GoTasks to-do list app

11/4/12: Added a number of updates. Holding back from updating the app to a newer version until at least after I finish a particular project for which I am using a dedicated GoTasks list, not wishing to introduce any additional software variables until that project is completed.
2/2/13: I eventually upgraded from 1.7.2 directly to 1.7.4. My impression is that 1.7.2's mildly buggy cursor positioning for new items (described below) seems to have been fixed. On the downside, crashes became more frequent, requiring a total quit of the application (forcing it out of the active apps) and restarting it. I have long experienced similar behavior from my usage of the iOS (default) Calendar app, which I also sync with Google, so, while inconvenient, it is not a big deal to me.
3/30/13: The crashes seem to have been largely (entirely?) eliminated with 1.7.5.
11/8/13: Added updates (and a solution) related to significantly worsening performance issues over time using 1.7.5 under iOS 5.1.1.

I used the Errands To-Do List app (my earlier review) for my to-do list for almost 3 months, but was unhappy with the frequent, surprisingly slow startup. I finally looked around a bit more, and found this review of 3 to-do list apps. That led me to this other review of the Zero app, where a comment from "Samlindahl" mentioned GoTasks, which I investigated.

To-do list apps are plentiful in the Apple App Store, and no one wants to try every single one of them in an attempt to find the one that best suits their needs. I am grateful to the other bloggers for providing signposts for such a quest. Although GoTasks was not reviewed by either blog entry, the bloggers provided the ecosystem that spawned the comment that ultimately led me to the (free) GoTasks (version 1.7.2) app.

My to-do list needs are relatively basic. I don't need due dates or reminders for items, I just need a big "bin" into which I can put them, sort (and re-sort) them as I desire, check them off, and delete them. GoTasks meets all my essential requirements and includes several nice additional features.

GoTasks (its website, which has some informative links) can be used with Google Tasks, a Google service of which I had been previously unaware. I'm glad to say Google Tasks has quite a decent web interface at https://mail.google.com/tasks/canvas (as of 9/21/12 3/21/14, there is no logout button on the page, so you can and should use https://mail.google.com/tasks/logout to do so, as mentioned on https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/gmail-labs-help-tasks/G1UvgMc_nYU go to https://www.google.com to do so). I used copy-and-paste with it to transfer all my Errands To-Do List items (which I had e-mailed to myself) using that web interface, and plan to eventually do the same thing to transfer other tasks which I currently initially stored rather artificially in the (no-longer-available) Notespark app, and subsequently migrated to the Simplenote app. It's of course much easier to do a lot of copy-and-paste operations on a PC than on an iPod.

For GoTasks, I use a Google account which I had already largely dedicated to managing my contacts and calendar, and now my to-do list as well. I do not use this Google account for much e-mail, so may have avoided some issues (based on a comment from Alex of the above-mentioned http://blog.chillantro.com/appsperience). I had no unread messages in the account's Inbox when I connected to it with GoTasks. I also might have avoided some issues by using only the "Local Account" in my initial testing, and only later connecting my Google account. The Apple App Store has many positive and potentially useful review comments, and I thought I had seen a comment which advised against starting the app right up immediately with a Google account.

It isn't required that one use a Google account, but I like (11/8/13: AND STRONGLY RECOMMEND) the syncing to Google's servers because:

• I can additionally backup (outside of other iPod backups) my to-do list over WiFi to Google's servers at whatever frequency I like.
• I can use a web interface to access/update the Google server's last record of my to-do list, which is convenient at times. Syncing between Google's servers and my iPod (and/or other iOS device) can be done later.
• If you need to reinstall the app (which may be the only way to alleviate performance issues -- see CONS, below), being able to sync data back from Google's servers to your device will likely simplify your task.

If you only use the "Local Account" option (in which the app also stores its Features and Help lists), your data is presumably stored in whatever backups you make of your iPod, probably in iCloud or pc (small p and c, meaning PC or Mac) iTunes.


