Log in

View Full Version : On the Road, On the Go: What's Your Killer App?


Jason Dunn
07-13-2003, 11:10 PM
I've had people ask me why I tend to carry my Smartphone more than I carry my Pocket PC, and it comes down to one simple answer: one-handed email is the "killer application" for me. I spent a weekend in Edmonton in June, and I took only my Smartphone. While walking around West Edmonton Mall with my wife and her friend, I was able to check my email in an inconspicuous manner, and of course have it automatically poll for new messages every 15 minutes. Checking email on a Pocket PC is a two-handed affair, which is vastly different than using a Smartphone. My first pass at email always consists of deleting spam - I can do that while walking or talking with others. My second pass at mail is when I respond to the messages - I'm still pretty slow at T9, so one of the features I really enjoy using is the voice recorder option.<br /><br />Over that weekend, a deactivated review team email alias for Pocket PC Thoughts was turned on due to a miscommunication. This alias was shut down because it was getting a lot of spam, and now that it was back on, my review team was getting hammered with nasty spam. One of the review team members emailed me to ask what was going on, so rather than trying to type out a message explaining what happened, I made a voice recording while overlooking the indoor ice skating rink. I also send another voice message to someone on my server team, asking them to shut down the alias and explaining why. The entire process took perhaps three minutes, but it proved to be remarkably effective - everyone I've sent a voice message to thinks it's really cool. 8) <br /><br />Now obviously we don't want to have 100 voice messages in our Inbox every day, so my approach may become shunned in the coming years, but for now it's a remarkably effective way to communicate large amounts of data very quickly (assuming you have flat-rate data services of course!). Our voice will always be more effective than our fingers when it comes to situations like this.<br /><br />By the end of the weekend, I was able to return to my desktop computer, and I only had six emails waiting for me. Considering I'd normally have around 200, this was quite an improvement. The six emails were items that I needed to be at my desktop computer to respond to (mostly because I needed file attachments that were only on my desktop PC). My Smartphone allowed me to go away for the weekend and still be productive and effective with my time.<br /><br />So this raises the question, what's your killer app? What's the one application that you find most useful on your Smartphone, above all the others?

rbrome
07-13-2003, 11:45 PM
That is definitely one of the best uses for these types of devices. But I think Microsoft's implementation falls short. Of course there's multiple accounts issue, but I'm glad you brought up spam...

What's annoying is having to delete spam one at a time, and for each one having to press the soft key, then down three times, then action. With Series 60, you can select a bunch of messages at once, then just hit the "C" key to delete them all in one shot. No going one-by-one, no scrolling though the option menu. Plus, in case it's not spam and you're just making room, you have the option to delete them from the server or just the phone.

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something... If there's a better way to delete email with Smartphone, I'd like to know, but so far it's one of the things really dragging it down, IMHO.

Robert Levy
07-14-2003, 12:20 AM
That is definitely one of the best uses for these types of devices. But I think Microsoft's implementation falls short. Of course there's multiple accounts issue, but I'm glad you brought up spam...

What's annoying is having to delete spam one at a time, and for each one having to press the soft key, then down three times, then action. With Series 60, you can select a bunch of messages at once, then just hit the "C" key to delete them all in one shot. No going one-by-one, no scrolling though the option menu. Plus, in case it's not spam and you're just making room, you have the option to delete them from the server or just the phone.

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something... If there's a better way to delete email with Smartphone, I'd like to know, but so far it's one of the things really dragging it down, IMHO.

Here's a great tip... to quickly active any item in a popup menu, simply tap the number key corresponding to that menu. Menu items are automatically numbered starting with 1 for the top item in the list. So to delete an email, its just Menu - 3.

encece
07-14-2003, 03:43 AM
I don't know if I have ONE killer app.

Email and sms are strong contenders for the number one spot on my phone. But the fact that I have every contact I know and every calendar entry and every task on MY PHONE is invaluable. Being able to grab info off the web quickly via IE has come in handy many many times.

If you told me that I couldnt install ANY software on my phone (except for replacing MS TaskList w/PowerTasks) The basic, Outlook syncronized, PIM applications on my mobile phone, make it well worth owning the device...all in a nice neat little package.

(But the addition of other apps make it soooooo much better! :wink: )

Neil
07-14-2003, 04:22 AM
E-mail and IM are the two apps I use the most on my smartphone, especially when on the road. It's gotten to the point that I rarely use my laptop for e-mail on business trips. I get by with reading and deleting mail on my phone, and I'll T9 out the occasional reply. IM is great for down-time. I've lost count of the number of times I've had conversations with my wife by IM in the back of a cab/waiting for a subway/hanging out at the airport.

The one app that saved my bacon was the London Tube map. It was at the Orange launch in London. I was taking the tube to the launch venue when the train I was on stopped at a station and everyone was ordered out. Apparently there was some sort of fire or something two stations ahead, and the line was shut down. Now, I've been on the London tube a few times, but I'm not so good at switching lines. So I wipped out my SPV, brought up the tube map, and figured out how to re-route myself! I also used the map in Paris once to figure out how to get from Euro Disney to downtown. Very cool!

But, having said all that, the killer app to me is smartdial. You get so used to using it you forget that it's almost an app in itself! The ability to punch in a name instead of a number from the main screen to call someone is incredibly simple, yet powerful!

Jason Dunn
07-14-2003, 04:34 AM
But, having said all that, the killer app to me is smartdial. You get so used to using it you forget that it's almost an app in itself! The ability to punch in a name instead of a number from the main screen to call someone is incredibly simple, yet powerful!

Here here! Smartdial truly rocks - it's amazing how well and fast it works! Of course Neil, I could be even MORE productive if I could check more than one email account on my Smartphone... :wink:

Neil
07-14-2003, 05:22 AM
Yeah yeah :) I'll go yell at the guy who's fault that is. Oh wait. That's me. :oops:

spg
07-14-2003, 06:59 AM
Well, I don't have a smartphone yet... but I think the killer app for me would be e-mail. That is one of the key reasons I want one of these things... that and I really wouldn't mind shrinking my device numbers down from Tablet PC, Cell Phone, Pocket PC, SPOT Watch (well not yet... :) ) to just a couple devices (Tablet PC, Smartphone).

Janak Parekh
07-14-2003, 07:18 AM
Over that weekend, a deactivated review team email alias for Pocket PC Thoughts was turned on due to a miscommunication.
Er, that would have been due to me. :oops: Fortunately, Jason was very lucid in his voice response. The only problem with the voice response feature is that Jason, like most people, tend to be much more verbose than in an email response. But it's certainly a very effective solution. :)

--janak

chrhamil
07-14-2003, 02:48 PM
This is a little off topic, but two of my killer apps for the Smartphone haven't made it to the platform yet. One is Avantgo and the other is Palm Reader. Once I have those two I can stop carrying my Pocket PC.

fmcpherson
07-14-2003, 03:18 PM
E-mail would be my killer app too, except I have a problem with Inbox on the Smartphone. Either I haven't figured it out, or there is a bug, but it seems you can't have a separate reply-to address from the account email address.

To filter spam, I have a public email address and a private email address. My email resides on my private address, which would be the account info, but I want the reply-to address to be my public address. While I can enter the different reply-to address, e-mail that I send still displays the private (account) address in the From field.

I've got a work around to this, that I haven't tried yet, but I am pretty sure the scenario I described above shouldn't be working out that way. Every email client I've used, including Inbox on Pocket PCs enable me to hide my private address.

My other problem with Inbox is SMTP authentication. I really don't understand why Microsoft after all these years has not enabled Inbox on either Smartphone or Pocket PC to allow users to specify a userid, password, and port for SMTP authentication. With all the efforts ISPs do to block spam, such as requiring network logon to use their SMTP servers, SMTP authentication is nearly a must now. Fortunately, T-Mobile now provides an SMTP server otherwise I wouldn't be able to send email at all from a Smartphone, but I find T-Mobile's SMTP server to be really slow. I would prefer to use my regular SMTP server that has better performance but requires userid/password authentication. I get around this by using nPop on a Pocket PC, but there isn't an nPop for Smartphones.

BTW, I want to add, that every time I use it I am still amazed by how well IE works on the Smartphone. I never expected it to be as good as it is.

Frank

Neil
07-14-2003, 03:31 PM
I really don't understand why Microsoft after all these years has not enabled Inbox on either Smartphone or Pocket PC to allow users to specify a userid, password, and port for SMTP authentication.

