15 Jul 08 Update on “Palm Apps I’d Miss”

I previously described some Palm Apps I’d Miss if I were to switch to an iPhone. Now that the App Store is open and I’ve had a chance to look through the iPhone Apps that are available, here is an update on the status of each item I mentioned:

Pocket Quicken

I haven’t used it in about a month and though I miss it some, it’s not as bad as I had expected.

IntelliGolf

This is still a must-have, but since it is not something I need with me at all times, I can simply bring a Palm with me when golfing.

HandyShopper

SplashShopper is now available for the iPhone, so that should take care of this for the most part. I think it is missing the ability to assign dates to items, which I use for my DVD watching list, but there’s probably a work-around I can come up with.

AutoMobile

I saw a few iPhone apps that should be able to fill this function — one in particular that looked like a particularly good replacement (though without the graphs that AutoMobile has). I don’t have access to iTunes right now so I cannot check the name of that app.

DateBk6

I’ve got my calendar syncing between Apple’s iCal, my Palm/DateBk6 and Google’s calendar. It’s working pretty well so I am hopeful that the syncing between iCal and the iPhone will be sufficient enough that I will not find the lack of control provided by DateBk6 too painful. Repeating ToDo items may be the most significant loss but there seem to be a plethora of ToDo apps available for the iPhone, so perhaps one of those will be sufficient.

Also, it looks like eReader, at least, is already available for the iPhone, which will cover most of the eBooks that I have purchased.

Certainly the situation with 3rd party apps for the iPhone is much better than I had anticipated — more specifically, it is well-varied much sooner than I had expected.

In the end, it really just comes down to money. $300 for the iPhone (16GB version) + $150 for early termination of Sprint contract (unless I wait until next May) + an extra $20/month for the AT&T plan (at least, depending on the realities of taxes, fees and the corporate discount that is apparently valid for the 3G iPhone plan). That’s a total of $1030 for two years — ouch!

I think I’ll just bide my time for now and try to hold out until May. It may only save me $150, but it could end up saving a lot more depending on what else happens between now and then.

Tags: AT&T, AutoMobile, DateBk6, eReader, Google Calendar, HandyShopper, iCal, IntelliGolf, iPhone, Palm, Pocket Quicken, SplashShopper, Sprint