Mobile Minds
mobile products to make your life better

Review Palm’s Pre

I’m not going to bore you with all the technical specs of Palm new phone the Pre. Instead I’m going to offer my opinion of Palm’s new flagship phone and new their new OS WebOS. Palm has needed a new phone that could bring them back to their glory days of making the best mobile products in the world.

So has Palm hit a home run is the first question I am regularly asked? So let’s get to it, of the smartphone’s on the market today the Palm Pre is definitely one of the 2 best and this is an achievement considering this is a first generation phone design and a new OS to boot.

So why would I make such a bold statement about a phone I’ve owned less than a week. Well, look at the hardware design it’s the most elegant phone design on the market today hands down. While I admit I don’t have large hands for a man but it fit nicely in my hand. The smaller size will allow it to carried in your pocket or in the case of a woman purse, easier than it’s biggest competitor the iPhone.

The only area’s I would say could have used some additional thought is the syncing/charging port on the side. Like many other consumer electronics companies Palm choose to include a plastic cover, that I full expect to break off within the first month. These are always a bad idea in my opinion. Another reason I believe this could have been thought through more thoroughly is that this phone is designed to also be a music and video player. If they had moved the syncing/charging port to the bottom allowing it to be docked would have been a better solution in my opinion. The reason why is again thinking this phone can also serve as a music/video platform. The lack of a bottom port reduces the ability for third party developers to develop external speaker systems. This is key for Palm’s head to head battle with Apple and the iPhone, although Palm’s Pre designers may have a bit different plan in mind. Their thought might be to go with strictly a wireless solution maybe using the phone’s built-in Bluetooth radio.

Continuing on with the hardware Palm has introduced an inductive charging accessory called the Touchstone. This is brilliant design and idea to bring to the new initiative new phone, this helps to set this phone apart of the others on the market. Going back to my point on the charging/syncing port this accessory can eliminate this negative point from a charging standpoint.

As I mentioned before Palm released it’s WebOS new operating systems on this device. This much anticipated successor to the Palm OS is from a user interface standpoint one of the 2 best on the market today. One of the biggest features and really the one that sets this OS apart of the competition is called Synergy. The OS has the ability to sync cloud based databases of information into your device and even better the OS will display the information merged together as if it is one contact on your phone. The best example of this is my wife. I have her as a contact syncing from my address book. She has limited information on Facebook. Once the device syncs up with both data sources the OS along with some magic on the Palm service side merges the 2 records for my wife together. So all of her information shows up as one contact on my phone. This again was a brilliant decision on Palm’s standpoint to be in front of the all the other mobile OS companies by embracing cloud computing.

Another aspect of the OS that makes it standout from the others on the market is its touch interface. Again in my opinion this is the way all phone UI should be done. Moving around the interface via finger swipes is just the easiest way to navigate such a device. Palm has kept an important aspect of the old Palm OS by including the gesture area.

The new WebOS means a new development environment for develops to write new and initiative apps for. As of today there are 30 third party applications released with more and more being released daily, all this without a released version of the software development kit or SDK. Once Palm releases the SDK it should see a dramatic increase in the number of third party apps available. If Palm can get 25% of the old Palm OS developers to start development of applications for the new WebOS we should see lots of applications in a very short period of time. Palm is touting that WebOS will be the easiest mobile platform to develop for thus allowing move people and or companies to develop for it. By using standards like HTML, CSS and JavaScript Palm expects the developer’s learning curve to be dramatically reduced.

I have to take exception to Palm’s decision on the next part. In the follow I have outlined some area’s Palm need to address. Palm has chosen a path with desktop syncing I do not agree with, as it takes the control over the customer experience out of their hands and puts it in the hands of third party developers. In my case I have a MAC, so today MarkSpace released a beta version of it’s Palm Pre syncing software for the OS X. Allowing users to sync using either the USB cable or a WIFI sync. I love the ability to sync wirelessly including syncing media from iTunes. But you need to understand that Palm believes that cloud based syncing is were things are headed. I can’t say I disagree however in the case of music you still need to sync information to your desktop. When you look at the fact this phone is a multimedia powerhouse the lack of desktop syncing and management software for music and video is another concern of mine. However, to be fair really Amazon needs to step up here and deliver this software, as it should serve both the Palm Pre and Android devices since both device platforms use the Amazon MP3 store. I mention this only as it will difficult to unseat Apple’s iPhone without a complete end-to-end solution.

The bottom line is this is a great phone and truly could be looked at as a version 1.5 not 1.0 considering where Palm came from and where they are today. The coming 6 months will be telling for Palm and it’s Palm Pre. But make no mistake this device is a contender and others will be trying to play catch up and this includes Apple.