PROS:

• Allows manual sorting of items, the most useful sorting for me.
• (Only when using manual sorting) Allows indenting of items to group "child" items under a "parent" item. Re-ordering by dragging a parent item moves its children as well. Three (or more, probably) indenting levels are possible, but so far I've never used more than three. There's only so much width to an iPod screen; if you indented too often you'd have little room for the text of an item (and landscape orientation usage is not an option).
• Via Share, can e-mail a single item or a parent+children group of items.
• Uses up to 2 lines for the main text "Name" of an item (unless you turn off the Truncate Name setting, in which case more than 2 lines of "Name" text can be shown), and up to 1 line for "Notes". Does not reserve empty screen space for an item's "Notes" if there are none. (This is more effective use of the screen space than in Errands To-Do List, where 1 line is always used for each of its equivalent fields of "Name" and "Notes", regardless of whether there is any "Notes" text.)
• Drag the + button to the area after any existing item currently visible on the screen (you cannot drag to any position above the top or below the bottom of the screen) to create a new item, or use the "spread" gesture (more correct than "pinch", I feel, although the app's Features say "Pinch to insert new task") between existing items. (If you just tap the + button, a new item will be created at the top of the list.)
• Long-press ("Long Tap") on an item to select from options including "View Details" (e.g., the above-mentioned "Notes") or Delete > Delete Task.
• Long-press ("Long Tap") on a parent item additionally allows you to "View Branch", to see the child items only.
• Has a slider to set Font Size. I used the smallest size, and can fit about 9 items on the screen (One more than I could fit in Errands To-Do List).
• Has Search capability. Handy for those of us with seemingly infinitely long lists of things we may never get around to....
• Manual Sync (instead of automatic sync) to Google is an option, and my preference. I sync when I have WiFi and know I've made enough changes to merit a sync. It would, however, be nice if GoTasks showed a list's last sync date with Google, or even an indicator showing whether or not local changes have been saved on the iPod since the last Google sync operation for a list.
• Multiple lists can be made under a single Google account, which is of some benefit to me.
• Customizable behavior for tap actions (defaults are in parentheses):
  
  • Single Tap (View task)
  • Double Tap (Edit task; enables immediate editing of "Name", not of "Notes")
  • Long Tap (Tasks menu)
  Additional options are Mark As Completed and View Branch, but so far the defaults seem the most useful and natural.
• Multiple Settings options. I changed Ask before deleting to off because you already need a Long-Press plus a tap on Delete, which I consider enough of a confirmation. I also turned off Truncate Name in order to show all of the "Name" text, instead of truncating at 2 lines and showing "..." to indicate that more exists.
  
  
  
  
  Some other settings, including some not shown above, are irrelevant to my use, and I do not discuss them here.
  

CONS:

