App count = 0, developers are going to have a long porting time ahead to bring over all the popular Palm apps - assuming most are webapps, they will work on the iphone too quite easily.
I wouldn't want to use any old fashioned palm os apps on the WebOS based Pre. You think Steve Jobs would tolerate that? I don't care if its thousands of old apps thats left to rot its the new applications that take advantage of the synergy features is what I and new customers would be interested in.
I wouldn't want to use any old fashioned palm os apps on the WebOS based Pre. You think Steve Jobs would tolerate that? I don't care if its thousands of old apps thats left to rot its the new applications that take advantage of the synergy features is what I and new customers would be interested in.
Beyond aggregating my contacts (which I personally don't have a need for I already centralize in Address Book) what other benefits does Synergy offer?
There have to be more evident benefits of Synergy other than dealing with contacts which are pretty basic.
I'm just smiling at the fact that the most vocal Pre fans here, who can't seem to go more than a post or two without accusing everyone else of being Fan Boys that can't bear to see their beloved Apple in any way besmirched, are among the most rabid, irrational, Kool Aid drinking Fan Boys I've ever run across-- and this for a product that they know next to nothing about beyond the PR.
I mean, yelling "Synergy" and "Multitasking" over and over again (when not resorting to the usual muttering about copy and paste and MMS) is like declaring the new laundry soap the second coming by yelling "Whiter Whites!" and "Summer Fresh!" I get the feeling if Rubinstein had said that the Pre had "Super Vibro-Love" we'd be seeing a lot of posts along the lines of "Yeah, but does the iPhone have Super Vibro-Love??!! Huh??!!! Huh????!!!!!"
So I'll expand a bit on Murch's question: what, exactly, do "Synergy" and "Multitasking" (as implemented by Palm) do for me, on a phone? Outside of being perfectly nice points of branding? Cause I notice that, beyond being invoked over and over again as the reasons the Pre crushed, destroys, embarrasses, humiliated and rules the iPhone, no one seems much interested in describing scenarios wherein those things are, you know, useful.
And I'll say it again, I actually like the thing, I think it looks really promising, I think competition is good, I hope it raises Palm's fortunes, for whom I have vestigial affection for, and, well, we'll see.
But the fan boy hysterics are really a bit much. Can't we wait till it's in the hands of the consumer before we decide that the phone landscape if forever changed?
I mean, yelling "Synergy" and "Multitasking" over and over again (when not resorting to the usual muttering about copy and paste and MMS) is like declaring the new laundry soap the second coming by yelling "Whiter Whites!" and "Summer Fresh!" I get the feeling if Rubinstein had said that the Pre had "Super Vibro-Love" we'd be seeing a lot of posts along the lines of "Yeah, but does the iPhone have Super Vibro-Love??!! Huh??!!! Huh????!!!!!"
Couldn't have worded it better.
Does anyone think the gesture pad on the phone looks a bit awkward? The reason that Apple put the buttons in the interface for things like moving backwards in the interface is so that people know the functionality is there. It's also in the top left of the screen so easy to reach with one hand.
That gesture pad is going to be very cumbersome swishing around using one hand when the phone is closed. The home button is ok as you just press it. Making gestures at the bottom with your thumb is going to cause some pain in the hand.
Try it on the iphone. Hold the phone with one hand and rub left to right on the side of the home button nearest your hand 10 times and tell me it's not painful.
Does anyone think the gesture pad on the phone looks a bit awkward? The reason that Apple put the buttons in the interface for things like moving backwards in the interface is so that people know the functionality is there. It's also in the top left of the screen so easy to reach with one hand.
That gesture pad is going to be very cumbersome swishing around using one hand when the phone is closed. The home button is ok as you just press it. Making gestures at the bottom with your thumb is going to cause some pain in the hand.
Try it on the iphone. Hold the phone with one hand and rub left to right on the side of the home button nearest your hand 10 times and tell me it's not painful.
It did seem like on the demoes that there's a lot of moving around to do basic things, although it's kind of hard to say how it flows without holding one. The "move finger up slowly to invoke the ghost dock but not too slowly wait that's a little too fast now you've flicked the screen up" business with the gesture bar definitely doesn't look ready for prime time (since the demo lady couldn't seem to get it to work reliably), and just in general seems like a lot of fussiness for modest payoff, but I'll be happy to stand corrected on that count, if it proves useful. But while I'm sure that some of the UI stuff will become second nature to Pre owners, some of it doesn't look terribly intuitive, at least from the demoes.
