Rick van de Laar's dashboard

I absolutely agree. My prior phone was a Palm Treo, which easily linked "addresses" to the "date book". REALLY important, imho.

Palm has been doing this for years, so Apple's way behind on this one.

In fact: I use a mac. The Palm desktop for a mac is a claris product, from years back. Even this links contacts with the calendar. So Apple had this ability at one time. They must have forgotten it!!

Why does one have to be "good" and one "bad?" True, Apple is pretty closed but that also allows them to control the entire user experience end-to-end. Microsoft, as an example, doesn't make the computers their software runs on, and relies on those third parties to write drivers to interface to the operating system. Some are better at it than others (not that all APIs are perfect, either). ;) But because of the more open model, it's easier (in my personal opinion) to develop software on the Windows platform, and as a result there are more programs available on Windows than on Mac.

Because Microsoft actually gives you a choice on how you want your desktop to look and feel. And there's more and better software and third-parties for Windows-PC's than for Apple's PPC's

Because Microsoft is more open than Apple for Developers and Customers.

Thank you so much, I was having trouble and your solution worked! – evanbender, on August 22, 2008 01:44

I just fired up my new iPhone 3G - was AMAZED that the basic function of linking events to contacts isnt supported. Even my clunky 8-year-old Palm does this.
APPLE : when should we expect our shiny new iPhones to support this functionality ?
Or will we have to pay for another software update, as we had to do to get basic search functionality on iPhone Touch ?

Firefox does properly download and install the Pownce app. Safari as with all zip files, extracts the contents and tosses the original into the trash. grab the original out of the trash and remove the .zip portion. Then it should install no problem.

On a side note - I like version 1 much better - felt like Pownce, this new version looks like something MS threw away.

same. firefox works. – dj paine, on July 29, 2008 11:56

Just throwing some operating system stuff out there:

The main reason Windows has such high market share in the desktop realm is that Microsoft is very nice to developers. By this I mean they have lots of SDKs, give developers licenses for software, and even encourage hobbyists to develop (Visual Studio Express). They guarantee (in a sense) that third party software will remain operable for a decade at least, because they keep new versions backwards-compatible with the old.

This is in fact one of the reasons Windows is kinda bloated and buggy. There are lots of examples of Microsoft adding software specific checks to new versions of runtimes, APIs, etc to make sure popular programs still run. For example, an old version of SimCity referenced a memory address outside what it had allocated. Windows had a check for this version of SimCity and let the game use that unallocated memory even though it was a SimCity bug and a fluke that it worked on the old version of Windows.

Other examples are how Microsoft has written libraries that emulate the implementation of their old libraries. Particularly some old applications were written using undocumented (non-API) library structures. When these libraries were updated, Microsoft went through third-party software to see if it needed undocumented parts from the old API to function, and added compatibility layers as necessary.

Apple is generally not as good with developers. Just look at the iPhone, it was out for a year before the SDK was released. That being said, there is also the popularity breeds popularity thing. Windows holds the market share, developers can reach a large audience on Windows, there are lots of other developers and resources for developing on Windows, etc, etc. This works against Apple. Mac has a smaller market share. Fewer people develop on Mac. Apple steps in and writes their own software suites (iLife, Final Cut, etc.). Basics are covered, developers have fewer "general audience" targets to hit. Less development means less development communities, resources (yes, I know most of Apple's development stuff is stolen from BSD and open-source, large communities but generally Mac-non-enthusiasts; besides, graphics is Apple custom).

Another success orgy: iPhone. The iPhone was such a hit that despite Apple's glacial SDK release, they have tons of development going on. Everyone wants an iPhone*, everyone wants to hit mobile-computing consumers, everyone wants to develop.

Disclaimers: lots of opinion up there, so should you disagree, shout it out and we'll discus.

Google, Microsoft and other companies offer most of the services that you find within "Mobile Me" either free, almost free, for a small fee or with ads plastered all over the interface.

The June issue of Mac Format (a UK Magazine) has a full tutorial on how to make these "free" services work for you as if they were the real "Mobile Me." I believe that they have this tutorial on their website too @ www.macformat.co.uk

So, you don't need to buy a Mobile Me account. However, if you are looking for simplicity, quality and no ads then you can pay Apple $8.25 a month for that type of service ($99/year). That is still cheaper than most web hosting services around.

i agree

agree with Tim, even though i am a Apple fan-boy.
fair enough, different companies, serving their products to different markets.
Theres little overlap there at the desktops, but the type of people using Microsoft and Apple products just differ.

There is no 'better' company.
Just make a choice based on which company has the software you like most ;)

have the same problem - with air 1.0 and 1.1

i guess its safari like Jon Rohan mentioned before.
Changed the folder extension from pownce (folder) to pownce.air
Didnt work, though OSX did ask me if i wanted to change the extension.

even using adobe air application installer didnt work, doesnt recognise anything installeable in the folder that got downloaded from the site.

seems as if Safari extracts the air file, and not just the folder.