iPhone missing PDA capabilities?

I also remember S. Jobs comparing the iPhone to current smartphones on the market. As a huge Apple fan I would just assume that the iPhone would have all the basic features like everyone is mentioning here. The one basic feature that would help is just basic highlighting and cut/paste. (And I also have to agree with the search window for the contacts list as I too have a large phone book). In addition, I would love to see an update where we can enter a number in our contact list while on a phone call. It's a function, most if not all, standard cell phones have...shouldn't a $500 dollar phone have it? Leaving out basic smartphone and standard phone features just doesn't make sense. At the price range of $500-$600 you're primarily targeting PDA or smartphone clientelle. I just don't see too many non-pda/phone users running out to buy a cool phone at that price range!!! I believe the majority of people here are asking for answers on syncing issues and for the addition of some functions...sounds like previous palm, pocket pc and blackberry users to me???

I can understand that people should research the funtions of a phone before purchase but at $500-600 dollars I would just expect that...ignorant maybe but that's just how I feel about Apple. If I am looking to buy BMW is it wrong to assume they have a leather option? I expect more from Apple considering their excellent track record. These days you frequently see pc users switching to mac but rarely see mac-->pc!!! People are wising up about Apple products that we all know are superior to its competition. That's why it surprises me that they would launch a product that comes up short of a smartphone but at a smartphone price.

For me, the best reason to expect PDA capabilities is the price. 599.00 for the coolest toy on the block is a little steep for me, but if (when) it could run word, powerpoint and excel for osx, and fully sync to both my ical and ms outlook, i would be willing to pay the sticker price, and then some.

I went to apple store and gleefully played with the iphone, saw what feaures it has and does not have, and decided that as much fun as it is, for now i have to stick with cel phone and pda.

The iLife products in MacOS prove that GTD (Getting Things Done) features are a no-brainer for Apple. Putting this together with their incomplete implementation on the initial release of the iPhone, one is inclined to speculate that the missing features (e.g. ToDos, Memos, Search, Cut/Paste) had not yet passed certification testing by the time the software as a whole entered the final testing phase leading up to the initial iPhone release. Wanting to hold to the release date promised at MacWorld, Apple must have given priority to the revolutionary new features the iPhone brings to the marketplace, knowing that they could readily follow up with a software update to patch in the missing GTD features. I'd expect based on this to see them incorporated in the first software update. The only question remaining in this line of thought is of course when Apple will release the first iPhone software update. Knowing how Apple handles new releases, I expect we'll all know that on the day they release it.

MacBook 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Jeff, how well does the iPhone hand contacts and calendar exactly? Can you add and edit appointments and contacts? Having read-only ability on a calendar is why I don't carry my iPod around unless I am listening to music.

Also, why do you want to edit Word documents on your phone? Wouldn't it be easier to use a laptop?

I went to apple store and gleefully played with the iphone, saw what feaures it has and does not have, and decided that as much fun as it is, for now i have to stick with cel phone and pda.

I wish there was a way to make all potential iPhone buyers read this and take your advice. The number of people who never bothered to research what the iPhone can and can't do before dropping $600 on it is ridiculous. They are all on these forums now complaining about "missing features" (i.e., features they wish the phone had).

I'm still carrying my Palm Treo too. I knew the iPhone was missing many features that I have on the Treo, but I like to try out new technology, and the things that the iPhone does -- it does very well. I'm hoping (and I've sent feedback to Apple) that they will add functionality to the iPhone over time. It would also be of great benefit to me if they would make it easy for third parties to develop software for the iPhone.

An entirely different reason that I still carry the Treo in addition to the iPhone is that the GSM carriers don't have nearly the coverage around here that the CDMA carriers have. If I venture out of suburbia, I'm likely to see "No Service" on the iPhone. That's no fault of the iPhone, of course, and I hope the GSM carriers will get their antennae on more towers.

Overall I love the iPhone. But it could be much better for some of us if they'd add some features that are already proven to be useful on other devices. Those who don't need the features are welcome to ignore them -- just as I ignore You Tube.