And some of that, I suspect, is the mandate to differentiate, mostly from the iPhone (you know Rubinstein would love to send a shot over Apple's bow, which is as good a reason as any for trying harder).
Trouble being, if someone has already implemented a behavior in a really good way, changing it up just to be different may start taking you away from what you're trying to achieve.
It reminds a little of some of the peculiar variants on the idea of a click wheel that iPod competitors came up with. Naturally, the "anything but an iPod" crowed declared each of these a wonderful advance over Apple's "old" interface, when, in fact, they were more the result of "well, we have to do something and the click wheel's already taken."
Does anyone think the gesture pad on the phone looks a bit awkward? The reason that Apple put the buttons in the interface for things like moving backwards in the interface is so that people know the functionality is there. It's also in the top left of the screen so easy to reach with one hand.
That gesture pad is going to be very cumbersome swishing around using one hand when the phone is closed. The home button is ok as you just press it. Making gestures at the bottom with your thumb is going to cause some pain in the hand.
Try it on the iphone. Hold the phone with one hand and rub left to right on the side of the home button nearest your hand 10 times and tell me it's not painful.
I just tried to do what you said on my ipod touch. Yeah I see your point. Although that gesture area isn't meant for all your input on the screen and there are some gestures that start there then swipe up to the middle of the screen. I think the design was meant for one handed browsing.
Isn't there anyone here that can get a hold of a Pre and do a quick hands on of the device?
I just tried to do what you said on my ipod touch. Yeah I see your point. Although that gesture area isn't meant for all your input on the screen and there are some gestures that start there then swipe up to the middle of the screen.
Isn't there anyone here that can get a hold of a Pre and do a quick hands on of the device?
Yeah! What we need is a Pre beta tester who can feed us some real info. I bet there are a million little things, good and bad, that aren't evident from the demoes.
Although, given that there wasn't the barest whisper online before the unveiling, Palm must be playing things pretty close to their vest. I wonder if "hands on" stuff will start to leak out, now?
I bet there are a million little things, good and bad, that aren't evident from the demoes.
Although, given that there wasn't the barest whisper online before the unveiling, Palm must be playing things pretty close to their vest. I wonder if "hands on" stuff will start to leak out, now?
Agreed. The more I look at Palm's announcment of the Pre, it seems clear that they did understand the strategic timing of all this.
Palm had to make an announcement early, because people were giving up on them and they needed to get developers interested.
On the other hand, they were careful not to release too much that would give Apple and RIM a solid advantage. The next version of the iPhone is probably already feature locked, but Jobs always has the capacity to surprise.
Agreed. The more I look at Palm's announcment of the Pre, it seems clear that they did understand the strategic timing of all this.
Palm had to make an announcement early, because people were giving up on them and they needed to get developers interested.
On the other hand, they were careful not to release too much that would give Apple and RIM a solid advantage. The next version of the iPhone is probably already feature locked, but Jobs always has the capacity to surprise.
I don't know, watching their keynote now and it seems like their biggest mistake is announcing this and showing off quite a bit of the functionality.
Apple has been very agile with their development, by not releasing the Pre now they at least give Apple the chance to pick off any of the low hanging fruit from the Pre. If we're looking at Summer for the Pre, Apple could probably do one, maybe 2 system software updates, and possibly a new hardware revision.
Even something as cool as the Global search wouldn't be that much work for Apple to pull off IMO.
Comments
App count = 0, developers are going to have a long porting time ahead to bring over all the popular Palm apps - assuming most are webapps, they will work on the iphone too quite easily.
I wouldn't want to use any old fashioned palm os apps on the WebOS based Pre. You think Steve Jobs would tolerate that? I don't care if its thousands of old apps thats left to rot its the new applications that take advantage of the synergy features is what I and new customers would be interested in.
I wouldn't want to use any old fashioned palm os apps on the WebOS based Pre. You think Steve Jobs would tolerate that? I don't care if its thousands of old apps thats left to rot its the new applications that take advantage of the synergy features is what I and new customers would be interested in.
Beyond aggregating my contacts (which I personally don't have a need for I already centralize in Address Book) what other benefits does Synergy offer?
There have to be more evident benefits of Synergy other than dealing with contacts which are pretty basic.
I mean, yelling "Synergy" and "Multitasking" over and over again (when not resorting to the usual muttering about copy and paste and MMS) is like declaring the new laundry soap the second coming by yelling "Whiter Whites!" and "Summer Fresh!" I get the feeling if Rubinstein had said that the Pre had "Super Vibro-Love" we'd be seeing a lot of posts along the lines of "Yeah, but does the iPhone have Super Vibro-Love??!! Huh??!!! Huh????!!!!!"