• No "Focus" as in Errands To-Do List, to mark items as deserving a different type of attention than other tasks (However, I eventually concluded that Errands To-Do List's badge showing the count of "Focus" items was not of use to me.).
• When doing multiple operations while in Airplane Mode, the end result after subsequent syncing to Google's servers may not be exactly what you expect. When I used both Clear Completed and Empty List to totally delete items while in Airplane Mode, only the first operation was subsequently synced to Google (so to resolve that, I just used Empty List again).
• I ran into two non-critical (GoTasks continued to function) errors to date, though I don't remember what I was doing at the time: "(null)" action failed with message "0 ". That error is mentioned on the support page.
• GoTasks crashed on me 4 times through 10/9/12, likely enough because I was running low on available RAM on my 4th generation iPod Touch running iOS 5.1.1.
• Apparent bug: In early October 2012, after adding about half a dozen items, then manually syncing, GoTasks deleted an older, lower item (which I subsequently found in the Deleted folder, an item which I knew I hadn't yet gotten around to doing) and had oddly moved another (an item I knew I had JUST put closer to the top). I was cued into these changes by seeing a change in the display caused by slight line positioning changes at the time of syncing (because different items had different numbers of visible lines, so the inter-item line positioning changed). I searched the Trash and found a dupe of my not-yet-done item there. Of course, other apps that sync with Google Tasks might have made the same strange errors.
• After some period of usage with 1.7.2-1.7.5 under iOS 5.1.1, which for me was approximately 9 months, the app may begin suffering from extensive delays for operations that were previously close to instantaneous. In 10/2013, the developer confirmed that he was aware of this issue, and had tried to address it in later versions, but they are only available for iOS 6/7. I am sticking with iOS 5 as long as possible (see here for why), but in 11/2013 I have an acceptable solution in deleting the app from my iPod, then reinstalling it from PC iTunes (In 2/2014, I was also able to get 1.7.5 directly from the App Store back onto my iPod running iOS 5.1.1) and adjusting configuration settings. Since I sync to Google Tasks, I can reload my data from Google, then manually reorder my lists as desired (the previous order is not preserved). The developer pointed out that you can backup tasks prior to deleting the app by using Long-press (tap-hold) on a list (or "All Lists") and choosing "Email". Time will tell how often I will need to reinstall to fix performance delays, but once in 9 months is not a big deal to me. (12/3/13: However, twice in 10 months is a negative trend that bears watching.)
• If you have more than a screen's worth of lists, and you want to reorder one, you cannot move it beyond the current screen's lists (there is no automatic scrolling beyond that point). You would have to first move it to the lowest position possible, then manually scroll the screen so that list is at the top, then repeat that procedure as often as needed until you are able to place it where you want it within your lists.
• On 3/3/14, I was walking through areas with intermittent wifi connectivity and made the mistake of making some changes and, more critically, making multiple attempts to sync (avoid doing this!). The GoTasks data on my iPod got so out of sync with the Google server data that GoTasks could not be used. I'm writing this up rather after-the-fact, but I believe it displayed some information about the insurmountable sync problem, then crashed when I tried to use it regardless of that problem. I deleted the app, reinstalled it from the App Store, synced my data from Google's servers, and reordered lists as desired, a process with which I was already familiar, from seeking performance improvement in 11/2013, as noted above.

OTHER COMMENTS:

• When you create a new item, or move an existing item elsewhere, it inherits the indentation level of the item directly above it.
• To cancel blank (e.g., unintentional) new, never-saved item creation, tap Done button (not particularly intuitive, but it does the trick).
• (Only when using manual sorting)
  
  • Marking the only child item of a parent item as complete will also mark the parent item as complete.
  • If you delete the only child of a parent (at least with Ask before deleting turned off in settings), the parent does not automatically change from a downward pointing triangle to a checkbox, although it will update upon assorted other actions (e.g., tap the triangle, refresh the list, edit that item, switch to another app and back to GoTasks).
• I keep a lengthy list of items, so use the following workaround:
  If I locate an item using Search and want to move it to the top of the list, I move it temporarily to a normally empty "Move-to-top placeholder" list, then move it back to its original list, which puts it in the topmost position.
• The Clear button at the top used to delete text in a "Name" or "Notes" text box is perhaps efficient, since it does the same function for either text box while taking up only one space on screen. However, it takes some mild getting used to, vs the typical Select All and delete, or perhaps X button to delete, methods I've used more often.
• Marking an item as complete doesn't move it out of its list (unlike in Errands To-Do List). One potential benefit of this could be for a group of items, where you don't want to lose sight of the completed items while others remain unfinished.
• Occasionally when starting or switching to the app, creation of a new item starts with the text input position (cursor) higher on the line than it should be. That doesn't interfere with functionality, and the alignment is corrected when your text extends to the second line or when you tap Done. (2/2/13: Seemingly fixed in 1.7.4.)
• If using automatic sync (which I tried briefly), after creating a new empty item, wait for the Google "throbber" to finish rotating before using Clear Completed or performing other actions, or you might experience odd behavior.
• As someone who does only manual syncing, I don't recommend delaying too long between syncs. Many accumulated changes would seem to run a higher risk of confusing Google's servers.
• Because I use manual syncing, making "more complex" (e.g., involving re-ordering and grouping) changes from two or more devices can invite trouble. If using manual syncing, you may wish to stick to using GoTasks on a single device, or, always sync such that the local and remote states will match prior to any session during which you change any to-do list items. Supplemental use of the Google Tasks canvas web interface described above must be done similarly carefully (only after a GoTasks sync, and, as already noted, a GoTasks sync must again be done after any canvas changes). GoTasks syncing is apparently based on "new" transactions recorded in the GoTasks app data, not on the total state of to-do list item data on both client and server. That differs from the syncing of an app like Notespark (which I first blogged about here), which provides you a chance to reconcile discrepancies found.
• Within the Google app, Apps > Tasks can also be used to access Google Tasks items, but GoTasks is more streamlined for pure to-do list management, and performs more smoothly as well.
• In-app purchases are simply varying-level appreciations of the developer's product, and are under Settings > Donate. The frequency of each is visible in the App Store. It was well worth $4.99 to me. In two (total) very reasonable and reasonably spaced out (timewise) pop-ups, the app asks you about making a donation. Those pop-ups apparently come up whether or not you made a donation (the second prompt came up some time after I had made my donation).
• I would also like a Truncate Notes option so that just like for "Name", I could always show the entirety of "Notes" text. The developer replied that he may consider adding that.
• As usual on this blog, my comments refer to usage on the iPod. I have observed that some of the functionality differs on the iPad.

Crash landing on iOS 5.0.1

I had not been planning to upgrade my 3rd generation iPod from iOS 4.3.5 to iOS 5, having been happy with its capabilities as is.  I had also learned of, and/or experienced, a number of problems associated with iOS 5.  Typically, iOS 5 either broke an existing app, or an app's functionality worsened when the developers updated it to accommodate iOS 5.

I've mentioned on multiple occasions how my iPod has a hardware port problem. Aligning its cord properly to charge can take a few minutes of fiddling, and properly aligning it for a PC iTunes connection is even more demanding.  In those delicate alignment attempts, "Charging is not supported with this accessory" is a message I've periodically seen for more than two months.  That message came up again yesterday as I was trying to get it to charge, and when I tried to lower the brightness...bam, it was totally hosed.  The screen displayed only the iTunes icon and a picture of a USB cord, as shows up when you activate a pre-iOS 5 iPod, which requires a wired connection to Mac/PC iTunes.

After several hours of work, including numerous error messages and laborious re-seating of the cable at multiple junctures, my iPod is now at iOS 5.0.1.  I mistakenly thought that I would be able to restore from my less than two week old PC iTunes backup and remain on iOS 4.3.5.  However, it seems that PC iTunes only allows loading of the most recent iOS version that works for your device -- not unreasonable.  At least I was able to get back my 102 apps from PC iTunes in a single operation.

Backing up to iCloud should reduce my cable alignment problems to only recharging the iPod, since I should be able to restore over wireless from now on.

I was surprised to discover there was no way to mass-reload my hundreds of French language instruction podcasts, but I have started rebuilding my collection manually.  (2/9/11:  Actually, I could have used PC iTunes to copy over all that I had previously synced.)

I was also surprised that my small number of not-particularly-important photos did not come back.  I have seen a few web articles suggesting ways to get them back, and I may yet pursue that.  If I do, I will try to report the result here later.