It has to be said that if Apple had wanted to make the iPhone into a PDA, it would have ended up pretty much like everyone else's PDA. Clearly that wasn't what they had in mind, and equally clearly, as they were developing it they knew that the feature set they were aiming for would exclude a significant section of the marketplace who need, or think they need, PDA-type resources. What amazes me is that while Apple clearly understood that some users would not find it suitable, many of those self-same users couldn't work that out for themselves.

To me, the iPhone is an almost perfect device. It doesn't require me to pay for features other people want but I don't - just for the functionality I need in a cellphone. It gives me a way to check my email and access to the internet while away from the office or home, it gives me a few basic organizational tools I rarely use but sometimes need, a few extra gizmos to mess with when I'm bored, an easy-to-use cellphone that doesn't require complex navigation, the most stupendously good voice mail, very neat and slick integration, and a user interface that requires nothing but a finger or gesture to operate.

Yes, it lacks a couple of things I would like - to do lists for one, though in truth I don't use them much - but if Apple weren't targeting users who need such things, then I'm happy because I don't either.

The iPhone is targeted at a specific market segment, and I think it hits that market almost perfectly. There are some ragged edges that may need resolving with the first model and the second generation should then be a devastating product, but for those IN the market segment for which it was designed, there is likely no other product that comes close. For those outside, the market contains a lot of alternatives, any of which is likely to suit much better.

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING, RIGHT?

So, what you are saying is Apple has no interest in Treo or Blackberry users, or other SmartPhone users moving over to the iPhone?

No, that is neither what I'm saying, nor what I said.

Apple, like any manufacturer designing a product they want to sell and make into a profit center, have to decide exactly what they want to include and what they don't. They appear to have concluded, based on observing the final product, that there was a market for a device of the feature set of the iPhone for users they felt likely not to want or need the feature set of other devices.

Based on the numbers sold and the overwhelmingly positive market reaction to date, I suspect they were largely right.

That isn't to say it has 'exactly' the right functionality - but the balance is, I think, pretty close for the market segment they were aiming at.

+Jeff, how well does the iPhone hand contacts and calendar exactly? Can you add and edit appointments and contacts? Having read-only ability on a calendar is why I don't carry my iPod around unless I am listening to music.+

I don't modify appointments that often but I haven't seen any problems when I do.

+Also, why do you want to edit Word documents on your phone? Wouldn't it be easier to use a laptop?+

I don't. You may be referring to a different poster.

fair enough,

Still, I can't see how Apple expects to attract other Smartphone users with the iphone's current functionality.

Maybe they don't want to. Who knows.

Well the fact Apple THINK they know who they are targeting with it doesn't mean that's how it will actually turn out to be! That's why those with specific interest in adding new features need to give appropriate feedback at http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone. No guarantee they'll get the features they want, but there is plenty of reason to think the chances are even less if they don't!

But in the end, no, I don't think they're really after the real 'smartphone' users. Those are people who are pretty much tied to the tools their phones provide, and often to business-related systems into which Apple find it hard to directly hook. I think they believe many of those users are tied to the smartphones despite the shortcomings of those devices (in Apple's terms at least). I think they're after a different market - those who buy smartphones because they offer a set of features a little broader than ordinary cellphones - music players, reasonably decent camera, internet connection and browser, email, and the like, but who find the way smartphones do things too awkward or obstructive and the various elements of the phone, operating environment and software too obstructive and clunky. Those are users who don't need the extra functions of personal organization so much as they need a phone that is seamlessly easy and transparent to use, and which gives them the communications tools rather than information management ones.

I may be missing the mark in my assumptions, but I think the iPhone as it stands (like it or loathe it) tends to indicate Apple's sense of direction for the product.

Personally I like it a lot - I have PDAs (going back to very ugly devices like the Psion II, so I know about suffering!) and the last thing I want is another one. But the thing I really wanted is a communications device that does what I need when I need it - and with the exception of AT&T's infamously variable service, the iPhone does that job to (near) perfection.