What's on your mind?

OK, we know that getting the 411 on when the Palm Pre will be available is on the top of lots of your minds. (And we'll have that news for you just as soon as we can.) Tweeter JonVictorino says he "dreamt last night of owning a Palm Pre. How nerdy is that?" Trust us, compared to some of our dreams (or were they nightmares?) lately, your nerd-quotient seems within socially acceptable levels. Other readers keep it a bit more real. David Strack left a note on the Palm blog stating, "If the Pre isn't announced tonight, I'm going to go out and buy 6 iPhones, just to spite you! Just kidding...but seriously." Theseus Augustus Fixer's comment on our Facebook page might put a little grin on your face, "Pre is aptly named -- everything is pre-Pre." (Cheeky!) :)

Another favorite topic, carrier options for Pre. Engadget reader Libb says, "Give Sprint a chance -- easily the best 3G network in the nation, and the cheapest data plans around..." (For the record, Palm loves all of our carriers.) Brandon Wells also adds his two cents on our Facebook discussion board called "Why Sprint?" While Brandon swears he is not a Sprint fan boy, his 10+ paragraph comment makes me wonder! (If you want to check it out, scroll down to 11:45 a.m. on March 29.) Here is a snippet from Brandon's ode to Sprint, "You can't talk about the CURRENT quality of a company as if you're their customer when you are not. You can speculate, and 'Jump on Board' the negative hype talk, but all you're really doing is gossiping! The largest problem Sprint is facing is 'Customer Perception.' There have been bumpy roads in the past, and some not so good decisions, but, we all make mistakes. If we were to be constantly judged by the things we did in the past, none of the improvements or lessons would matter. So before you talk about the OLD Sprint or experiences you've had 9 years ago, perhaps you should focus on what is happening now, and you may actually be able to see the improvement and make valid, educated opinions."

Following Palm's announcements on Wednesday, JayCanuck showed his love on the Palm blog, "Personally, (I) am completely floored by the PalmOS emulator announcement, as are many of my friends. There are so many old, out-of-development applications that I use on a daily basis that this emulator is perfect." Scotland echoed a similar sentiment, "The news about support for legacy PalmOS apps is very welcome to long-time faithful Palm users and developers. WebOS looks amazing, but, on day 1, webOS apps can't possibly fill all the niches filled by thousands of existing PalmOS apps."

Quick shout-out to Theseus Augustus Fixer, JonVictorino, David Strack, Libb, Brandon Wells, JayCanuck and Scotland. Thanks for reading, and as always, if you are thinking about it, we want to hear about it, so chime in on the conversation.

Zeenat S.
Edelman for Palm

Comments

[Ecoteric]

PRE UI - PAST THE POINT OF NO RETURN??!!

A particular demonstrator went into the 'contacts' app like many of the video demos start, then he showed the 'back gesture', as usual. Then he did the 'swipe up' gesture from the 'contacts' app. I was expecting the launcher screen to slide up from the top. AT THIS POINT I REALLY COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT HAD JUST HAPPENED! IT WENT FROM WITHIN CONTACTS TO THE CARD VIEW!! I skipped the video back to see if I had been halucinating or something, but no! The user then said, "within an app, you swipe up once to go to the card view, then you swipe up again to go to the launcher." I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. In every demo before the CTIA event you could just 'swipe up' from within any app and you would immediately bring up the launcher, then swipe up again to collapse the launcher. WHY DID PALM CHANGE THIS INTEGRAL FUNCTION OF THE UI??!!! Swiping up to bring up the 'card view' completely undermines the importance of the 'center button' and makes it redundant and/or obselete!!
Another Palm-focused blog picked on this as well: http://discussion.treocentral.com/palm-pre/178282-changed-up-gesture.html

Palm should either get rid of the center button and just have a completely flush front surface, or retain the orginal functionality of the single 'swipe up' gesture so that it brings up the launcher from WITHIN any app!!

prior to CTIA video @ 6m40s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R33Lc8cOXRs
at CTIA video @ 17s: http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9725/palm-pre-ctia-video-demos-part-2m-pre-ctia-video-demos-part-2

[Pedro The Goat]

I am wondering if the center or gesture buttons will act as notification lights? I know this is an insignificant question, but I have to leave my phone on silent a lot of the time. I like to have a notification light to tell me if there are any incoming messages. Just curious.