The Traditional Chinese handwriting recognition seems tangibly slower, both on a 3rd generation and on a 4th generation iPod, than it was on a 3rd generation iPod running iOS 4.3.5.
(12/2/14: When only a single app [Notespark, as a device-local-only scratchpad] is in RAM, the speed of recognition is quite good, possibly similar to the speed under iOS 4.3.5. I'm surprised that I didn't think of testing this approach previously. Of course, it's inconvenient to eject all the other apps from RAM, but in some cases it's worth doing; when I'm done handwriting the Chinese text, I can Select All and copy it elsewhere as desired.)

As I worked to recreate groups of apps and reassemble my desired first Home Screen ("springboard"), I seem to have moved some app icons so quickly that the iOS became confused.  For a while the icons of some random apps (no more than one per screen, I think) became invisible, although their titles remained visible.  With all the icons jiggling and me swiping screens left to right and right to left, the app which was invisible would sometimes change (i.e., an invisible one would become visible, but a different app on the same screen would become invisible instead).  I found it was possible to drag an invisible app onto a visible one to create a group, but not vice versa.  That invisibility problem eventually cleared up, so everything is visible now.

Although Apple tried to disallow moving the new Newsstand app into a folder and off of the first Home Screen, folks have found out how to do that.  I moved it into a folder with Messages and Reminders, two other new apps for which I have no particular need, then moved the folder off the first Home Screen.  A Google search for "ios 5 move newsstand to folder" should find assorted pages with the technique, which does require a certain quickness of action.

Below is a list of some of the functionality which I wanted to recover, and commentary on what was involved.  I tend not to give my location to apps to use, normally entering that manually when I want (e.g., in The Weather Channel app).

1. Calendar (iOS 5.0.1):  I use a Google account for Calendar, so it was simple to add that account to the iPod.  Although the Day and Month views showed my events, the List view was empty at first, so I feared I would have to create another calendar from scratch (ugh) to restore that functionality.  However, the next day the List view showed events normally.
2. Contacts (iOS 5.0.1):  I use a Google account for Contacts, so again, it was simple to add that account to the iPod.
3. Notespark (1.3.2):  All my data is already on Metaspark's webserver, so all I had to do was login and tweak a few settings (e.g., font size, etc.), and I was back to pre-crash functionality.
4. iCED (3.2.3):  I had previously made a Murage account and it was straightforward to download my paid Add-ons again.  I made a few tweaks to settings (e.g., maximize History).
5. tChess Pro (1.7.1):  Much like Notespark, I just had to tweak a few settings to get it to look and behave the way I like it.  I normally e-mail myself the pgn of individual games that I play through using tChess Pro, so I can easily reload those.  I have also kept files on my PC of pgn collections of games, which I can similarly e-mail myself to reload.  (This is one of my most-used apps, so a blog entry on it should eventually appear.)
6. Opera Mini (6.0.1 - pointedly not the latest version, which is 6.5.1, which for now I'm holding off on upgrading to):  Initially I started recreating my Speed Dial locations manually, and had 8 of the total 9 set up -- I didn't know the 9th one's URL.  Then I used Opera Link to restore my (generally-rarely-changed) bookmarks from the last time I saved them, and it loaded the missing 9th Speed Dial location.  Apparently I wasted my time loading the first 8 manually.
7. Safari (iOS 5.0.1):  I was pleased to discover that Apple was apparently already saving bookmarks, so they all came back automatically.  I still prefer Opera Mini, though.  I tend to use Safari only when Opera Mini can't do the job.
   After first writing this Safari blurb, I checked out Safari's new Reader feature, which can render some web pages in a more readable way (hiding ads, too!). In my limited testing, Wikipedia article pages work well with Reader (though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_page not so well), as does this eminently readable article about iOS 5 improvements, which is what led me to really test the new Reader and Reading List features. This wiki article about "Kindle Myths and Partial Truths" (some content of which is relevant to iOS devices using the Kindle app) has part of its content cut off on the sides in the Reader view.  I have observed that an advertisement embedded within a column of text on a web page can render Reader results incomplete (on one occasion, none of the article text actually came through in Reader).
   To compensate for the small screen of the iPod, I have long used Opera Mini's Single column view to transform the elements on a web page, including the font(s), into a presentation I find easier to read. Reader fulfills the same function with more polish, but can transform far fewer web pages than Opera Mini.  Without these transformations, text can sometimes be difficult to read without "spreading" pages with your fingers (to enlarge the image), after which you might additionally still need to move the display back and forth to see different parts of the whole text.
   Reading List saves bookmarks to iCloud and shares them in Safari across iOS devices (and Macs, supposedly, too, but I have a PC). The Reading List bookmarks didn't show on my other iOS device in either "direction", initially, and multiple web pages, some from as recently as October 2011, suggested that it didn't work. Perhaps from iOS 5 this syncing was fixed in 5.0.1, because eventually the same Reading List bookmarks showed up on both my iPod and iPad.
   Reading List's syncing seems to be forced among iOS devices sharing an Apple ID. Opera Link's similar syncing of bookmarks is optional, and can be done manually or automatically among Opera Mini instances within which you have logged into Opera Link.
   
