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I’ve been searching for a really good “flight status” application for the iPhone. Ideally, I’d want a free one; but I’m starting to think this might be one area I’ll need to shell out some money for. Until I find that wonder-app, I’ve been using PocketExpress.com. They have an iPhone application (which doesn’t yet have the travel piece built in) and an iPhone version of the site (iphone.pocketexpress.com) as well.

Generally speaking, I really like the interface. As I used it for a recent flight, I couldn’t help realize the time old conundrum about flights: their schedule often changes and often doesn’t make exact sense to the common non-pilot type.

Exhibit A: Note the flight below. The actual departure time is 15 minutes late and the actual arrival time is 4 minutes ahead of schedule. That’s right late start, early arrival. Yes, there are many reasons for why that is possible, although it still just looks strange. Regardless, it underscores my need for an application that keeps track of this for me. Any suggestions?

Tags: appstore, flights, iphone

Sort of.

A few weeks ago I talked about an application called NotesCal which looked to be a promising application that would deliver my Notes calendar to my iPhone. However, I ran into a common error that many others did. The developer contacted me to tell me that he was seeding a new update to the AppStore and since then, I’ve been waiting patiently.

Today, it arrived. The application has been renamed to NotesPro and its worthy of the name change! Not only does it deliver calendar information (which now works for me, btw) but it also supports email, contacts and to do’s.

Let me repeat that: iPhone application that displays my Lotus Notes email, calendar, contacts and to do’s.

Now, before I go further, let me just say that I’ve litterally tried each and every iPhone-Notes solution out there and this one, in my opinion, comes closest to being “the app” that’s been missing in the marketplace. AND, I’m plesantly surprised that the upgrade didn’t just fix the calendar issue, but threw in some AWESOME value-added tools in the process!

That being said, I think there are some obvious next steps for the app. No, you’re not going to be able to tell your organization you can now support the iPhone. A few more things need to exist, including:

• Ability to delete emails (right now its view, create and reply)
• Ability to create calendar entries
• Ability to create to-do’s (or at least update them)
• Scrolling of the entire “document” on the iPhone. The app just scrolls the text field, not the whole thing. I thought this was going to be a cool feature but it feels like my HUGE iPhone screen just got limited down to about 1/3 the size.
• Ability to accept calendar invites
• Ability to set email/calender/etc. sync schedules (the whole thing works off an agent you need to build in your mail file, so I’m not even going to beg for push email). And then if I had that, I’d want…
• Icon denoting how many new messages in the inbox at the iPhone application menu

Overall, its still a great app and a very strong release (considering that I didn’t even expect ANYTHING else to be in the release other than a calendar fix). The app is a bit slow, but tolerable (and faster, for me, than using the ultralite thing). My contacts also don’t work and give a generic error – but I haven’t followed up on that yet.

So… if you’re looking for a strong iPhone-to-Notes application, this is worth checking out. I have to say, I’m really hopeful for where this will go based on the HUGE step forward since the last update. Who knows … maybe I’ll get my dream list above and more on the next round!

Tags: appstore, iphone, lotus, notes