[John Johnson]

Dear Pre - -

Please hurry to market. Been searching for a new phone since October. Discovered you in January as I was about to get a Curve, but the demos caught my fancy plus I have used Palm Pilots for ages.

My current phone is 4 years old, badly outdated. Battery is in ICU and case is tattered. Not sure how much longer she can last for me. I am trying to be patient, but will absolutely need to take action soon. Please hurry PRE!

[Harold]

What would be so difficult about Palm telling Verizon customers when they can reasonably expect a WebOS device? Would you prefer we commit to a non-Palm device first? I just can't see the 'plan' in this marketing plan.

[Alex H. at Edelman for Palm]

Harold -- if and when we announce a product with Verizon Wireless, or any of our carrier partners, this is where you'd find out about it. So you're in the right place.

[Pete]

What is on my mind? Well...

When I am away from my phone and I miss a call or text, will I have to turn the screen on to check?

How will I get my contacts and calendar from my home Outlook (non-exchange) into the Pre?

Will there be a Shazam app for Pre? (is it even possible since it needs access to the mic?)

Will I find it annoying not being able to type in landscape?

Will the Touchstone charge quickly?

Will Universal Search be expanded? (Imdb, anyone?)

Fandango can't be used to purchase tickets at my local theaters; Will Movietickets.com make a similar app?

[kasi1222]

Saw this question asked on twitter, but wanted to echo it here. Will birthday information from Facebook be pulled into the calendar? For me, this is the most important information contained in Facebook that I don't already have duplicated elsewhere.

[Greg]

Ecoteric's post may be a bit over the top, but I agree that changing the up swipe was a bad move. Quoting my post from the forum:

The button is good because it's easily discoverable. Anyone who doesn't know what they're doing with a Pre would instinctively touch it, especially people who are used to the iPhone. That shrinks the card which gives you the bottom dock for the most common apps, and the rightmost button on the bottom dock brings up the launcher with the full list. Idiot proof.

The up swipe, however, is an advanced feature like the wave bar. It's not discoverable, you just have to know it works that way, so I don't understand the point of dumbing it down. This makes the whole thing pretty superfluous, so why have it at all then? The up swipe to shrink the card doesn't even make sense as a gesture.

Bring the old way back.

[Wood L.]

I really really really really want a notification light. I loved it on my 755p, and really really miss it on my instinct. I cant wait to buy the pre, but am hoping it has the notification light.

[Greg]

Also, people keep asking about whether the button acts as a flashing LED when an e-mail comes in or you miss a call. There hasn't been an official "no" from Palm, but there's been a few things that suggest that's the answer.

The point of the flashing LED is that if I leave my phone at my desk and something happens while I'm gone, I can tell when I get back without having to turn it on. I don't want to have to check it obsessively every time I come back to it, and it's not always going to be in a dock where it's screen can stay on for the notification bar. I'm sure you could make a cool running animation with the three LEDs if just having simple flashing cramps your style too much :)

[bill]

I'm hoping there will be spell check...i can not function without it!

[Jon]

@Ecoteric -- I think this is to allow the center button to be dedicated to Universal Search.

I'm quoting from Matt from the Facebook discussion a few months ago: "Matias also showed that pressing the center button, while on an active application, allows you to start Universal Search by just beginning to type on the keyboard."

If we could have an official clarification on this from Palm then we could put this confusion to rest.

These days I'm thinking about where I can work in the Summer to fund for a Palm Pre.

[Cary]

I haven't been this excited for a device since the introduction of the 8 bit Nintendo system. I will have to admit this is one fun ride - the anticipation of the release and keeping up on all the news on a daily basis. I won't miss this feeling when I have the Pre - but will definitely start all over again when you introduce the next WebOS devices!

[Mark]

What's on my mind is "universal search." In the demos I've seen the only local database it searches is your contacts, then it searches the launcher for app names, then it gives options for three specific web searches (google, maps, wikipedia). That is hardly "universal", the old Palm OS searches a lot more than that. It needs to (at a minimum) search ALL local data and have the option to add other web searches.

