Pocket word

[twmiller]

It seems that pocket word (on my ipaq h3700) is wimpy - and its starting to get annoying. I have PI and the notes are much more advance.

Is there any updates for pocket word, or anything I can do to beef it up?

Thanks

[emuelle1]

I'm not aware of any. Pocket Word for PPCOS 2002 is very basic. It does about what I need it to do, but you probably need a 3rd party application if you want more features, especially on a 3700 series (which I have as well).

[BUMP THAT]

You should try TextMaker. 8)

[yankeejeep]

TextMaker is the only PPC app I know of that gives you a true word processor on your device. Pocket Word is a text editor with a couple of added features. WM2005 looks like it will improve on Pocket Word, but pretty marginally. Too bad they continue with the 'Word' moniker since many first-time users actually expect Word on their PPC (and are in for big disappointments).

[John Blasdell]

Agreed! If they named that little troll of a program "Pocket WordPad" after the program included with Windows, that would be very accurate, and no one would expect anything but a VERY basic program. Call it Pocket Word, and they think it's a mobile version of Microsoft Office Word, which it isn't. PW was one of the frustrations that drove me to Palm, where there are a couple of very capable, full-featured WP programs that don't destroy your documents, as Pocket Word does. After seeing TextMaker, I purchased a Dell Axim -- TextMaker is a REAL word processing program, and what Pocket Word should be. How can an independent developer write such a large, intricate, bug-free program, and Microsoft, with more money and programmers than God, gives us a crappy little excuse of a program, and doesn't even update it (as of today; not talking about WM 2005)??

[surur]

How can an independent developer write such a large, intricate, bug-free program, and Microsoft, with more money and programmers than God, gives us a crappy little excuse of a program, and doesn't even update it (as of today; not talking about WM 2005)??

Its simple. Office costs $350, while Pocket Office earns MS about $5. If they made pocket word capable enough they would start cannibalising their desktop sales. Its all about the $$.

As a solution to this I suggest they sell a capable pocket office suite for $100, so people have a real choice.

Surur

[yankeejeep]

And to some degree it is also about the memory footprint. I noted with the WM2003SE release that some apps previously included in the base OS ROM were moved out and became available as user-installable items (in particular, MS Reader). The larger the OS memory requirement, the less likely we are to see bundled apps. Westtek offers an Office viewing suite with a fairly small memory bite and my Toshiba e805 included that as an OEM addition. So if MS were to develop a true WM version of the office apps, they could certainly charge and many would pay $75-$100 to have Office capabilities on their PPCs (I know I would have had I not already invested in TextMaker, PlanMaker, and SprintDB Pro).

[caubeck]

I second (or rather third or fourth) TextMaker!

Pocket Word is so bad that it had put me off writing on my iPAQ for several months, which is sad. Now that I use TM, an external keyboard, a proporta screen protector which feels like writing on paper, and one of those transparent bullet-proof cases, I feel I've been given a brand new unit. :D

[John Blasdell]

If they made pocket word capable enough they would start cannibalising their desktop sales. Its all about the $$.

What office would buy their workers PPCs instead of desktop PCs? And you need MS Office on the desktop PCS. How many sales were lost to Palm, Sony, etc. because of Pocket Word? I remember an article in the Wall Street Journal by Walter Mossberg, their technology writer, stating that Palm was more compatible with MS Office than the Pocket PC was. The article then detailed the shortcomings of Pocket Office apps. That article alone had to cost Microsoft, HP, etc. many dollars -- probably as many dollars as it would cost to pay programmers to write better programs. I'm as cheap as anyone, but I recently purchased Office 2003 for home use to replace Office 2000 -- the updated feature list told me it was time to upgrade.

I talked with MS personnel and other users on 2 different "MS Tours" where MS showed the new PPCs (forget the actual names of these tours). Showed them my Palm w/ WordSmith and Docs To Go. They admitted my solution couldn't be matched on the PPC platform, but claimed most folks really weren't that into word processing, and were more interested in multimedia. Nonsense! You may LIKE listening to music or watching movies, but many of us NEED to create and edit WP docs, spreadsheets, etc. That's where we get the $$ to buy our toys, uh...tools. Instead of looking at the "lost" figure from MS "giving" us a better version of Pocket Office, lets look at the cost of programmers' time to update these apps, then look at the revenue to Microsoft from additional PPC sales.

The one argument I can partially buy is the memory footprint. I don't know the footprint of PW or TextMaker; I do remember that WordSmith was a little more than half a meg. Fortunately, many PPC makers are upping the ROM in their newer models.

Still, I stand by my original statement, "If they named that little troll of a program 'Pocket WordPad' after the program included with Windows, that would be very accurate, and no one would expect anything but a VERY basic program." Tell folks a basic program is included, and a third-party program is available for more demanding users. That would be much better than unhappy PW users buying a Palm or a Treo!