As I mentioned last time, I’ve had my iPhone 3G since iPhone 3G day, 11-Jul-08, almost two months. Before then, I put my hands on the iPhone at an AT&T store, but never truly spent any time with it. The iPhone 3G was released with a number of different Enterprise ready intentions, including 3G and Exchange support, among others. Is it ready for power users and road warriors alike?

Last time I talked about what I thought were OS related issues.  Some people commented back and didn't exactly see things as I did; and that's cool. Its one of the things that makes Gear Diary a really cool place to write and visit - all of the differing opinions and ideas. Keep those comments coming!

If you remember, I said that I was going to tackle the following areas:

• Operating System
• Calendar
• Mail
• Tasks

Today, I'm going to dive in and tackle some of the issues that I see with calendaring and iCal on the iPhone, as it relates to Exchange and Lotus Notes.  I know, I know... NOTES?!?  Please...

Is it just me, or is this screen a little cramped?

As I said, my current employer uses Notes.  My last employer used Notes.  I haven't seen or used Notes since 1998, and the last 2 jobs were both Notes shops.  <throws hands in the air> Whaddya gonna do..?

...But I digress... The point is, not everyone uses Exchange (do they Chris G.??), and an even fewer amount of companies use Domino; but as many people will agree, Exchange has a considerable installation footprint in the Enterprise.  That's THE reason why Apple included Exchange support in the iPhone. They want to play in that market. However, in order to be able to play there, the iPhone is going to have to have specific capabilities and Exchange-based features.  Let's see how it does...

Calendar

Creating Meeting Invitations on the Device
As a power user or road warrior, I don't always have access to my PC or laptop. I don't want to HAVE to carry one with me all the time, either. Having the iPhone 3G (or any PDA/Smartphone, really) with me, should be enough; and is with other devices with other operating systems and tools.

I live and die at the office by my calendar. If your meeting isn't on my calendar (for whatever reason), its very likely, I won't be there.

Interestingly enough, I've noticed I can create appointments (calendar events for myself) on my iPhone 3G, but I can't create meeting requests, even if I know an e-mail address or have intended recipients in my Address Book.

Right now, the iPhone simply doesn't support it. This is going to have to change, as hallway meetings and chance discussions happen and too frequently spark formal meetings. As it stands, this requires me to manage my calendar in two places.

Notice: the iPhone knows the difference between an Invitation and an Appointment...

First and foremost, the company I work for only (officially) supports Blackberry's (or BB Connect, IF you can get it to work with your WM Device) as a PDA. The CIO wants an iPhone, and he has the IT Director trying to figure out how to get all of the device's PIM components to sync OTA with Domino.  He's going to have an interesting time.  Mail isn't a problem.  We can get mail to sync via POP3 if needed. The problem is Contacts and Calendar.  Since the iPhone doesn't support Domino at ALL, I'm not certain how he will address this. When they finally come to a decision either way, I'll let everyone know what they did.

However, that still doesn't resolve the issue that currently exists with meeting requests on the iPhone. It simply can't create a meeting request. If I can't create an invitation on my iPhone, I'm going to have trouble using it to continue to manage my calendar at the office. I'm left creating meeting requests in Notes (to get the people I need at the office at the meeting), and then again in Outlook or on my iPhone (so that it syncs with my device).

Consumers don't (necessarily) need to create invitations (though I'm certain that some casual Smartphones users do...). Enterprise users do, though. Right now, regardless of what mail server you use, Exchange, Domino, or some other, this is a huge hole.

Viewing Free/Busy Time and the GAL
Oh, and by the way, when I create invitations on the device, I REALLY need to be hooked to the GAL (Global Address List) and be able to view Free/Busy Time. Without this, how in the world am I going to be able to schedule a meeting with someone at the office, who is NOT in my Contacts list, knowing they will accept it? Again, this is a huge hole, and something that, for business customers, regardless of mail server, must be addressed.

The screen shot above is from my Exchange Server. NORMALLY, people in the GAL have their free/busy time updated; but that's something that you have to enable at the Server level.  I know at one time, that was enabled for this Server, but it looks like its been turned off.

