Palm Pre App Store
The Palm Pre SDK ( Mojo ) was publically released by Palm today. Developers can now start working on their apps for phone working in HTML, CSS and Javascript. This all sounds great. What's the downside? Palm says that apps won't start to enter the store until fall.
iTunes 8.2.1 Released – Breaks Syncing with Palm Pre
Apple recently released iTunes 8.2.1 and in doing so broke the ability to sync with the Palm Pre. The Pre was spoofing an iPod Nano MP3 player, thus allowing the Pre to sync. This no longer works. Perhaps Palm will have a counter move.
Minor Pre Annoyances
For the most part I'm loving my Pre, it almost feels like an iPhone with a keyboard, and Palm is onto something with WebOS. That being said, there are a few things that have been annoying me. I think most (all?) of these can be fixed through software updates, so get on it Palm.
1. Battery Life - Even after turning off GPS, AIM, auto-checking email, and with some light use, I'm down 12% after 2 hours. Hopefully they can fix this, if not, I'll just have to carry a charger around with me wherever I go. Good thing I don't use my phone as an MP3 player, just saying.
2. Bluetooth pairing with car - For whatever reason, whenever I receive a phone call while in my car, the phone initially uses the bluetooth, then switches to normal (handset) mode. I have to then manually select the bluetooth icon from the phone screen while the person on the other end talks and hopefully doesn't say anything important.
3. Copy and Paste - A couple of things here. First off, you can't copy and paste from an html web page nor from an incoming text message, only from areas that are deemed text input fields. This makes it annoying to copy something (an address, for example) from a text message and put it into Google Maps. The other aspect is that even when you can select the text, it's tricky. You have to hold down the [CAPS] (up arrow) button and swipe over the text. Only problem is that the swipe action doesn't seem too sensitive and even then it doesn't span multiple lines. You have to swipe one line, probably a couple times, then swipe the previous line. Rinse and Repeat. To actually copy the text, you hold your finger in the gesture area and then hit v, c, or x, depending on what you're trying to do. I found out the hard way that the alt [Orange] button does not in fact copy, nor is there a dropdown menu button like the Centro or Treo. Because your finger must remain in the gesture area, it's very difficult to copy and paste one-handed Maybe I just need to get used to this one, but it hasn't been an easy transition.
Anyway, minor transitional/new software issues, just wanted to give an update of my Palm Pre sojourn.
The iPhone – My first 24 hours
So, I didn't really plan on getting the iPhone this weekend. It just kind of happened. Perhaps I should explain.
This was going to be a VERY busy weekend for me. As of Friday ( 7/9/09 ) I am to be house & dog sitting for my sister while she is out of town until 7/16/09. I tweaked my back on Friday morning, but still headed to work, though sitting, walking and even breathing deeply hurt. I stayed until about 1pm when I just couldn't take the pain anymore and headed home. I hadn't planned on getting to my sister's house until 6pm or so anyways, so I decided to try to go sleep off some of the pain of my back. I slept for about 2 hours, though that really didn't effect the pain. I dragged my bags to my car, somehow managed to not pass out from the pain and drove to my sisters house at about 4:30.
T-plus 8 hours with the Pre
Early this morning I did something that I have been dreading for a long while: I called Sprint to see when I qualified to get a new phone. Why did I dread this you ask? Well, I knew once I was able to get a new phone that I'd impatiently wait until I broke down and go buy a Pre. Here are some of my initial thoughts. This is in no way comprehensive nor unbiased; it's just what I think after playing with the phone for 8 hours, but if you don't agree with me then you're wrong.
First an overview. The Pre uses a "card" for each actively running program. You can switch between cards at any time by hitting the center button. When you're looking at the screen, the programs all look like cards, so it's not that much of a stretch to call them that. The point of these is to easily switch between programs without needing to close any.
Hit the jump for a few thoughts on specific features and for more of my literary witticism.
OutSync: Sync your Facebook Friends with your Outlook Contacts
OutSync is a small little Windows application that is used to pull the pictures from your Facebook friends and apply that to the matching contacts in Outlook.
*Note: I have blurred the bulk of my contacts names, pictures and information for their privacy.
Microsoft Betas: Microsoft Security Essentials
Microsoft recently began to beta their replacement for One Care called Micrsoft Security Essentials ( MSE ).
While downloads for the beta have officially been cut off, there are a few other sites on the net you can find it on, just make sure you download the right one for your operating system as there are different versions for Windows XP and Windows Vista/Windows 7, and both also have 32bit and 64 bit variations.
Now, lets take a look at what this looks like once it's installed: