Digital Tips and Tricks: Making the Leap from Palm to iPhone (Part 2) by Raj Chand, MD

Raj Chand, MDThis is part 2 of my series on the iPhone.  Please check out part 1, “The Death of Treo.”

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This post is a how-to-guide for long time Palm users who want to move all their information to the iPhone.  After 10 years of using Palm PDAs, I had just about everything on the small device.  Phone numbers and emails for hundreds of people, clinical pearls gleaned through residency and practice, and reminders for birthdays, shifts, and meetings.  Moving all of this information was one of my biggest barriers to switching to the iPhone.  However, after some research and experimentation, I wanted to share the strategies I found to be most successful. 

I will walk you through the basic steps of transferring your data from your Palm Treo to the iPhone.  Then I will share my suggestions on personal information applications that can help you stay organized on the iPhone.  The entire process should take no more than 45 minutes if you follow the steps outlined here. 

For all the advantages of the iPhone, the one thing it lacks is an equivalent for Palm Desktop.  While you can use iTunes to manage your music and apps, you will have to turn to Microsoft Outlook for a desktop personal information manager.  Outlook synchronizes with both Treo and iPhone, and is the medium for transferring your data.

Data Transfer

1. Sync your Treo with Outlook.  This critical step transfers over your contacts and calendars into Outlook.

     2.   Setup your iPhone to sync with Outlook.  The sync options will be under the Info tab in iTunes.

     3.   Sync your iPhone with iTunes.  Your Palm information will successfully transfer to your new device.

Personal Information Applications

I use several web-based applications for core personal information manager functions.  I find these to exceed the functionality of the old Palm apps. 

Contacts and Email

The built-in iPhone Contacts and Email are the way to go.  Instructions to set up your email on iPhone are here.  Be sure to sync your iPhone with your computer occasionally to back up your contacts.

Calendar 

If you use Gmail, Google Calendar is an amazing tool to manage and share calendars.   I have several calendars that I share with my wife:  one for clinical shifts, one for each our personal calendars, and a calendar for our joint plans.  Given the erratic nature of EM schedules, this allows her to know when I am working and when I am available to schedule plans with friends and family.  Google Calendar is seamlessly available on iPhone through the Google app.

Notes

Electronic notes are critically important to me.  Over the years, I amassed a few hundred clinical pearls, tricks, and helpful reminders on my PDA.  I wanted a simple way of moving my notes into the iPhone without losing the categories or data. 

My recommendation is NoteSpark —an online note-taking tool that allows you to access your notes from the web or iPhone.  Notes are searchable and automatically synced.  Best of all, it maintains your Palm categories as tags.   NoteSpark is available for $4.99 from the App Store.  I tried a few other online note tools, including Google Notes, Outlook, and EverNote.  NoteSpark is my personal favorite for its design and ease of use.  

Here are the steps to move your Palm Notes into NoteSpark:

1.  Under Notes, choose the Category “All”

     2.   From the Menu bar, choose File, then Export  

     3.   Create a Notespark account online, and then click on Import and follow the steps.

Tasks

I did not like the Tasks application in Palm and rarely used it.   There are a number of task managers available for the iPhone.  My favorite is Google Tasks, available through the Google App.  If you use Gmail, your emails can quickly be converted into Google Tasks for follow-up.

LifeHacker has a good overview of different task manager applications.  Other task applications to consider are:

•         Remember the Milk
•         Toodledoo
•         reQall

Closing Thoughts

I hope that this guide will help you make a smooth transition from Palm to iPhone. 

Have you switched over from Palm to iPhone?  Share your thoughts on making the switch or any of these digital applications in the comments below.

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