Like many iPhone owners I have been waiting not so patiently for the new iPhone to be released. Having owned the original iPhone, the original 16GB model, and the iPhone 3G versions. I clearly love my iPhone and watched the WWDC live feeds to hear what we would be getting next. The spec’s great, software great and pricing great, so I’m ready to head to the store and hand over my money. Until later in the day when reports started coming out stating that pricing was only for new customers not existing iPhone 3G owners. To say I was upset is an understatement.

Using the online tool Apple sent out links to reserve your new iPhone 3G S’s I found out a iPhone 3 G S 32GB version will cost me $699 a piece and I was looking to pick up 3 of them to replace our existing iPhone 3G’s 16GB version. This fact is what upset me so much. Why would AT&T Wireless choose this coarse of action and what could I do about this.

Thinking about this further I decided on a coarse of action, first I would write this post, next I would send a message to AT&T Wireless PR team and copy Apple, and several other people which we will get to later.

To be fair US wireless consumer’s have become addicted to the carrier subsidized prices on new cell phones. The wireless carriers are a business first and foremost with a responsibility to maximize the return to its shareholders. However, the second thing you learn in business is you take good care of your customer’s as it’s easier not to mention cheaper to sell more products to existing customer than attract new customers. Oh the first thing you learn of coarse is to sell your products/solutions at the highest possible price and still gain customers.

My problem is, there are several reports that Apple is in talks with Verizon to offer the iPhone to its customer base. Should Apple open up the iPhone distribution to Verizon or even worse total switch carriers then where does this leave AT&T Wireless. In my opinion when you consider these facts, AT&T Wireless is being very short sighted for trying to over charging loyal customers looking to purchase the new iPhone 3G S. During conference calls AT&T have reported greater than 50% of their wireless business revenue comes from iPhone customers. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to realize that if you mistreat these customers and they have a choice then they will take their business to another carrier. And you better believe should Apple take this step the phone they would release would be something that would make customers want to switch carriers for.

Which brings me to the second group of people I copied on my letter. I copied my federal House and Senate representatives. The reason for coping this is simple in my mind. This is another example of US wireless carrier price gouging it’s customers. The other example is the prices they charge customers for text messaging. These predator practices have gone on for far too long and something needs to be done about it. Maybe our elected officials will take some interest in making sure we as consumers, are not taken advantage of by these companies any longer. When you look at both of these high profile injustices maybe it is enough to get their faces on the news and thus get them interested in talking about this on the news and maybe just maybe get AT&T Wireless to reconsider their pricing models.

If you are truly upset about this and wish to upgrade I would suggest you follow the same coarse of action. Send an email to AT&T Wireless PR team, copy Apple’s iPhone PR team and lastly and most importantly send a copy of the message to your federal officials both in the House and Senate. Remember the key to these steps is in the number of people who write these letters.

So what really happened and why hasn’t this site been updated in quite some time

As a father and an husband I can not image feeling so helpless as laying in an ICU bed not being able to take care of my own family. Which is exactly what happened to me on June 7th 2008. That day started as any Saturday morning would however within 30 minutes of being up, a massive pain developed in my stomach. The pain continued and intensified throughout the day. By 3:00PM the stomach pain had turned into a feeling like I was bloated and the pain started to shift to my right kidney area. Having had kidney stones before I know where my kidney’s are and how they feel when something is wrong. Having gone though kidney stones 9 times, I was delaying the trip to the hospital as long as I could just to be sure, as I did not want to waste anybody time.

Along the path to recovery I’ve learned a few interesting pieces of information. Like less than 12 hours made all the difference in the world on whether I live or died.  Remember when I said I had kidney stones in the past? One of the thoughts I had that Saturday was just to take some of the left over painkillers I still had from my last kidney stone, this way I could avoid having to go to the hospital.  One thought I had was to take some of those and just suffer though the weekend, this would have proven to be a fatal mistake should I have chosen this path.

Now on to the story around 6:00PM later that day our son began discussing meeting some of his friends and seeing a movie. By this point I knew something was wrong and that I needed to seek medical attention. Still not thinking it was such a big deal my wife dropped my off at the hospital so I could get signed in while she dropped off our son at his friends house. Waiting only about 30 minutes they began to run tests on me thinking the same we were, this was a kidney stone. After an hour of tests it was looking to be far more serious than just kidney stones and believe me I’m not trying to minimize kidney stones.   Surgeons were called to consult and discovered what was wrong with me. I had developed a perforated intestine, which required immediate surgery to save my life.  Not knowing where the perforation was the surgeon would have to explore my abdominal cavity. When I was told that surgery was required I was in complete disbelief. Asking “it’s there some medicine you can give me so surgery won’t be necessary?” Furthermore, I was told I would be off work for at least 4 to 6 week while recovering from this type of surgery.

