[geeks] Cell phones: block incoming calls

[Joshua Boyd]

On Dec 6, 2007, at 6:50 PM, Joost van de Griek wrote:
>>
>> The funny thing is that the most obvious smartphones made by phone
>> manufacturers are based on Symbian which originates on PDAs and in
>> fact
>> pre-dates the more obvious PDA manufacturers!
>
> True enough. But the OS is only half the work done... It's the
> bundled applications that are lacking.

I think there is missing stuff in between the OS and applications.   
Or possibly stuff missing in the OS.

I think that completely discreet applications that may loosely know  
how to read each other's raw data isn't enough.  The built in  
applications not only need to be decent, but they also need APIs so  
that other applications can communicate with the basics.  Things like  
a third party mail program being able to interface with the built in  
address book, or even calendar, by API calls, message sends,  
whatever, but something better than just opening the calendars  
database and interpreting it itself.

I'm led to believe that the Newton is pretty close to what I want,  
needing only a visual update, and a bit more multimedia support.   
Plus, of course, more modern hardware and a physically smaller package.

>> But yes, nothing I've seen really excels although PalmOS came  
>> close on
>> the early devices.
>
>
> Newton!

Sometimes I am tempted to acquire one of those.  I don't think it  
would really work well for me with that physical form factor, but I'd  
like to see if the software is really what it is cracked up to be.