The screen shot below is from my Notes client at the office.  The scheduler is a bit different than that in Exchange/Outlook, but its similar enough to see the point.  I can't do something like this on the iPhone at the current time.

For users like me, being able to do this on the device in some way, needs to happen.  Again, I'm not always at my desk, don't always have immediate access to a desktop system that I can log into to create the meeting, etc.  What's the point to having Exchange support if that support is missing key elements like this?

Categories vs. Multiple Calendars
I admit that this is a personal preference more than anything.  I really like an integrated calendar where I can see everything all in one place.  While I appreciate the ability to have more than one calendar here, but I'd like the ability to filter on categories rather than have things in different calendars. If need be, I can display just a specific category in my calendar and get the same thing as a separate calendar, BUT with the ability to have all of my events in a single calendar.

The biggest problem I have with individual calendars is that I don't have a way, on the iPhone at least that I know of, to lay one over the other so I can see my whole picture for the week or month.  Problem is, that at some point, if you have a calendar like mine, then things get too crowded at times.  That's where category filters come in handy. 

If I can see events for work, along with just the personal events I want to see at any given moment on a single calendar so I know where all of my free time is going, then it helps me plan my time better...and let's face it, calendaring is all about planning.

Accepting Invitations on the Device
Ok... this should be a no brainer. Unfortunately, it isn't.  Personally, I think this is one of the biggest cluster bumps in Apple's Exchange integration, but again, this is just me.  You may feel differently; and if you do, I'd appreciate hearing why in the Comments section, below.

There's a disconnect between my iPhone, iCal and Exchange Server. When I receive an invitation/meeting request on my WM device, it shows up in Inbox. When I respond to it from Inbox, it disappears, creates the appropriate calendar item in my calendar (depending on my response) and gives me the opportunity to send a response back to the meeting organizer. Fairly seamless and logical, wouldn't you think?

Invitation Notice Displays upon Arrival	Note the red notification ball on Calendar
The button on the far right is the Invitation Inbox. Note the red notification ball

When I receive and try to respond to an invitation on my iPhone, I wind up with problems.  The invitation shows up in my Exchange synced inbox (so yes, there is a mail item in my inbox) AND one in iCal on the device as an invitation, effectively splitting the object into two pieces.

An invitation (first note) in my Mail inbox	The same invitation in my Invitation Inbox

When I open the item in my inbox, Mail treats it like any other piece of mail. It's just text with a couple attachments that you can't do anything with. However, iCal tosses it into the invitation inbox. When I open it up there, I can respond to it; but the original message, again, the mail object, still remains in my inbox. If I open it up and respond to it on the desktop for any reason, I get a duplicate event in iCal. I may or may not get a duplicate event in Outlook (but I will get a dup on the device).

However Apple decides to respond to this, Apple needs to realize that they NEED to respond. Sending the invitation to iCal is fine, if and only if the object disappears from Mail after the iPhone puts it there. The device must also create some kind of response mail to the meeting chair and allow you to add a personal note before sending it out.

Again, this is a huge hole. I've got multiple instances of the same event on my calendar. I've got to remember to ignore my iCal inbox on my iPhone. Responding to invitations from my iPhone just creates problems right now.

In my opinion, Calendar on the iPhone is about 1/2 baked right now. The casual, home user side is solid.  The business side isn't quite there yet. 

In order to get around the Notes/Domino sync issues, I've got Notes forwarding everything to my Exchange account.  After mail is received there, things get goofy.  In order to get around the object split problem, I have to go into Outlook or OWA, open the meeting request in my inbox and accept it there. Then it will prompt me to send or not send the response, add the item to my calendar, and interestingly enough, delete the object from my Invitation Inbox on my iPhone.  The iPhone syncs it all without issues, but only after the items are where they are supposed to be. 

Admittedly, I don't sync to any other calendar, so I can't say how this will or will not work with, say Google Calendar.  I don't know of many companies that use GMail or Google Calendar in the Enterprise, although I am certain there are some smaller companies that do.

Do you sync with Exchange?  Have you noticed these problems?  If you have, how are you getting past them?  I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts in the Discussion area, so again, please keep your comments coming.