As I piece things together today it appears to have taken the surgeon about an hour to find the hole and an additional 2 1/2 hours to fix the hole and clean up the area’s that had been contaminated.  On the morning of Sunday June 8, 2008, I woke up in ICU, with more of wires and tubes hooked up to me than I have ever seen connected to a person in the hospital. Until this point my only overnight stays at a hospital included; the day I was born and staying with my wife while our son was born. The only surgery I had been through I would classify as minor day surgery as I was released the same day.

Back to waking up in ICU I can’t help but to remember how helpless I felt and how if my family needed me I could not be there for them. As I’m sure any father/husband will tell you this is not the position we want to be in. This feeling consumed me for much of the next few months. It was never me feeling sorry for myself but rather how I could not take care of my family as I had done for over a decade before. There is nothing more important to me than my family is. I would have never thought in my younger days I would ever feel this way but I’m hear to tell you I do.

After surgery I briefly remember waking up and fighting to get up out of bed, I know it sounds stupid but keeping in mind I was coming out of anesthesia and not fully awake. The clinical staff were quick to respond holding me down from all angles, legs, arms and body. I understand my wife encouraged them to keep me tight down this was for my own safety and to control me from pulling out the tube from my nose (which I really hated having that tube in my nose).

On Sunday I sleep most if not all of the day. I do have a few memories of my sister and her boy friend, my sister-in-law and her husband and my wife and son visiting at different times. It’s probably best as what little I do remember was all the pain. I spent a day and half in ICU before being moved to a room on the floor. Tuesday morning shortly after waking up and not knowing the extent of the pain management medicine I was on, I got it in my head I was going to get out of bed, never mind this 14 inch incision down my stomach and all the wires and tubes connected to me. So I proceeded the best I could to disconnect any and all tubes and wires so I could get out of bed. The thought of what I would do once out of bed never crossed my mind, I was successfully at getting out of bed but immediately fell to the floor and could not stand up and move importantly breathe. I scrambled to push the nurse call button to get some assistance in to help me back into my bed and to get my oxygen hooked back up, at this point I was on 100% rebreather. The thought of not being able to stand up or much less breathe without the oxygen I was connected too never crossed my mind. Having walked into the hospital it was just something I had not considered. When you add in all that including the morphine they were given me to control my pain, it was just a stupid idea. This was the first time I realized the extent of my pain, which was quite serve. For the rest of this week while still in the hospital and for many weeks to come I have learned what true pain was.

This is why I have not updated MobileMinds.com in quite some time. I am now starting to write again and would like to thank all of those who continue to support this site.

Palm has been known for developing some of the most cutting edge handheld products in history. Like many others I had thought their best days were behind them. What little did I know, during CES 2009 Palm announced their newest phone the Palm Pre and the next generation OS called WebOS respectively.

It’s almost impossible to not compare this phone and OS to Apple’s iPhone as many aspects of what has made the iPhone a groundbreaking product are also included in Palm’s new Pre phone and the WebOS. In my opinion this is the first true competitor to the iPhone. I believe competition is a good thing both Palm and Apple need to be pushed so they develop better solutions for us the consumers.

As was announced earlier this week the Palm Pre will be released on June 6, 2009 running exclusively on the Sprint wireless network here in the US. After rebates and signing a 2 year service contract the phone is $199.

So why am I so excited about this device, well it will offer several key integrations I find very appealing. Palm seems to be the only company who is taking an intelligent proactive approach to working with cloud based services. One of the key technologies in WebOS is Synergy, which allows users to connect to web based services like online address books and calendars. One of the launch partners with Palm and Sprint for this device is Facebook. The Facebook Synergy integration allows for friends contact information like, profile photo, name, address, phone numbers, email address(es) all to be integrated and accessed via the built-in address book and calendar applications while connected to the wireless network.

To understand why is this so important you first have to understand how I use Facebook, then you’ll see the value this integration brings. My wife and I use Facebook to communicate with old friends, and we regularly attend social events with some of them. At times you need to reach out to some of these people while trying to find one another at these events so having contact information for people without have to go through the steps of pulling up someone’s profile, viewing this information and adding it to our phone prior to attending the event is where the true power of such integrations shines through. This feature does require you to be connected to the Sprint network in order for this information about them to show up in your address list.