Even better would be the option to add the typed string into a database with selections like "add to tasks", "add to calendar", or "add to contacts". Really, really nice would be some intelligent suggestions based on the string content. Like if the string contains a date/time put "add to calendar" at the top. When I need to add some info to my Pre I'd like to just open the slider and start typing, then have the Pre help me figure out where to put it.

Thanks for listening. I can't wait to get my Pre!

[NachoB]

Ecoteric,

Hopefully there will be a configurable setting for what action will be performed on a swipe up.

[commo]

I'm waiting for the Web OS to be on TV's. I'm tired of the plain old square lcd bezel look. It if had the design of the Pre that would be awesome. It would also help if it could be remotely controlled with the Pre. It's funny how things so little as phones can do so much but TV's with all that extra space for processors hard drives, wireless, etc still can't. Let's put the WebOs on everything! Ok wishfull thinking done.

How about enterprise features like VPN. Will the Pre support L2TP/IPSEC. How about a file explorer of some kind to keep things organized. Curious to know how we can access the files that we put on the Pre when we use it as an external drive.

[JayCanuck]

While I don't particularly like how Ecoteric went about saying it, I too extremely dislike the new up gesture change. Seems to make the hard button at the bottom useless and adds one more step to bringing up the launcher (which in all honestly, I'll probably be calling up a lot, lol). Palm's always been stressing simplicity, though this seems to take things in the opposite direction. Perhaps Palm could reconsider the change, or maybe allow an option in the webOS Preferences to app to revert back. (Just my 2cents on the issue)

Side note, woot, Palm quoted me :D

[Derek]

Just a quick comment about Sprint. I am all for giving Sprint a fresh look. I am extremely excited about the Pre. Infact, I have a dying 2.5 year old blackberry, and the only reason i haven't replaced it with a blackberry or the iPhone yet is because of the Pre.

My only gripe is that it isn't an international phone. If it actually comes out and isn't a world phone in the US (i am hoping for a suprise), I think I am going to have to go with a different phone :(.

[gbp]

expandable memory aka SD Card Slot
and better battery

[Greg]

I'll second Pedro the Goat in that I would like to have the bottom LEDs work as notification lights. I sometimes leave my Treo at my desk, and it would be nice to know if something happened while I was away without having to turn it on to check every time I come back.

Besides, you have three of them and they're capable of variable light levels. You can make some fancy fadey animation for it instead of simply flashing them.

[Alex H. at Edelman for Palm]

Hi guys -- the conversations taking place here are incredibly valuable to Palm and a great way to make your opinions heard. While we obviously can't answer some of the questions posed, rest assured that we are listening and appreciate your patience. It's been a wait, yes, but this is going to be worth it.

[Ezra]

What I'm curious about is battery life. If you have a phone that is in 'constant' or near-constant data connection with Sprint's EVDO network, won't this drain the battery significantly fast...especially if I want to use bluetooth or play music or run other apps. Maybe this has already been addressed but I haven't seen a definitive answer.

BTW, what's also on my mind is I'm happy that Palm is taking it's time with this phone. I am willing to wait however long it takes to get a phone that is worth it's weight and is not just a fad. Thank you Palm for being commited to building a quality phone. :)

[Andreas]

As I live in Europe my first suggestion/hope is a UMTS/HSDPA version closely following the US relase. ;)

Other than that:
More internal memory or a SD card slot
Unless the main button already is a five way like on the Treo, i suggest that. In some situations its faster and easier to use such button to navigate instead of gestures.

[Choda Boy]

Please, PLEASE, tell me we can have multiple accounts for the same service:

I have several Gmail accounts. One for business. One for friends and family. One for web site registration (for spam control). Etc.

Please tell me I can set up all accounts with Synergy. Too many Synergy-like and IM apps assume a user has only ONE account with each service. Wrong!

[wayneNtampa]

Biggest issue for me: I have a Treo650 that needs to be replaced (Unlocked GSM). Get the Pre out in a GSM version, preferably with T-Mobile but at least unlocked! The GSM market is so much bigger than Sprint's. Its a disappointment that Palm chose that route.