Next week, I'm going to wrap things up with commentary on Mail and Tasks.  I also have a couple of ideas that might resolve these problems, if Apple will go for it.  Stick around, folks... It only gets interesting from here!

I am very fortunate to have such a wonderful working relationship with the folks over at E-TEN, now officially a part of the Acer family!  I received a wonderful surprise the other day.  E-TEN (now Acer, now that the merger between the two has completed) sent me the V900 WM Pro 6.1 mobile device!

The box says TV on the go, but there's good news and bad news.  Yes, the device WILL receive digital TV signals.. Unfortunately, if you live in the States, don't get your hopes up.  The device doesn't support ATSC, the flavor of digital TV that is used here. The device will receive DVB-T (and related) signals.

On the outside chance that it might pick up SOMETHING here, I manually scanned all available frequencies...nuthin', nada, and a big nope.  In fact, the device wouldn't even display snow.  Oh well... I tried.  I also checked with E-TEN/Acer.  The tuner won't work in the States; but if you're in parts of Europe and Asia, you should be set...

Contents of the Box
Open the box, and like the X800 and the X650, you're immediately greeted by the device.

The device is housed in a cardboard sleeve, and encased in a plastic bag.  You have to pull it out of the sleeve and out of the bag to get at it.

The complete contents of the box.  From left to right, the case, the headphones and replaceable earbuds, getting started documentation and software CD, TV out cables with mini-USB connector, AC adaptor with (I think) French plug, 1530 mAh battery, glofiish V900 and extra telescoping stylus.

A close up of the glofiish V900.  You'll notice that the device lacks any buttons on the face of the device besides the call send and end buttons.

I've been using the V900 for about a week now (5 days, actually) and the lack of buttons on the device is proving to be a bit of an issue.  Officially, the device has 3 buttons.  The camera button, located on the lower right side of the device (you can kinda see it near the date on the photo, above) the record button (located near the tip of the big left facing arrow in the photo above), and the volume rocker, located above the record button.

The Buttons control panel applet lists the camera button, and the record button twice.  The Record button has push and hold as well as push functions, so at least you can get SOME use out of it. The device comes with Voice Commander, and the record button has that app and Recorder assigned to the record button.  I've removed both of those and assigned <OK/Close> to the push function, and the Communications Manager to the push and hold function.  The camera button still operates the camera.

I'll be using the device over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned to Gear Diary for some blog posts on the V900 as I put it through its paces!

I've had my iPhone 3G since iPhone 3G day, 11-Jul-08, almost two months. Before then, I put my hands on the iPhone at an AT&T store, but never truly spent any time with it. The iPhone 3G was released with a number of different Enterprise ready intentions, including 3G and Exchange support, among others. Is it ready for power users and road warriors alike?

In this multi-part series, I'm going to cover a few different areas of the device and go into details where I see the iPhone needing some growth. Specifically, I'm going to cover points on

• Operating System
• Calendar
• Mail
• Tasks

We'll discuss the accelerometer, the Home screen, Bluetooth and Bluetooth profiles, etc. There's a lot of information here, so just hang out with me for a bit, and let's explore this together. If I've forgotten something, however, please feel free to give me a shout!

Please note: This is NOT a review of the iPhone 3G, nor is it intended to be. It is an analysis and commentary on its readiness as a business tool by the end-user, be they power user, road warrior, or your everyday, on call, communications and web junkie.

After more than a month of dedicated use, I can say with a decent amount of certainty, in my opinion, that the iPhone isn't quite ready for implementation in the enterprise. No, I'm NOT talking about administration and deployment issues and concerns. I'm talking about end user related issues. From my perspective, there are a few items that Apple needs to correct before I, or most power users and road warriors can make the best use of the device at the office.

I've passed some of this around to some of the team here at Gear Diary and to some of the other industry folks that I know. Some agreed with these points, some said that my focus was a bit off, considering that the target audience for the device is, and has been locked on one segment – consumers. However, if Apple wants to stay true to their intent of capturing a share of the enterprise market with the iPhone 3G, they should at least listen to some of these suggestions...I think, anyway.

