[Touch HD General] eaglesteve:
Mackaby,

Excellent post, as usual. You put it well. Do not assume that iPhone is just hype. That's the mentality I'm having in comparing between iPhone and Touch HD at the moment.

Very useful links for me, and highly relevant for those of us who are torn between choosing between the iPhone and Touch HD, which is touted as the most serious challenger to iPhone at the moment by some.

For me, it all boils down to whether or not iPhone is able to provide the functionality. Perhaps not to the full extend of what HD can do, because I don't think iPhone has that capability, but I need to know to what extent I have to compromise.

In this post, I would like to share with everyone the result of some of my research these two days on applications that I found on the iPhone, with the view of making the choice a little easire for all. The area of research is based on my own sets of frequently used application, but many of you might be using some of these applications too.

1) Golfing software

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find anything similar on the iPhone platform yet. I'm able to find many score recording software, but nothing that can compute handicap, organise competitions, tracks monies competitors owe each other, etc. If anyone of you find out new info, please share. I've found an application called GolfTraxx which has some of the functionalities that I use, but it does not appear to be comprehensive enough in terms of features and functions. Another application is iGOLFScore, which again appear limited in functionality.

2) Office application.

The impression that I have is that there is'nt anything equivalent to Softmaker on the iPhone platform. The best one could hope for is to VIEW the documents, with no editing capability. Even this relies on webbased applications rather down applications that one download and install on the iPhone. Please correct me guys if my info is wrong as I'm completely new to iPhone.

3) Electronic wallets

I found a number of applications such as Mememgo Wallet, mSecure. No idea if they are as good as wm based applications, but don't expect difficulties as these are not very complex applications.

4) Calculators

I found HiCalc on iPhone! There is also a lite version of HiCalc on iPhone.

5) Finance and accounting

I found several equivalent applications here. No chance to try it out to know if they're good unfortunately.

6) Bible Reader

Yes. Not a problem here.

7) Multiple email account.

Some kind members have already given me the answer. No problem supporting 5 email accounts.

8) Voice over IP.

I found a good one from Pennytel, which happens to be my ISP. Therefore, I expect no problem here.

9) Dictionary

I found many choices here. Not expecting any problem

10) Good quality GPS software

None, zero, nothing. One of the biggest disadvantage of going iPhone at the moment. Google Map??? It just won't do. I currently rely to Tom Tom to warn me if I'm overspeeding, approaching speed camera, and not to dash the red light.

11) Ability to share musics, download and save youtube video files on the iPhone is unclear to me. Those of you who have "jailbroken", could you please shed some light here on whether I need to make any sacrifice here?

Based on my own need, I conclude that I would need to compromise in three key areas: Golfing software, Navigation software, and office applications.

As far as Golfing software is concerned, unfortunately even Touch HD would not run my existing software because of the non-standard screen layout (480x800). I just received confirmation from the developer that MobileGolfScorer would not run on these relatively new screen layout, so that it a 1-1 between Touch HD and iPhone.

It then boils down only to the navigation software and office applications.

iPhone users, any info on whether anything is coming forth in these two areas?

Edit: just found this link on TomTom for iPhone:

http://www.gpsreview.net/tomtom-for-iphone/

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSB46553120080609

http://www.mobilewhack.com/tomtom-explains-iphone-situation/

Has any iPhone user managed to get this?

Seems like Reuters's report is not factual. TomTom's availability on iPhone is still not confirmed?? It appears that TomTom does have a working version already but is having problem figuring out the working relationship with Apple.

IGO8 on iPhone??

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-6bC1MIhn44

Is this already released? Is there a user here?

This could be an acceptable solution for me if TomTom is unavailable.

May be iPhone is going to be what I end up choosing after all??? GPS application is going to be one of the main deciding factors.