So let’s examine another example of the usefully of such an integration and why is feature is going to be a key aspect to the Palm WebOS success. For years now I have written about the lack of solutions when handling common family calendars. Say you have kids as we do, how do you create events with all the information like locations and time only once and share this easily? If I’ve already added this information to my database why should my wife or other family members need to create these same events again? Think about this for a second, a child’s baseball or basketball season may have 15 to 20 games and the dates and time of these events change from time to time. Using a Google’s calendar we can create this information once and share it with only the people we want to open it up too. In my case what has made the problem of sharing calendar events more complicated is the fact my wife uses Outlook and I use Apple’s iCal which don’t always play nice together. So using Google and Synergy again I can create these events and share with the people who need this information to be up to date all the time.

From the coverage so far the Synergy feature is what sets the Palm Pre apart from the rest of the pack including Apple’s iPhone. Whether you younger or not so young like me this one feature is the reason this phone should be seriously considered as your next device.

More more is available at http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/index.html

Folks, I will be offline for a while as I had emergency surgery on Sat. June 7th well Sunday the 8th really. 

This was a very close calls for me and it’s times like this when you take stock on what is important to you. In my opinion it should be family and friends, then work and so on. 

Let’s start with Nokia, there back in 2008! Nokia are addressing one of the biggest area’s I believe manufacturers can invest in to create loyal customers. That is integrating web services directly into the devices at an OS level. The new focus on the US market will play a major role in Nokia future plays. However, I don’t know if Nokia’s great phone designs and these new web services are enough to hold off the competition from the likes of Google, Sony/Ericsson and Apple. Nokia needs to partner with Nintendo in 2008. For Nokia sake they need to hope Nintendo is not already talking to Google.

How about Sony/Ericsson are they dead in 2008? Like Nokia, Sony/Ericsson has focused on emerging markets and not the US market. So will this change on 2008, maybe if Sony releases the PSPphone. If Sony releases the PSPphone with the capabilities of purchasing games via the PSN store and over-the-air then this device could make some serious waves in 2008. When you consider how well the PSP is selling this make good sense. However the key with such a device is going to be ease of use and how easy you can move information (games, music and movies) to and from this device. The software, which let’s face it is not Sony’s strong suit, is going to make or break this device.

Speaking of Sony I do see brighter days ahead for the PS3? Well I see them scraping the current PS3’s PSN store design, which in my opinion could not happen soon enough. I’m predicting this comes out at the same time Sony releases it’s new Home application in the April or May time frame. Additionally, this will boost the PS3 and allow it to make up some serious ground against Microsoft and Nintendo. Yes I know that sales are up on the PS3 platform after the price cuts. However, people who have both the PS3 and XBox 360 view the 360 as a stronger platform not only because of the game titles released but because of the user interface and ease of use. Another aspect of Sony’s overall strategy I see becoming a reality in 2008 is the addition of Sony’s music and movie library’s into the PS3, PSP and PSPphone experience. The key here is, are the other music and movie company willing to play in Sony’s pond since they are competitors.

I for one hope that Sony learns a new speed besides turtle slow and stop. There is so much potential in what Sony could do with the Playstation brand of products but they just seem to be behind the curve about 3 steps.

It’s hard to discuss predictions without look at what Apple is going to do in 2008. The latest Apple rumors has Apple introducing movie rentals into iTunes. I see this becoming a reality with a couple of twists. One the movies will be playable for a couple of days and only a selected number of plays. As I also believe on top of being able to play these movies on an Apple TV, you will be able to play them on iPods and iPhones. Hence the need for the limited amount of times you can play a movies before you have to purchase it or rent it again. Speaking of this at the end of movies you rent off iTunes you will be prompted to purchase the movie at a discounted price. Apple will use this as a way to entice people to purchase movies. 

As for iPhone’s in 2008, games and storage are the big additions to look forward to. But I’m sure your read 200 stories on what is coming from Apple in regards to the iPhone.

It may seem that I have focused too much on digital media and game aspects of what 3008 has in store for us. However when you consider the revenues these markets represent these are truly some of the largest markets with the biggest potential for massive growth in 2008. Not to mention the area’s that can have the biggest impact on our lives going forward.

Anyway you look at it 2008 is shaping up to bring us great new innovative products.

I have for the past 7 years changed cell phones on a regular basis. What do I mean by regular, well about every two weeks. However with Apple’s release of the iPhone I have not even though, for more than a moment about trying out a new device. Now this is not to say I do not wish I could do more with my iPhone.