So, without further ado, here are what I think the growth points are for the iPhone 3G:

Operating System

Security...NOT!
The iPhone world is a-buzz over the last few days due to an unsquashed regression bug that was resolved in ROM 1.1.3, but has resurfaced. According to information at Gizmodo  as well as Mac Rumors, users can get around Apple's password screen and get access to Contacts and the phone with a double tap of the Home button.

This item alone will prevent the iPhone from being deployed in some Enterprises. Depending on the industry, some organizations won't allow any unsecured device to carry company information; and if I can get passed even simple security without even trying hard, then the device isn't going to get deployed in a lot of organizations right now, in my opinion.

Oh...and by the way, don't EVEN get me started about anti-virus software and the iPhone. That's just nasty...

Today Screen vs. Home Screen/Program Launcher
One of the biggest problems that I have with my iPhone 3G, is that getting access to my schedule requires a bit of work.

1. Turn the phone on

2. Unlock it via slider, or slider and password

3. Tap the Calendar icon to run Calendar

I have to do this each time before I can see my itinerary for the day. With both BlackBerry and WM devices, I have access to my schedule right from the main device page, after the device turns on. Apple provides a series of App Launcher pages, and that's it.

The standard WM Today Screen	The Touch Diamond Today Screen	My iPhone 3G Home Screen

No offense meant, but I'm busy. I don't have a lot of time to tap around the screen to see when my next meeting is. Both WM screens above show the next meeting on the device's main screen. Just because Smartphones are more common place, doesn't mean that they are tolerated more than before – quite the opposite in fact. I've had managers accuse me of playing or of inappropriate multi-tasking when I receive more than 1 e-mail (I don't always look when I get an e-mail alert, especially if I'm in small meetings). Any way, in situations like this, I really just want to turn the device, on, check to see what my next appointment is, check to see what kind of messages I've received, etc. Tapping through to all of the other applets is not acceptable at that point. I don't need to look like I'm playing with my gadget.

I mentioned this to some of my other mobile device enthusiasts, and they reminded me that the iPhone was first a consumer device, and they're right. However, with the release of the iPhone 3G, Apple is chasing after the business market. Many business users like the idea of one converged device for all their needs, as I do. The operating system needs to allow for interface modifications so that I can easily get to my schedule, e-mail previews/listings, to-dos, etc. Using something like HTC Home for that or Throttle Launcher would be a good idea. Both of these allow for a program launcher...

Move Bluetooth On/Off out of General Settings
In order to get to the Bluetooth on/off switch, you have to

1. 1. Find and Tap Settings,
2. 2. Tap General Settings,
3. 3. Tap Bluetooth, and then
4. 4. Tap the On/Off Button.

That's about 2-3 taps too many. Apple needs to find a way to optimize this so that I can very quickly and easily turn BT on and off. One – two taps after turning the device on (maybe a 2x or 3x home button push..?) would be best. In fact, I really like that 3x home button push idea...but only because the iPhone doesn't have any hardware buttons besides the Home button.

Aside from that, leaving BT on all the time is one idea, but with the device's battery life problems, it just makes working with the device all that more difficult. The fact that the device is perpetually in discovery mode is also a huge security issue. I know many businesses that won't be happy with that, especially if the device is connected to your corporate VPN while BT is on; and the device is discoverable.

Bluetooth Keyboard Profile
...and while we're talking about Bluetooth, it would really be nice to be able to use this device with an external keyboard. All it needs is a keyboard profile for what ever BT/wireless keyboard is out there, including Apple's wireless keyboard, and we're set. Working on Office documents with only the thumb board is gonna really stink; and be difficult over time, especially if we're talking about a large document.

Hello..? Landscape..!
It's not always easy to figure out which applications are accelerometer friendly, and which aren't. Safari obviously is; but interestingly enough, Calendar, Mail and Contacts aren't. Not every app supports multi-touch zoom, either. Having both accelerometer and zoom support in Month View for Calendar, for example, might just give you enough room to see what you need to see... However, regardless of how an app MAY look in landscape orientation, Apple should give developers universal access to the accelerometer and let the user decide how he wants to use any given app.

