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Treo 700w Daylight Savings Time Issue

I have just learned of a Windows Mobile 5 calendar issue associated with the Treo 700w. 

It has to do with appointments that were set on the Treo 700w itself (vs. the desktop calendar), and the issue kicks in after Daylight Savings Time (April 2nd at 2.00am).  Palm engineers are working to fix this now – but there is the chance that Treonauts can end up with some calendar appointments being reflected at the appropriate time (if originated on the PC) and others being off one hour (if originated on the Treo).  The issue apparently relates to a default setting to enable the local network time.

Palm states that: “After Daylight Saving Time begins (2:00 a.m., first Sunday in April), you may notice that some appointments in your smartphone's Calendar appear one hour early.  For example, if you had scheduled a dental appointment for 9:00 a.m. Monday, it would appear on your smartphone as 8:00 a.m. Monday; the same appointment will also appear incorrectly in Outlook on your desktop PC as 10:00 a.m. Monday.  In addition, full-day appointments may appear one day early.”

Palm has now added a specific document in its Support Knowledge Library called “Some Calendar appointments appear one hour earlier and device displays incorrect time after Daylight Savings Time begins” which provides full details of how to implement two workarounds to deal with this issue:

  • Method One (Preferred): If you'd rather not delete events, and ensure that any new events you create on your smartphone will be daylight-savings aware, you can turn off Network Time and manually correct the times of your appointments.
  • Method Two (Alternate Method): To correctly display the appointments that still appear one hour early, delete those appointments in Outlook and on your smartphone, and re-create them in Outlook.

The pros and cons of using Network Time
When you create an appointment on your smartphone, the time of the event is set relative to either a time zone or to a GMT offset. GMT offsets are used for new events when Network Time is enabled; this is the default setting on Treo 700w smartphones. If you turn off Network Time, new events' times observe the time zone in your Clock & Alarm Settings. An event with a GMT offset is not Daylight Savings Time (DST) aware but an event with a designated time zone is DST aware. Events created in Outlook on your desktop PC use time zones rather than GMT offsets.

Network Time is useful for automatic time changes on your smartphone as you travel; you arrive in a new place and the time is automatically updated to local time. Unfortunately, this feature is not aware of the local time zone, so the Treo applies the offset to the entire calendar year. If you rely upon Network time to adjust your clock, you will have issues with events created in the future when the DST change occurs. This primarily affects recurring events and all-day events.

Recurring events with instances that occur before and after the DST change will have an incorrect one-hour shift after a DST change. All-day events will shift back or forward one day. For events created in Outlook, they will adjust accordingly. For events created on the smartphone, the events may need to be corrected manually after a DST change.

In short: turn off Network Time if you need to create events directly on your smartphone rather than Outlook, and make manual time zone changes when you travel with your smartphone. All events created on your smartphone will then be created with time zone information, which will change as you would expect when DST begins and ends. 

Treonauts are always prepared for any eventuality


Posted by Andrew on April 2, 2006 at 04:10 PM

Treo 700w

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Comments

1
by TazUk | Apr 2, 2006 5:57:54 PM

In the UK the clocks change on the last Sunday in March, so for this year 26Th March, rather than the first Sunday in April ;o)

2
by Yoz | Apr 3, 2006 5:23:34 PM

Steven Frank has some enjoyable (and, I think, entirely justified) comments about this:
http://stevenf.com/mt/2006/04/treo_700w_has_egregious_dst_bug.php

3
by Brad Wertman | Apr 4, 2006 9:32:33 AM

Sure, let's disable and important feature of the phone as a work around to bad software. Most people rely on their phone for accurate time. Having reliable appointment times is fundamental. This is just another example of why the windows mobile system may have a lot of bells and whistles but fails to deliver on the basics of PDA functionality. I had been considering switching to the 700w from my 650 to get the high speed internet. It is just things like this that thankfully held me back.

4
by Derek | Apr 6, 2006 2:59:21 AM

Boy I'm sure glad we don't bother with daylight savings time in Arizona. What a waste of effort.

5
by Don | Apr 10, 2006 5:02:10 PM

I'm having the same problem with the Treo 650, so it's not mobile Windows! I hate to turn off network time because I rely on it for accurate time.

The comments to this entry are closed.

 
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