Since it’s about of my connected life, my iPhone needs it to replace my company blackberry. Or I should say provide a wireless sync solution for our corporate exchange service. While I could go into all that is entailed with being a truly enterprise device, I wanted to discuss making my iPhone more of the center point  of my connected life.

So let’s say I’m sitting at my desk and my cell phone rings. I want my MAC or PC for that matter to pull up the contact of the person who is calling, that is of coarse if I have them in my database. Showing me the person calling while allowing me to answer the call with a click of the mouse is key to me.

While we are discussing desktop integration and pulling up of a contact when they call. Why does Outlook. Entourage, or Apple Mail/Address Book/iCal not log calls into the contacts record. I know there is third party software titles that does allow this functionality to be added to all these programs.

I also want the ability to return home docking my iPhone and have it continue to play via my computer speakers what I was listening too on the go. For that matter I want to control my Apple TV using my iPhone.

Mobile devices are only as good as their ability to keep my information in sync. Having never been on the inside of the mobile device industry, not counting a part owner of a PDA software company. There has to be more reasons why the people making these decisions do not see this. Maybe it’s my lack of a MBA to understand. But to me it’s simple “if you build it they will come” quote from one of my wife’s favorite movies, Field of Dreams. Many device developers have had 7 years to figure this out. The good news is they are now looking at Apple’s iPhone success and are now changing they ways, at least this is what I am hearing from my sources.

This article can have the Apple iPhone replaced by a great Nokia N95 or Motorola Q. The same requests I am making are true for all devices. Everybody from Blackberry, to Palm, to Microsoft, to Symbain and Apple all need to listen and understand these devices are more than just mobile phones to us anymore.

Apple is one of the software companies that always creates user interface with grace and style while providing unmatched ease of use in it’s devices and software.

All of these make my iPhone the center piece of my connected life. I have and will continue to dream of a day once described by Bill Gates when all my devices are truly connected. I know it’s strange mentioning Apple and Bill Gates with kinds words for both. I believe that both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and teams have created a ground work for our connected life’s.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Iphone, Nokia, Palm OS, Rant, Symbain, Upcoming, Windows Mobile

September 27, 2007, I was invited to an event hosted be Nokia. This event was held in Los Angeles at a mansion in Beverly Hills. The purpose of this event was to show off the new products that were introduced at the Nokia GoPlay event held in London last month.

Nokia showed off new bluetooth headsets, bluetooth speakers and several of it’s high end Nseries phones. Primarily the discussed where focused around the N95-3. Which is the second generation of the N95. The N95-3 includes several enhancements not found in the original N95, including support for the US 3G radio bands used by AT&T (formally Cingular) and other things like including a larger battery.

As I mentioned the event was held at a Beverly Hills mansion. Each room was setup to show off the abilities of these new devices. Including rooms for N-Gage gaming, GPS, and 3rd party applications such as Sling Media’s new S60 client. Nokia wanted to show how these devices allowed users to stay connected on what Nokia calls the 4th screen, your cell phone. These devices allow for third party software integration into the phones OS. With this you can not only capture great viral content on the go but share this content with all kinds of social networking sites, such as Flickr, Jaiku and others.

Nokia is taken a different approach to cell phone consumers by not only partnering with wireless carriers but also selling unlocked devices directly to them. Additionally, they have opened flagship stores in the US to help consumers see everything these devices are capable of. This approach is not to replace the buying experience at your local wireless carriers stores. In fact these flagship stores do not sell you wireless service, only devices and accessories for them. Since most of Nokia’s high end devices in the Nseries line are not sold by US wireless carriers this allows consumers to go into a store and play with these devices in person. This way you can see these devices for themselves without having to purchase them from the internet without ever having laid their hands on the devices.

I have uploaded some photo’s I took at this event onto my flickr account here. Additionally, I am working on a review of Nokia’s super phone the N95. While I have played with the original N95 I am trying to get my hands on the new N95-3 with full support of my carriers network (AT&T) and include my thoughts on this device before finishing my review.

Technorati Tags: Nokia

Technorati Tags: Nokia

Their reaction to losing control is exactly why we need these rules. Verizon wants to keep their thumb on you and limit your choices because they can not charge you for things that should be free.

“Verizon Wireless argued that the open-access conditions are unconstitutional, and the FCC overstepped its authority when it approved them on July 31. The auction is widely seen as a last opportunity for a new player to enter the wireless market.”

read more | digg story

The co-opetition between Apple and AT&T could lead to a potentially strained relationship, according to C|Net on Thursday. So far, all’s worked out well, however, AT&T is not accustomed to the fast moving nature of Apple.

read more | digg story