Priacta

I have been using a PDA since I first got my hands on a Palm VIIx as a kid. You know, one of those 8MB B&W models with barely enough computing power to tell me the square root of four. Five years ago, a PDA was the height of geekiness. *Takes a bow* Only complete nerds contributed in the CE vs. Palm wars. This is not the case now. Businesses, CEO’s, mothers, and even your local football jock is looking into the new world of mobility. The question on everyone’s mind is: “Which one, which one?”

With the rise of the iPod and techy cell phones has come a demand for more power in a smaller space. Computers have advanced faster than anything in the past ten years. Although prices are steadily dropping, no one wants to waste money on something that just won’t do what they need. In this post I will give my professional views on what is best for time and task management and why.

Although there are a slew of mobile operating systems out there, I will concentrate on the four most used:

BlackBerry
Palm
iPhone OS (iPhone, iPod Touch)
PPC (Windows Mobile, Pocket PC, Windows CE)

BlackBerry

Pros:
Mobile email
Established Professionals for organization
Speed (Relatively simple OS)
Large Online Community
Phone and PDA are on the same device

Cons:
Difficulty in processing tasks and calendar events
Doesn’t directly sync with most Organization systems
Few apps

Blackberries seem like a great idea at first glance but problems quickly arise. My first experience with a Blackberry was with a client who wanted to connect it to exchange server. 72 hours and 30 a month later, we had a system that was somewhat reliable. On occasion the BB would hiccup and things would duplicate in the calendar.
Another client wanted their tasks for the road. (Something we encourage heavily). As Mac users, they used a piece of software called “PocketMac”. It’s Entourage to Blackberry capabilities were buggy at best. After finally getting the two apps to cooperate, the tasks refused to sync to the Blackberry in categories. The client would have to view ALL of them at once or none at all.

My biggest complaint with Blackberries is the difficulty in adding tasks. There’s no quick add for a task. You have to open a new window and input everything. This wastes a lot of time that could be spent elsewhere.

Palm

Pros:
TONS of apps. Literally thousands! (Many of them are outdated and not as useful anymore though)
FAST
Stability
Easy to learn
Price!

Cons:
Not as advanced
Compatibility
Doesn’t sync well with other Organizers
Doesn’t Multi-task very well

Here we go again. The war continues. Passionate people will defend the Palm with their lives. The Palm was my first PDA. After using it, I was one of those people. When I decided to buy a more advanced PDA than the one I had, I turned immediately to Palm. It was only the words of a “concerned” friend that convinced me to at least look into a PPC. Looking back, I’m trying to find out why I defended the Palm so vehemently.

The biggest issue I see with the Palm is categories. Believe it or not, Palm only supports 15 categories. per application. This, on top of it’s inability to natively sync with outside applications, makes the Palm a sketchy choice. High end Palms cost $200 to $300. This is cheap compared to other alternatives but probably isn’t a good choice for you organizational needs.

iPhone (iPhone and iPod Touch)

Pros:
Compatible with the Mac!!
Fast!
Based on OS X
Intuitive
Easy to use but still a computer!

Cons:
VERY expensive
No SD Card slot
Very few Apps
Doesn’t sync Tasks

All I can say about the iPhone is: Wow. Apple made the right move here. The first time I touched one, I wanted it. Big screen, easy to use, fast, syncs with Mac, advanced, slick, geeky, and light weight. I could barely see the screen with all the slobber on it. This ecstasy wasn’t going to last though.

Although the iPhone directly syncs with iCal, someone forgot about us Task users and left it out. *Oops!* Apple also wanted to make sure that the 16GB limit on the iPhone meant something by leaving out an SD Card. So while you may have a lot of space for your tunes and videos on there, you can only use what you have.

Fortunately for us, Apple announced the release of a Beta SDK (Software Development Kit) to the world. What does this mean? It means we can see a massive increase in the number of built-in iPhone apps. At least one GTD compatible app is in development with more certainly on the way.

I look forward to the day that the iPhone will meet the rest of my needs but for the moment, it’s out of reach for my time and task management needs. *Cries slightly*

Pocket PC (Windows Mobile)

Pros:
Compatibility, compatibility, compatibility…
Plenty of Apps
Advanced uses
It’s a computer not just an organizer

Cons:

It’s a computer not just an organizer
It crashes more often than other systems
Speed (It uses a bulky operating system)
Cost of both hardware and apps

This is my personal choice of device. Why? It’s compatible with native windows organizational software (Outlook *Cough**Cough*) As a geek, it also does all the “Geeky” things I need.

The Palm OS was the uncontested champion of mobile operating systems for years. When Microsoft forced it’s way onto the scene, things began to change. Having already conquered the computer industry, their movement into the mobile world did not go unnoticed.

Windows CE was the first version of Windows mobile. This was followed by Windows Mobile 2003, WM 2003 SE, WM5, and most recently WM6. If you get a PPC, I stress the importance of getting the most recent version of windows mobile. The more recent the version, the better the compatibility and capability of the device. The number of PPC natively running WM6 are next to nill. The number of Smartphones running it however would be too long to conveniently post here. My suggestion? Get a smartphone if you can. The convenience of having a PDA and your Phone together is incredible. Only one device means only one sync. It means convenience, ease, and only ONE collection point for your tasks, contacts, emails, and notes.

Bottom Line

A smartphone running MS Exchange server is the number one setup that we recommend to our clients. Whether you run Mac or Windows, it’s the best supported solution for mobile GTD that we’ve found to date.
I’m sure that within 5 years the iPhone will be the best for the Mac with Windows Mobile dominating the PC community, but for now we highly recommend a WM6 Smartphone with Exchange.

End result?
Phone + PDA = Awesome
No Tasks = Bad
Compatibility = Must Have

Windows Mobile Smartphone = Phone + PDA - No Tasks + Compatability

Feel free to add you opinions in the comments section below.