You can turn on outgoing authentication on Smartphone by going into the Options page in Inbox, opening the Sending sub-page, and checking "My server requires outgoing authentication".

Regarding your reply-to question, that isn't possible to set up on Smartphone right now.

David McNamee
07-14-2003, 03:37 PM
I love SMS on the Smartphone. MSN Messenger has saved my rear a couple of times, too. I also agree with Neil - Smart Dial is a joy!!

As soon as data rate plans come down, I'm sure email is going to be higher up the list, too.

mores
07-14-2003, 04:43 PM
i don't have a smartphone (yet), but a question instead.

when you check email on your smartphone, is it possible to delete unwanted emails from the server?

Jason Dunn
07-14-2003, 05:16 PM
when you check email on your smartphone, is it possible to delete unwanted emails from the server?

Yes. You do a send/receive, delete the messages from your phone, and upon the next send/receive, they are deleted from the server. :D

spg
07-14-2003, 05:54 PM
when you check email on your smartphone, is it possible to delete unwanted emails from the server?

Yes. You do a send/receive, delete the messages from your phone, and upon the next send/receive, they are deleted from the server. :D
I assume you can also turn this off like you can on a PC?

Janak Parekh
07-14-2003, 07:05 PM
I really don't understand why Microsoft after all these years has not enabled Inbox on either Smartphone or Pocket PC to allow users to specify a userid, password, and port for SMTP authentication.
You can turn on outgoing authentication on Smartphone by going into the Options page in Inbox, opening the Sending sub-page, and checking "My server requires outgoing authentication".
Unfortunately, that's not enough. What Frank is asking for is the ability to have separate userid/passwords for outgoing servers (as opposed to incoming servers). This is becoming increasingly important to have, since the ISP with which you're connected, and for which you use SMTP, is very often not the same ISP you POP or IMAP from.

--janak

ppcsurfr
07-14-2003, 09:47 PM
Smart Dial is definitely a winner... since it turns out that it becomes Smart SMS, Smart Email, Smart URL, Smart Page... just toggling the joystick left to right lets you access other accessible numbers or addresses. :)

Well one handed MSN Messenger is a winner... and so is Inbox for SMS (if you know how to use it)

Mabuhay! ~ Carlo

P.S. 100th message out of a total of 752

[13.30% of total / 11.11 posts per day]

topps
07-15-2003, 05:42 AM
The one app that saved my bacon was the London Tube map. It was at the Orange launch in London. I was taking the tube to the launch venue when the train I was on stopped at a station and everyone was ordered out. Apparently there was some sort of fire or something two stations ahead, and the line was shut down. Now, I've been on the London tube a few times, but I'm not so good at switching lines. So I wipped out my SPV, brought up the tube map, and figured out how to re-route myself! I also used the map in Paris once to figure out how to get from Euro Disney to downtown. Very cool!



Sorry...I don't understand one small point...why didn't you just look up on the wall - there are tube maps all over the place?!

ctmagnus
07-15-2003, 06:47 AM
The one app that saved my bacon was the London Tube map. It was at the Orange launch in London. I was taking the tube to the launch venue when the train I was on stopped at a station and everyone was ordered out. Apparently there was some sort of fire or something two stations ahead, and the line was shut down. Now, I've been on the London tube a few times, but I'm not so good at switching lines. So I wipped out my SPV, brought up the tube map, and figured out how to re-route myself! I also used the map in Paris once to figure out how to get from Euro Disney to downtown. Very cool!



Sorry...I don't understand one small point...why didn't you just look up on the wall - there are tube maps all over the place?!

'Cuz he had a Smartphone! :wink:

pete.major
09-11-2003, 08:30 PM
Too bad they haven't made MoneyExpress from Smartphone. It would save me from carrying around a pocket full of receipts. It exists for PocketPC - what's the big deal for Smartphone?

Jason Dunn
09-11-2003, 10:01 PM
Too bad they haven't made MoneyExpress from Smartphone. It would save me from carrying around a pocket full of receipts. It exists for PocketPC - what's the big deal for Smartphone?

It's a question of critical mass - many companies won't start porting their applications until there are more Smartphones on the market...

encece
09-11-2003, 11:53 PM
I would have hoped Microsoft would have. PocketStreets and Money would be excellent on the phone.