[Touch HD General] eaglesteve:
I see that this topic is emerging again.

Some of you who have followed the following thread would know that I had once evaluated between iPhone and HD, and ended up choosing HD.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=443900&highlight=long+message

So, please cast aside any idea that I'm an iPhone fan.

Despite my position and conclusion in that thread, I'm now a happy iPhone user. Not completely satisfied, but very very happy.

First, let me share with you the main areas of dissatisfactions:

==============================================

(a) Navigation: At the moment, the best Navigation software on iPhone is limited to XGPS (which as voice turn by turn facility) but it is extremely crude and primitive. I'm looking forwared to G-MAP to be released for the Australian users within this year. I hope Tom Tom will be available on iPhone soon. This would be one of the last reasons to use a window mobile phone.

(b) Battery: since we can't change the battery, I'm often out of battery juice before the end of the day. Sometimes it is a problem, sometimes it is not. A long flight will pose a problem for example.

(c) Bluetooth: Yes, I have already installed iBluetooth 1.0.8 but it is still buggy and unrealiable, so it does not work most of the time when come to file transfer. It will take many more versions before the reliability rises to the winmo's level, I believe.

(d) Multi-tasking: I miss being able to go to a banking website in one window, open up my ewallet application to find out my password, copy and paste the user id into the website. I miss WKTASK! Now such scenario is completely impossible with iPhone. Apple's position even with the version 3 is that they would not allow it, because of the impact on battery life and performance.

The main areas for improvements for me in moving from HD to iPhone, are:

=======================================================

(a) Improved battery life. This is a surprise for me. The battery of iPhone is so much better than HD's.

(b) Switching between 3G and wifi connection is so much better in iPhone. The device never get burning hot like the case of HD when WIFI active.

(c) No more flickering screen when I scroll. Being able to read when the screein is moving is a real pleasure. With winmo mobile, when trying to scroll a screen, we often unintentionally bring up the pop up screen, or activate a link. This is not a problem for most iphone application, although in Safari it could still unintentionally trigger the link unless we touch the part of the screen without the link. Uniform user interface from program to program is nice. Screen that responses consistently and reliably is a fresh air for me.

(d) Variety of third party applications used to be a strength in the window mobile environment but now iPhone has done excellent in this area too. I can honestly say that apart from lack of GPS and office suit, most of the applications that I have on my iPhone are far far better designed than those I use on the HD. Just some examples below:

- VOIP client. In window mobile, the best I could have is AgePhone. In iPhone, I have a free VOIP client from Pennytel (which only work over wifi but not 3G), I have another one called Siphon (which works over both wifi and 3G). The voice quality of the iPhone VOIP client is miles better than Agephone on my HD. No echo. No need to use wired headset. Quality is undiscernable from the normal mobile phone call.

- Group email. One of the main problems I had in using the email on winmo platform was that I could not find any email program that lets me group my contacts and to create or forward mail to that group. Well, with iPhone, there are at least 10 such programs available. Many of them are free of charge. I'm using GroupMailer myself. Now I can easily forward jokes from friends to my own sets of friends without havign to type in all the recipients individually.

- Financial and stock monitoring program. In this area, iPhone's Bloomberg, which is free of charge beats any of the stock monitoring program on winmo by miles in terms of functionality.

- Weather programs in winmo platform is extremely primitive as compared to that on the iPhone. In HD for example, we came up with program to add our own location. In iPhone, it simply use your GPS position to figure out which is the nearest Meteorological station you could use. The program that I use is called Pocket Weather, which also shows the animated radars. I also have snow reports that shows the snow condition, pictures of the snow fields, etc. So many of the iPhone based weather programs have incorporated features like this, but I do not seem to be able to find weather programs of comparable depth and breath in function and feature in the winmo platform.

- Camera. Yes, the native camera program in iPhon is only 2 megapixel (I think), but if you use a program called ClearCam, your picture will be 4 megapixels. It will snap 4 pictures automatically in quick succession, and automatically choose the sharpest image to be saved. In low light, where my HD camera picture was almost completely dark, iPhone camera was able to show still very good picture.

- Video. Yes, I do have this on my iPhone but using a free software called Cycorder.

- Secretive pictures and videos. Do you have such pictures that you do not want others to "bump into"? Hard to do in HD, is'nt it? In iPhone, you can use a program called Video and Picture safe to make it impossible for anyone except yourself to view them. You need a password to enter. You can also set up fake password for any hacker trying to gain access. When they enter the video safe, they will only see a set of innocent pictures, but not yours. You can also set up quick double tap to immediately display a excel graph while viewing those juicy pictures. I don't know if such software are avaialble on the HD platform. If you know, please let me know.

- Music id. There is a similar program called Shazam in iPhone, except it is way better than music id. Any music identified are kept so that it becomes your collection of your favourtie tunes. It also allows you to one click into any youtube videos with that song.

- Location based applications are a lot richer on the iPhone. For example, I have an application called One Tap, which list all the movies shown on cinemas around my current location, and to lt me watch completely fluid trailers of those movies. No out of sync between the voice and movies. Completely fluid.

- Traffic cameras. Traffic cameras of Sydney, Singapore and many other world cities are available FOC on the iPhone. You can see via those camera the degree of traffic congestions before using the route. So useful.

- Train schedule, bus guides, etc. So many new ones are springing up on the iPhone everyday. When I was in Singapore recently the only such application on the winmo would cost me more than $30. It is free on iPhone and some cost just less than 2 bucks.

- Video playing. It is so much better in iPhone. Completely fluid. Able to fast forware and rewind. No out of sync problem. As long as the format is one supported.

- When viewing the thumbnails in HD, you can't do it very fast. It takes time for all the thumbnails to appear. The scrolling is also flickering and jerky. The pictures library can scroll only very slowly in order for the processor to catch up. No such problem with iPhone.

(e) Tweaking and the love of it.

I love to improve and perfect my device on the winmo platform. I'm happy to find that my hobby can actually continue here on the iPhone. Among some of my recent improvements were to have (limited) cut and paste, video camera, group email, bluetooth file sending and receiving, GPS navigation software, reading word and excel on iPhone, etc.

(f) Speed and stability.

Does iPhone freezes up? Yes, of course, but much much less than winmo devices. Has it forced a hard reset yet Yes, just once since I started using it. Does it require soft resets often? No, not as often as in winmo platform. If only one of the ROMs on HD can be as fast and as stable as the iPhone OS, life would be very nice.

(g) Email rendering.

It is okay and not unacceptable on the winmo device, but really really good on the iPhone. Not just the mail but also the attachements, be it PDF file, word, excel, or powerpoint attachments.

What prompted me to switch from HD to iPhone?

====================================

1) Window 6.5. I had high hope that microsoft would really improve on the user interface in window 7, but when I tried out winmo 6.5 cooked ROM, I made up my mind that microsoft is incapable of delivering anything close to what Apple is offering. Winmo 6.5 even worst IMO than window 5.0 in terms of ease of launching applications and offer as far as I'm concern, zero improvement other than making the device even slower. Unfair comment? May be, but I really hated it after trying it out, and was not prepared to wait for microsoft any longer.

2) Imminent availability of GPS navigation software. I mentioned G-Map, and XGPS. They are not there yet, for sure, but I'm seeing them coming. For the time being, I continue to use my HD for car navigation, until G-map is available. Yes, G-Map will not be as good as Tom Tom, I'm certain, but it would be a worthwhile compromise, given what I have gained in the other areas. BTW, XGPS is still a piece of junk. Forget about using it. I'm waiting for G-Map, which is currenlty only avaialble for some US cities.