Wanting to convert form BB, need a bit of help

[aim4squirrels#AC]

Wanting to convert from BB, need a bit of help

I'm looking to jump the BB ship and head over to a Droid X. I've been messing with a buddy's for a couple of days now and I'm having a bit of issue with a few things from my blackberry that I really like/need (specifically calendar issues, the family lives and dies by this, so it's got to work) and I'm not getting a satisfactory result yet. I am wondering if I'm just not doing something right. Hoping some converts out there can help me out. I do have a gmail account with google calendar as well as a calendar associated with yahoo and my work account.

1) How do you get calendar reminders to show up visually? Am I doing something wrong, or is it not possible? I set the reminders, but they don't appear to pop up visually.

2) When my wife and I both use our blackberries, she can send me appointments as an email and I could accept them straight into my calendar. If she sends me one on the X, it shows as an attachment in .ics format that I can't seem to figure out how to "import" into the calendar.

3) The recurring calendar events are very limited. Are there any calendar apps out there that work better?

4) The calendar doesn't seem to warn against conflicting appointments or meetings. Fixable?

5) Is color coding events possible on google calendar?

6) I'm having a hard time inviting attendees to meetings/appointments. What am I doing wrong here?

I love the web browsing, forum trolling, non truncated email, and properly rendered HTML email, and multimedia performance the droid offers. The Blackberry browser feels like using DOS compared to the X, but this calendar is going to be a deal breaker if I can't get it to work. I simply can't forfeit it for the other stuff, it keeps my wife and I from dropping the ball in our personal and professional lives.

My fear is the calendar is a weak point of the droid X and if I upgrade to it in November and it fails to function adequately, the the blackberries I have to go back to within 30 days are truly not much better than the storm 1 I have now.

Any help and advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[bkleman]

It syncs up with the calendar of your google account. Which you can access from any computer and you'll get a ton more options in setting up recurring events and anything else from that interface for super intricate operations.

Should fix quite a lot of the problems as they'll push to the calendar on the phone and show up properly.

 

[DroidDev]

1) How do you get calendar reminders to show up visually? Am I doing something wrong, or is it not possible? I set the reminders, but they don't appear to pop up visually. Mine do. I get a "ding" and in my notification bar I have a little calendar icon. I also use Jorte from the Market and it does it too.

2) When my wife and I both use our blackberries, she can send me appointments as an email and I could accept them straight into my calendar. If she sends me one on the X, it shows as an attachment in .ics format that I can't seem to figure out how to "import" into the calendar. Without having my phone with me at the moment and no .ics files to play with i cant answer this but I did find this: Ics Bot - Android app on AppBrain

3) The recurring calendar events are very limited. Are there any calendar apps out there that work better? Jorte is awesome.

4) The calendar doesn't seem to warn against conflicting appointments or meetings. Fixable? Not sure. Havent used it much.

5) Is color coding events possible on google calendar? Same as above... JORTE!!

6) I'm having a hard time inviting attendees to meetings/appointments. What am I doing wrong here?


I like my calendar. I had a BB for a long time and hated the Calendar to be honest. This one syncs nicely. Also there are REALLY GOOD tasking and calendar apps in the market that do even better.

 

[Super Turtleman]

I will second downloading the Jorte calendar. You can make all your changes to Google (or Jorte) and have them set to sync with each other. Then if you make a change to your google calendar online, it'll push to your phone and sync with Jorte. Recurring events are pretty easy on Jorte...although I don't see a bi-weekly event option. Will have to request that.

 

[aim4squirrels#AC]

Thanks for the help! I'll have to dig in further.

 

[aim4squirrels#AC]

Found a nice link here about calendar apps, in case anyone searches this up in the future. Other recommendations are welcome as well!

Top 5 Android Calendar apps

 

[Topweasel]

In terms of accepting invites. You can/have to go into the caledar on the phone or the website to accept it. Its auto imported from those emails so you should be fine.

 

[dmevis]

I also came from a BB Storm 2 a few months ago.
In spite of the comments above, I do not believe that Android can compare to BB in the area of Calendars. On the BB, it is simple and straightforward. On the Android, it is a cluge.
Android has many great abilities, but BB is still number one in email and calendaring. Android is not for everyone, and it may not be for you.

