widgets (well just the 3 1×1′s). I miss THC home.. half screen of sticky information providing plugins… and tabs between half screen of well organized widget like stuff. Much more efficient, professional, and attractive. Oh and lock screen functionality on android… useless (real lock screen not things you can bypass with the home key).

By: SmartPhoneBlogging

SmartPhoneBlogging — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:35:00 +0000

Thanks for your kind words. I’m also a big Android fan after being on the Windows Mobile boat for many years. But I’m still interested to see what Microsoft has up its sleeve with windows phone 7. They really made a complete reboot and the new UI looks very interesting.

Bye,
Shahpur

By: Aj

Aj — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 23:59:00 +0000

Hey thank you for this wonderful review. The detail, accuracy and thoroughness is amazing. The hard work shows. Do keep up the good work =]

Having stubbornly been with wm since the ppc days, I finally decided to switch to android as with windows phone 7 coming out, the older OS just seemed left behind. But now android is my new religion and I intend it stay true to it.

Let’s hope it stays true to us all.

By: Michael Ng

Michael Ng — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:38:17 +0000

Thanks for the in depth review. I believe there will be tremendous growth on android platform and i will be getting an android phone.

By: Shahpur Azizpour

Shahpur Azizpour — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:26:51 +0000

Hi sanjay,

Yes it’s really an Android problem currently. But at least there are some very good calendar widgets out there finally. You should check out “pure calendar” and “pure grid calendar”. Also Google made some good enhancements to the standard Android calendar with timebars, week view and more. Native exchange server support introduced with Android 2.2 was a very important step too.

So I think it will only get better, Android will continue to mature fast. I’m quite happy with it as a prior Windows Mobile user.

By: sanjay

sanjay — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 22:08:56 +0000

Waht amazes me is a simple search on google and you find post after post lamenting a professioanlly created PIM for android. PocketInformant has said they are developing one, but it won’t handle anything but as Alex (the head of PocketInformant) pointed out in a forum response about the upcoming PIM:

“PI for Android does not deal with Contacts at this time. Calendar and Tasks only. And Google does not support categories PI will for its native stuff, but Google does not.”

It’s amazingly sad that such simple things cannot be accomplished. I really had no idea before moving over to Android how lacking the PIM market really was. After all, you’d expect that a company releasing an OS would actually have the necessary components ready. In my opinion, a lack of an integrated PIM makes the android OS not ready for business users.

By: jude

jude — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:51:46 +0000

great article! thorough and easy to understand.
Agree with you that PIMs were great on windows phone. Syncing contacts, notes, calendars and tasks was a breeze too.

My fav PIM was SPB Diary, i could see ALL lines of a calendar entry on the screen, not just one liners in the iPhone.

Do let us know if you are currently using a good Android PIM.

Other item that is holding me back from Android purchase is a good Sync (between MS Office and Android). The inbuilt ones seem to cover calendar and contacts only.

would be great to hear from you.