8. Kindle (2.8.5):  Login, all my books were under Archived, and it was simple to download 15 of them into Home.  (2 were expired library loans.)  Select a word in any book, then download the dictionary to make it available going forward regardless of Internet access.
9. iBooks (iOS 5.0.1):  Login, go to Store, Purchased, and download each of the 14 (all freebies) again.  Maybe I was doing something in a non-optimal way, but it seemed to be an extremely clunky and user-hostile interface.  I could only download the top 3 books, then had to Swipe to the right to be able to Hide each of them in turn so that I could access the next 3 lower books on the screen.  I had to repeat that procedure to get through all 14.
10. The Weather Channel (4.1.1):  Add my location to Favorites under Bookmarks and get rid of whatever is already there.
11. Dropbox (1.4.6):  Login, mark as Favorites the documents I want saved locally so they're available without wireless Internet access.  Set Local Storage to maximum reasonable for device's capacity.
12. OverDrive (2.3.3):  Although the iPod didn't need an Adobe ID to authorize usage under iOS 4, it requires one under iOS 5.  Download my usual Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar to confirm download of public domain ebooks, then test other types (e.g., Adobe ePub from the library) as desired.  (I wrote in another blog entry about how to view Kindle books on library websites using an iPod.)

I am updating this entry with additional items and comments, and am also revising earlier entries accordingly, as time permits.


One of the reasons I started this blog was because I had read Sonny Hung's My Apple Newton (PDA) blog, which he introduces as:

This blog records my Apple Newton experiences, as well as comparisons with other PDAs, Smartphones and Mobile Devices. It is also a repository for storing complex set up procedures for future reference.

I thought I might enjoy doing something similar for the iPod since I found it to be an extremely useful PDA.  Based on the web searches that brought people here, this blog may have been helpful to some other folks, but in any case, it has certainly proven useful to me after this crash.  Given how my iPod seems to be living on borrowed time, my blog will likely serve me well again similarly in the future.

Free Chinese language lunar calendar app

One of my coworkers told me about this free Chinese language lunar calendar app (has ads):

万年历免费版 (wànniánlì miǎnfèibǎn; 10,000 year calendar - free edition)
（萬年曆免費版 in traditional characters)

You can find it at the App Store by searching for "Chinese calendar".

Although the app's name is in simplified characters, it has a setting for traditional characters, which is what I use (although the "quality control" on simplified versus traditional characters is not always perfect). I also chose holiday and vacation settings for Taiwan; China (the default), Hong Kong, Singapore, and USA are other choices.

Now, I cannot read Chinese quickly enough to rapidly absorb all the Chinese text that introduces the app.  However, aside from the fact that my coworker was already using it, I felt "safe enough" that Apple is a "large enough" company   :-)   to have reviewed the app, including its instructions, before making it available in the App Store, and I installed it. While certainly some bad apples (pun intended) could get through their review process, there should at least be more supervision there than at the Android Market, about which news stories like this 6/13/11 one already seem a bit too common.

