More on the Palm Pre

Random thoughts on random use

• It is worth the 10 Euros a month to have Internet access everywhere. Over the last 10 days I have used it for various things - looking up a telephone number, an address, hours of opening. It is slooooow, but it works (faster connections cost more).
• Google maps is great on maps and very bad on time planning. The maps work well, even as a pedestrian. But take the time suggested with a big grain of salt. They seem to have to driving at 120 km/h through town and areas restricted to just 80. I have consistently needed more time: 8 1/2 hours instead of 6 1/2, 4 1/2 hours instead of 3, 45 minutes instead of 2. The maps app works well for going between text and map. The only problem is the zoom - you cannot easily zoom while driving. This needs two fingers and eye concentration, something I don't have when driving. I want a tap-to-enlarge button.
• The battery sucks. It lasts a day and a half, max. So I end up giving it some juice every night.
• The time got out of kilter, and all the online forums said: just change it at the date/time thingy. I couldn't find one! I looked for the apps button - not to be found. I saw a little || button, tried to tap it, but nothing happened. I gave it to WiseKid to play with this afternoon, and he had it working in about 5.4 seconds. For him it was obvious to use the || as a slider - and there were all the things I was looking for!
• FINALLY all of my google appointments have been downloaded. I think the problem was that I have been using my iCal forever, and that appears to store all historic data (and to sync all historic data). So it just took it a while to download them all. It was weird, because at first it only had my just-entered appointments.
• Haven't done much calling with it, as I wanted to see the first statement to check out the price. I want a button: current statement amount ;)
  

Fun with the Pre - not

Okay, Pre is out of the box, SIM card is activated, I am logged on. I'm using one of my many Googlemail accounts that speaks English, I was using this one for the Android in order to upload my contacts.

My Mac Address Book always asks me to put in my contacts last name first, so I do, and it sorts nicely by last name. Uploading to Googlemail they were written in the field "Lastname Firstname", and the Android managed to understand this. The Pre, however, reads the fields as "Firstname Lastname", so now everyone is stored under their first names! Duh, like metadata hasn't been invented yet! All right, I'll just sort my data by "Firstname", and we are back in business.

Now let's hit the calendar. My alter ego is allowed to see all of my calendars. And indeed, soon my little Pre (I think it needs a name soon) has a list of all the calendars - but it didn't take the colors I have assigned! In my Mac iCal *and* with Google calendars I have work appointments in green 'cause that is the school color. Ah, okay, I can assign the calendars colors. Why don't they use the ones I already have assigned? Grumble. But still no dates. Maybe it needs some time to download my years worth of data.

The gestures are nice and smooth, though. The positioning is off by a city block. I was at work, though, when the picture was taken, my car is not there, just the neighbor's. My garden table is out, though, so it was in the summer.

So, let's calculate the way to work. Duh. Berlin has a gazillion streets with the same name. It calculates the one to the street in the alphabetically first listed part of town. Okay, try another street nearby. Okay, sort of. It says 20 minutes (hahaha, fit of laughter at that) and routes me through the worst traffic jam part of the way. No thanks!

I manage to get the WLAN hooked up (save on small download amount, 200 MB before it gets throttled, that's nothing these days) and fire up Twitter. Now I need a real Twitter app. Typing with my thumbnails is kind of, well, strange. But the gestures kind of grow on you.

Will continue this saga....

Update: the calendar still won't behave, but I got it hooked up to the eduroam at work today - very painlessly. But ohmymy, it needs a lot of electricity, must be plugged in every night!