How I moved from DateBk to iOS

THE SHORT ANSWER:
I went with Pocket Informant.

THE LONG ANSWER:
(With apologies to Pimlico...I just LOVED DateBk. 
Best...calendar...app...ever. Still is, IMHO. But myself and 
others here wanted to move to the iOS. So I'm answering a 
question so many of us ask here.)

When searching for a new smart device as my Centro ages, I was 
dismayed that there was no way to get a "smart" phone anymore 
without a data plan, which I have no need for. I don't text and 
I don't surf the web on my phone. Apparently the Centro was the 
last of that breed. But I do have need for little pocket apps 
like DateBk, SplashID, and other utilities that are far beyond 
the capabilities of "dumb" phones. For years I carried a Palm 
Pilot and "dumb" phone separately, but once you've had 
convergence, it's hard to contemplate going back to two separate devices.

On the other side, as much as I loved Palm, they more than once, 
and finally rather permanently, abandoned Mac users. Palm 
Desktop was rather flakey, and I had to rely on the wonderful, 
but third-party, Missing Sync to get any useful backup of the 
Centro's content (or get data onto the phone). This has annoyed 
me for years now.

So my main decision to go iOS as a primarily Mac user was one of 
mitigating being orphaned/abandoned...which is a likely scenario 
with Windows Mobile, Palm, Android, etc. Frankly the Android was 
very tempting, but given Apple-Google sparring and the 
fragmentation of the OS, I decided I would rather have the 
stability, if sometimes weird-thinking, and "sure to work with 
my Mac" of iOS. Just my take on things, YMMV.

The other problem was the way DateBk started focusing on the 
desktop. In my case, I live and worked ON THE DEVICE. I rarely 
used the desktop end except as backup or when the phone died, 
was left at home, etc. I wanted to use it in meetings and on the 
fly...and having "full function on the desktop, but stuck with 
built-in features on the phone" was not an option.

So in the end I spent alot of time researching feature sets, and 
found that many DateBk users had moved to Pocket Informant--to 
the point where the developers were all too familiar with people 
asking "DateBk does this, can Pocket Informant?" Also helps that 
PI is available on every popular mobile platform: Blackberry, 
Droid, iOS, etc. So no matter where you headed after Palm, you 
could get PI.

Does it do everything DB does? Nope, but in my case, fairly 
close, and coming releases look to be filling those gaps. To be 
fair, Pocket Informant for the iOS is just getting to version 
2--DateBk was on version 6 and has been around for what, a 
decade? No way anyone can expect feature parity given that disparity.

I did have to re-adjust the way I do things, which is expected 
for any switch. I've had the most difficulty "avoiding the 
cloud." Many modern iOS apps rely on the cloud (Google, 
ToodleDo, etc.) to get around the iOS's annoying "can only sync 
things on ONE machine" (unlike Palm's "I can sync on every 
machine you own and keep them all straight"--I used to sync at 
home and at work on the Palm), since I do NOT want my data in 
the cloud. But that's an Apple problem, not PI's. And PI may be 
getting around that in version 2 (and a Mac desktop app is 
planned in the future).

The developers are great, and the company is small enough where 
the CEO often answers Forum questions. I spoke at length with 
one of the iOS devs at MacWorld. PI 2.0, coming very soon, is 
even supposedly going to work around the problem of 
device-to-device syncing (keeping say, an iPad and iPhone with 
the same PI data on them).

In my case, I was given a work incentive that made getting an 
iPad cheap, which became my laptop and "big PDA." For more 
convenience, and through another incentive, I'll be using an 
iPod Touch paired with it. I'm slowly moving my data off the 
Centro as needed and when it dies in the future, it'll be 
replaced probably by the smallest "dumb" phone I can get with 
good reception, or whatever the "free with a plan" phone is at 
the time.

Seriously, DateBk is still the best datebook application I've 
ever used (and on the flip side, iCal is by far the worst). And 
in many ways I can see why Pimlico didn't jump to iOS. DateBk 
was created on the most popular (and pretty much ONLY) PDA at 
the time by ONE man. When PalmOS vanished, I can certainly 
understand moving to where most of his customers went 
(apparently Android). And to be further fair, Android will at 
some point (if not already) outsell iOS. iOS, Apple's approval 
process, etc. can also be infuriating. For Apple/iOS users, 
that's just the way it goes, and I certainly won't be bitter 
about it. Though I can't help being sad to leave such a 
powerful, feature-rich application behind. :(


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