As my coworker said, this app provides yet another opportunity to learn a little more Chinese, even if you are not big on consulting the lunar calendar for, e.g., good days to get married or what have you.

Converting Palm Calendar to iPod

4/8/11: Stop the blog presses, I eventually concluded there were too many problems and other issues with the data conversion I tried (some details below). I exported the partially messed-up data I had from Google Calendar, then imported that into a different Google account. Next I deleted the (original) linked iPod-Google Calendar from each end, and remade my Google Calendar from scratch, using selective Windows Copy and Paste operations between the two Google Calendar accounts using different browsers (and occasionally copying text from Palm Desktop), doing various modifications along the way. The result is a much cleaner set of events, without historical event record baggage (and any associated performance hit when syncing).

If you have a need to keep your historical events and/or you sync more than just your own calendar, good luck -- based on my experience, you are going to need it, if you hope to have your data "properly" converted.
5/20/11: It turns out you may need good luck even to sync your own calendar (see below), although my problem with deleting events may have been fixed with my upgrade from iOS 4.2.1 to 4.3.5. Some pre-4.3.5 version higher than 4.2.1 may have fixed it, but I have no idea which one, if so.

I UNDID WHAT I COULD FROM THE ***DATA CONVERSION*** DESCRIBED BELOW:

After reviewing this thread http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=2952265980c1b13d&hl=en (82 replies to original query as of 4/3/11) and http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740 (read all tabs on that page, currently Setup/Sync Calendars/Known Issues), I used PdbConverter (http://www.shredzone.org/projects/pdbconverter/wiki), whose author kindly made it available for free. The process involves converting your Palm DateBook.mdb file to an iCalendar file, then uploading that to a Google Calendar account and synching that with your iPod's Calendar app.

Years ago I synched my Palm Calendar with PC MeetingMaker, but after multiple instances of data corruption (some apparently related to Daylight Saving Time), I gave up that synching. My Palm Calendar data has long been maintained and accessed solely by me, manually. I hope I encounter few, if any, data glitches from the synching that I'll now be doing with Google Calendar. (4/8/11: So much for that hope.)

I generally don't keep or care about historical records on my Palm Calendar. According to my recollection, I had deleted many (all?) of the non-repeating historical ones on the Palm prior to this conversion, intending to reduce unimportant data baggage. However, when I made one last pre-conversion backup of my Palm data to my PC using Palm's HotSync Manager, I think I forgot to change the settings to Handheld overwrites Desktop, so the default of Synchronize the files applied, horribly effectively undoing my deletion of historical records.

I never had any need to use Palm Categories (e.g., Business, Personal) for Calendar records, so that simplified my data conversion.

In some of my other app research, someone suggested simply using Google's free calendar app. I want as much of my iPod functionality to be available even when I'm not online, so I rejected that option.

IPOD/GOOGLE CALENDAR OBSERVATIONS:

• Calendar search is available at the top of the List view. Both the List view entries and search results are limited to records going back one year (as I see from repeating events); see http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2667000. I largely use the Calendar for future events, so that search limitation probably won't hamper my usage.
• Google Calendar apparently defaulted all my converted events to send me e-mail 10 minutes beforehand. I quickly changed my settings to put a stop to that, and to other unwanted e-mail notifications.
• When logging into this gmail account using the Google app, I was asked whether to allow the app to use 10 more MB on my iPod, to which I agreed. That was presumably related to the calendar conversion.
• If you turn off the iPod when Calendar is running as the foreground application, when you turn the iPod back on, regardless of whether you are in the List/Day/Month view, you will be taken to today's date (and the current time) (4/9/11: This behavior does not seem consistent; I don't know what the deal is.). That does not happen if you close the Calendar and reopen it later, even if you turn the iPod off in between. If I am looking at a future (or past) date, that unstoppable go-to-today behavior is counterintuitive and undesirable -- it means I have to do more work to get back to that date, which I may not have finished dealing with when I turned the iPod off. There is already a Today button which can accomplish the same thing but only at the user's request (tap). The obvious workaround is to always close the Calendar before turning off the iPod, but we shouldn't have to do or remember that.
• To keep data cleaner (e.g., to avoid spurious results in searches), delete repeating events through Google Calendar, which allows deletion of All events in the series. The iPod Calendar can only Delete This Event Only ( = Google's Only this instance) or Delete All Future Events ( = Google's All following). I had tried to limit repeating events to one month in the past on the iPod in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Calendars > Sync, but that doesn't seem to have applied to the initial retrieval of calendar data from Google. Depending on your intended change, you might also want to modify repeating events through Google Calendar.
• Although on the iPod, you cannot enter an Xth Y-day of the month repeating event, e.g., the first Friday of the month, you can do so in Google Calendar and let that sync with your iPod
  (5/7/11: Some subsequent iPod modification of such an event apparently caused it to later show on the iPod under Repeat > Custom as "Every month on the (null) Friday", which in practice meant EVERY Friday, so this workaround isn't perfect. I almost never use my Google Calendar except for the add/delete "tricks" I write about in this blog entry, so I'm pretty certain the problem originated from iPod event modification(s). I can't reproduce this problem now with a new event and a few simple test modifications, though. I'll likely keep using this technique, since the apparent potential downside is limited.).
  Don't overlook using Google Calendar's strengths; the iPod can "understand" more options than it allows you to use natively. Perhaps more options will be available in future iOS versions.
• 5/16/11: Ugh, that makes twice (!) today that about a month's worth of past events (back to 4/11/11) which I had previously deleted from the iPod abruptly reappeared, and had to be deleted for a second and third time. This bad behavior might be reproduced by flicking backwards in the List view too quickly (?) -- I know I have a tendency to do that. The associated Google Calendar account showed a 4/12/11 instance of a repeating event, which was apparently resurrected each time.  The 2nd time the iPod calendar went wacko on me I also found two more instances of a different repeating event on 4/22/11 and 4/23/11 in Google Calendar. Anyway, I delete the bad events wherever they are found, and hope for better behavior in the future. When I get more time I will search to see if others have experienced similar problems, and if there is a recommended solution. I switched Calendars > Sync to the minimum of 2 weeks back instead of the 1 Month Back which it had been set on. I also got rid of a rarely-used Google Mail account which I had recently added for Mail only -- maybe that was interfering with the other Google account which I am using via Exchange for Contacts and Calendar? Perhaps not allowing "over the air" syncing to finish before exiting Calendar causes problems?
  5/20/11: Argh, once again, many of the same events have returned on the iPod from the land of the already-deleted, dating from 4/12/11. Four events similarly returned on the Google Calendar side, dating from 4/12/11.
  (Man, I miss my Palm Calendar!)
  6/2/11: Yet again, events dating from 4/12/11 which I'd previously deleted have reappeared. I was just deleting events from 6/2/11 and 6/3/11 when the event List temporarily displayed only those two days, I got this bad sinking feeling, and bam, long-deleted events were back again, yet again.
  8/27/11: I am cautiously optimistic that my earlier deleted events are finally staying deleted. I deleted them on the iPod very patiently (i.e., I waited for the "throbber" icon to stop rotating after every delete operation before starting the next one, to avoid possible data processing "race condition" errors), and they actually seem to be truly gone now. Perhaps it was a bug in iOS 4.2.1? I was only able to upgrade to 4.3.5 earlier this month; maybe that fixed this problem.
  10/7/11: Ugh, cautiously was the right adverb for optimistic. Quite a number of my previously deleted events from as far back as 4/2011 are back again. Maybe iOS 5 will fix this, but I am not sanguine about such prospects.