 

[J Free]

Also check out Pocket Informant for calendar. I had used this always on my Storm 1&2. Loved the BB, came to this not so sure. Doubt if ever go back now. If it doesn't come stock on the Droid chances are you can make it do what you need via some app.

 

[aim4squirrels#AC]

Android has many great abilities, but BB is still number one in email and calendaring. Android is not for everyone, and it may not be for you.

Thanks for that comment, I appreciate you being unbiased.

I don't think the wife will move away from the BB, ever. Too much corporate stuff she has to keep track of and needs instant access to, and BB is too strong in that regard for her to swap, I think. Plus, she hates learning a new OS and where to find stuff on her phone.

I, on the other hand, just need to make sure I can create and receive calendar events, import them into the calendar easily, edit them, and send a working appointment or task to her as a matter of a switch functionally working for us. If it takes an extra step or two to get it done, that isn't the end of the world. I don't have to have instant push email from every account like she does. If there's a way to make the android platform at least function-able between her BB and an X as a calendaring and task-able phone, that should suffice. This is one knock I've been reading about across the Android spectrum of phones at this time; calendar functionality.

I'm tired of a tremendously crappy web browsing experience on the BB, as well as GPS that can't ever seem to find me, truncated and poorly rendered html email, and what I feel is an extremely limited App market. It truly is god awful using the native browser for web surfing. Opera mini, and bolt haven't seemed much better except in specific circumstantial use. Unfortunately, nothing I've seen in OS6 for the BB leads me to believe it will be markedly better. I haven't seen a recent roadmap for BB devices due to be released on Big Red's network, and I'll only have 30 days to decide if the Android platform is going to cut it for me. If it doesn't, then I don't know what else to go to at this time.

 

[greydarrah]

Thanks for that comment, I appreciate you being unbiased.

I don't think the wife will move away from the BB, ever. Too much corporate stuff she has to keep track of and needs instant access to, and BB is too strong in that regard for her to swap, I think. Plus, she hates learning a new OS and where to find stuff on her phone.

I, on the other hand, just need to make sure I can create and receive calendar events, import them into the calendar easily, edit them, and send a working appointment or task to her as a matter of a switch functionally working for us. If it takes an extra step or two to get it done, that isn't the end of the world. I don't have to have instant push email from every account like she does. If there's a way to make the android platform at least function-able between her BB and an X as a calendaring and task-able phone, that should suffice. This is one knock I've been reading about across the Android spectrum of phones at this time; calendar functionality.

I'm tired of a tremendously crappy web browsing experience on the BB, as well as GPS that can't ever seem to find me, truncated and poorly rendered html email, and what I feel is an extremely limited App market. It truly is god awful using the native browser for web surfing. Opera mini, and bolt haven't seemed much better except in specific circumstantial use. Unfortunately, nothing I've seen in OS6 for the BB leads me to believe it will be markedly better. I haven't seen a recent roadmap for BB devices due to be released on Big Red's network, and I'll only have 30 days to decide if the Android platform is going to cut it for me. If it doesn't, then I don't know what else to go to at this time.

RIM will never have the speed and app availability of android. The reason is that the low level architecture is all geared around making the battery last for for a number of days so that CEO's don't have to worry about their people being in the field with a dead battery. They can't do that AND have fast browsers and tons of apps.

There is also NOTHING that a bb does that an android can't do, but some things are definitely done differently. Unlike RIM, with android, if you don't like the way one email or calendar app work, there are a bunch of other ones that you can use. You just have to find the right one for what you want to see.

In regards to your calendar issue, I'd suggest having your wife get a gmail account, download Google Sync on her bb, let it sync her calendar to the gmail account. You do the same with a droid and the two of you can share calendars. Yours will instantly sync any changes made from your phone or from entries made on the web, and hers will sync how ever often she sets up Google Sync to do it.

You just have to embrace the concept of "different." I don't mean to make that sound painful, but we all resist change and find comfort in what we know. The speed and diversity with which things are done is well worth the effort. I could never go back to bb. The problem with some who say they tried android and hated it, is that didn't embrace the difference. They wanted everything to work the same. The swype keyboard (on an android phone) is a perfect example. I hated it the first time I tried it. Then read everyone saying they could never go back to a regular keyboard after thy got used to it. So I tried it again, used it for 2 days and now I love it...way faster than any other keyboard out there.