Mail and SMS are good examples here. Not every piece of HTML mail zooms to a level where I can read the text without using some kind of multi-touch action to make the text larger. Then I have to scroll back and forth. If Mail were accelerometer aware, I might be able to see (and read!) an entire message without any horizontal scrolling. Landscape support in Mail would also give the user access to the landscape thumb board (which you can see when in Safari, and entering text into a field in landscape mode), which is easier to type with, as the keys are wider and spaced out a bit more.

While this doesn't have to happen just to support the enterprise (I can't tell you how many TXT messages my daughter sends on her Blackjack 1 every month, at least not off the top of my head), it would make a huge amount of sense to implement this level of ability into the core OS so all apps could move back and forth between portrait and landscape.

Lock Screen Customization
If I HAVE to have a lock screen (with the iPhone, the device locks when you turn it off, period), I want to be able to customize the Lock screen to satisfy some business needs (to show me important information about upcoming appointments/meetings or to display the last system even (text/e-mail received, alarm(s), etc)); and I'd like to do more than simply change the background, too. From an IT Admin perspective, that may be a, "If found, please return to..." kinda screen, or something that displays some kind of IT policy. The basics are already in place, including the Pass code Lock screen.

Install/Uninstall Apps
I am not one to advocate complete IT control of my computing experience at work. I don't like being tied down and prohibited from using or installing tools that I need/want on my own. Having to get Internet access approved and then limited drives me nuts, and I'm not fond of organizations that impose limits on me like that. However, that's because I'm a power user, and (without sounding too arrogant, because that's not my intention) I often find I know much, much more than the IT department about the Smartphones I am currently using, and how it integrates and interacts with other enterprise components. That doesn't mean I don't understand or know why IT managers do it, it just means that I don't like it when they do it to me. There's a big piece missing from iTunes right now (or at least I haven't seen it, or heard anything on it from any of my industry contacts) – the ability to limit the installation of applications or application types from within iTunes.

Many IT shops simply block the installation or use of iTunes at the policy level. You won't be able to download or install the app in cases like that, meaning no syncing your iPod with your work computer. This also means that you won't be able to sync your iPhone with that computer, either. Many IT managers will also want to limit exactly what content you put on your iPhone – what music, podcasts, and most importantly, applications, you are able to download and install. The idea here is to protect the corporate data and network it rides on.

As such, we need some sort of tool that allows IT managers to block the purchase, downloading, and installation of specific apps from the iTunes App Store. Again, while I don't like this kind of draconian control placed on me, without it, I don't know that IT managers will be comfortable in supporting the iPhone, regardless of model, in the Enterprise.

Corporate iPhone Development
Am I the only one that's still running down this road? I thought I had heard something about this when the 3G/App Store was originally announced/rumored. What about the Corporate App Store, or the ability to install custom apps that YOUR company has written on the iPhone? Be it the corporate sales catalog, sales force automation, or some other database or tool. If I can get Super Monkey Ball on my iPhone, why can't my company also provide me with specialized tools to help me do my job?

The iPhone 3G supports this theoretically, but again, I've not seen anything officially on this yet. And you can't tell me that someone at Apple didn't think about this and at least pitch it to Steve. The SDK can't JUST exist for software development companies. What about companies that want to create specific portals and apps that use those portals on the company intranet? Since the iPhone 2.x software supports VPN, this is, like, the next logical step...

Office Document Editing
(In conjunction with the external keyboard gig above...)With the awesome screen and accelerometer the 3G has, this seems like it would be a no brainer, as well. I'd like to be able to take my Word and Excel documents with me and edit them with my iPhone when I'm out and about. While I don't have to have an external keyboard for this all the time, this is still something that's missing on the iPhone.

I'm also still curious how Apple is going to address native file synchronization on the iPhone. I'm going to want to create, edit, save, attach to e-mail, detach from e-mail, modify and resend, etc. at least Word and Excel documents at some point. Right now, I don't really have the ability to do this...

Come back next week, and we’ll continue on discussing the Calendar issues I see with the device. In the mean time, please join us in the discussion area and let us know what you think so far.