WorldMate 2005 for Windows Mobile Smartphone

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=4237' target='_blank'>http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=4237</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Access global weather conditions, animated weather maps, real-time flight status updates, international currencies, worldwide clocks, time zones and a day/night map directly on your Windows Mobile Smartphone. WorldMate is an all-in-one package for the frequent business traveler, featuring essential services including world time, global weather forecasts (provided by The Weather Channel -- weather.com), real-time flight status updates (provided by OAG WorldWide), currency and measurement converters and more. The Windows Mobile Smartphone version is the first to include high resolution, active weather maps including satellite and radar imagery, current temperatures, precipitation forecasts and more."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/Temporale-20050318-WorldMate.gif" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/> <br /><br />This looks like a very powerful application. However I don't like the fact that all you are buying is a one year subscription. I understand why the developers are doing this, I just don't think it's a smart move. I don't have much in the way of subscriptions now, and I'm not going to start. Especially when there are plenty of other applications out there that offer the same type of things. and they aren't subscription based.

[Jason Dunn]

One the Pocket PC side of things, they had a normal version without the OAG flight updates, and no subscription, and they had a PRO version that had the subscription fee. I wonder why they didn't do the same thing with their Smartphone product?

[Santa Fe]

Maybe competition? Fizz Traveller 2 has flight delays by airport for free.
And it has better features and no suscription.

There are a number of free flight checking internet sites that work on the smartphone as well including OAG mobile, Flight Checker and Airport Delays.

[Jerry Raia]

I used to use this on my PPC and never was really thrilled with it. I think Fizz is much more polished.

[Ned]

Hi All,

I have a contrarian view to the thoughts expressed thus far.

I don't mind the subscription model at all, if I'm getting my money's worth from the program. I think most everyone could agree with that. It's all about whether the individual user thinks the subscription is worth it.

I wanted WorldMate for the windows mobile smartphone for one specific reason, flight status. To me this feature is worth the subscription. By the way, I use WorldMate Pro on my Palm. I travel a great deal and find the program more than worth the yearly subscription to me. I don't buy the tokens for the program for flight status because I update the program exclusively by syncing, so that part of the program is of no use to me.

Fizz Traveler has flight delays by airport for free, but many times flights are delayed because of problems at other airports, not the one you're coming into, or while flights at the airport in question are generally on time, the flight you're waiting for, with one of your kids on it, is delayed for mechanical trouble. Fizz Traveler doesn't give you any information about the above types of flight delays and they happen all the time.

While I'm waiting to go to the airport or sitting in my car waiting at the airport to pick someone up I want to know about a specific flight. General info is not at all helpful. I could call the specific airline, but I have found they update their electronic info on the net faster than they update their phone announcement info. Just last week while waiting to pick someone up on a flight that was running late, the WorldMate data indicated the plane landed, (it did and the person I was picking up called me about 15 minutes later after he got his luggage that he was ready for me to come from the airport's auto waiting area to get him) but the airline's telephone status system said the plane hadn't yet landed. Knowing that the plane had landed before my friend had a chance to call me in the car, and knowing earlier that the plane was delayed (it was late because of weather at the airport it was sitting at before getting to my friend's airport at which weather was no problem) via WorldMate on my smartphone, before I left for the airport was very useful for me.

While I'm on the subject of Fizz Traveler, I've had problems with it updating. I can't tell you how often I haven't been able to get weather updates and flight delay updates through Fizz Traveler. Sometimes it's taken me 5 or 6 tries to get the info. Yes, it's more polished than WorldMate at this time, but I've removed it from my phone and have kept WorldMate on it. I've had no problems getting WorldMate updated.

Santa Fe said that there are a number of free flight checking internet sites that work on smartphones. My experience is that OAG mobile software isn't free, in fact I don't know anything that OAG has which is free. I checked Flight Checker and it doesn't work on my phone (MPX220) and Airport Delays gives you the same info as Fizz Traveler which to my mind is far too general to be of use to me. I have yet to find a site that works on my phone to get specific flight status from just about any airline just like I can get easily on my PC. Santa Fe, if you can give me a URL which will work on my phone, which is free, I'd be much obliged.

I use another subscription program, by the way, Pharos' SmartTraffic. It gives me a picture of the traffic on the roads including specific delay information. A year's subscription costs $44 and that investment has already paid off handsomely for me.

In the meantime, WorldMate's and Pharos' subscriptions are most certainly worth it to me.

[Santa Fe]

Well try these.
Flight Tracker - 401-427-2301 - a voice and keyboard activated service that is free and works on any phone.

These work on my i600 (at least the last time I tried).

www.rovenet.com/master/Flight/beginflight.htm

OAG Mobile - www.oag.com/OAGMobile/palmp//palmQueryStatus.asp?id=%deviceid&amp;sid=tmprw7HZkwHdecNxcLjf

Delta - mobile.delta.com

Travelocity - http://dps1.travelocity.com/hhfmrqst.ctl?Service=OMNIHHDML&amp;SID=T0024005261866127626002912012659940460

There are others that are specific to the airline being used.

[Ned]

Thanks Santa Fe. I will definitely try them out tomorrow.

I appreciate your response and help.