So I'll expand a bit on Murch's question: what, exactly, do "Synergy" and "Multitasking" (as implemented by Palm) do for me, on a phone? Outside of being perfectly nice points of branding? Cause I notice that, beyond being invoked over and over again as the reasons the Pre crushed, destroys, embarrasses, humiliated and rules the iPhone, no one seems much interested in describing scenarios wherein those things are, you know, useful.
And I'll say it again, I actually like the thing, I think it looks really promising, I think competition is good, I hope it raises Palm's fortunes, for whom I have vestigial affection for, and, well, we'll see.
But the fan boy hysterics are really a bit much. Can't we wait till it's in the hands of the consumer before we decide that the phone landscape if forever changed?
I mean, yelling "Synergy" and "Multitasking" over and over again (when not resorting to the usual muttering about copy and paste and MMS) is like declaring the new laundry soap the second coming by yelling "Whiter Whites!" and "Summer Fresh!" I get the feeling if Rubinstein had said that the Pre had "Super Vibro-Love" we'd be seeing a lot of posts along the lines of "Yeah, but does the iPhone have Super Vibro-Love??!! Huh??!!! Huh????!!!!!"
Does anyone think the gesture pad on the phone looks a bit awkward? The reason that Apple put the buttons in the interface for things like moving backwards in the interface is so that people know the functionality is there. It's also in the top left of the screen so easy to reach with one hand.
That gesture pad is going to be very cumbersome swishing around using one hand when the phone is closed. The home button is ok as you just press it. Making gestures at the bottom with your thumb is going to cause some pain in the hand.
Try it on the iphone. Hold the phone with one hand and rub left to right on the side of the home button nearest your hand 10 times and tell me it's not painful.
Does anyone think the gesture pad on the phone looks a bit awkward? The reason that Apple put the buttons in the interface for things like moving backwards in the interface is so that people know the functionality is there. It's also in the top left of the screen so easy to reach with one hand.
That gesture pad is going to be very cumbersome swishing around using one hand when the phone is closed. The home button is ok as you just press it. Making gestures at the bottom with your thumb is going to cause some pain in the hand.
Try it on the iphone. Hold the phone with one hand and rub left to right on the side of the home button nearest your hand 10 times and tell me it's not painful.
It did seem like on the demoes that there's a lot of moving around to do basic things, although it's kind of hard to say how it flows without holding one. The "move finger up slowly to invoke the ghost dock but not too slowly wait that's a little too fast now you've flicked the screen up" business with the gesture bar definitely doesn't look ready for prime time (since the demo lady couldn't seem to get it to work reliably), and just in general seems like a lot of fussiness for modest payoff, but I'll be happy to stand corrected on that count, if it proves useful. But while I'm sure that some of the UI stuff will become second nature to Pre owners, some of it doesn't look terribly intuitive, at least from the demoes.
And some of that, I suspect, is the mandate to differentiate, mostly from the iPhone (you know Rubinstein would love to send a shot over Apple's bow, which is as good a reason as any for trying harder).
Trouble being, if someone has already implemented a behavior in a really good way, changing it up just to be different may start taking you away from what you're trying to achieve.
It reminds a little of some of the peculiar variants on the idea of a click wheel that iPod competitors came up with. Naturally, the "anything but an iPod" crowed declared each of these a wonderful advance over Apple's "old" interface, when, in fact, they were more the result of "well, we have to do something and the click wheel's already taken."
Does anyone think the gesture pad on the phone looks a bit awkward? The reason that Apple put the buttons in the interface for things like moving backwards in the interface is so that people know the functionality is there. It's also in the top left of the screen so easy to reach with one hand.
That gesture pad is going to be very cumbersome swishing around using one hand when the phone is closed. The home button is ok as you just press it. Making gestures at the bottom with your thumb is going to cause some pain in the hand.
Try it on the iphone. Hold the phone with one hand and rub left to right on the side of the home button nearest your hand 10 times and tell me it's not painful.
I just tried to do what you said on my ipod touch. Yeah I see your point. Although that gesture area isn't meant for all your input on the screen and there are some gestures that start there then swipe up to the middle of the screen. I think the design was meant for one handed browsing.
Isn't there anyone here that can get a hold of a Pre and do a quick hands on of the device?
I just tried to do what you said on my ipod touch. Yeah I see your point. Although that gesture area isn't meant for all your input on the screen and there are some gestures that start there then swipe up to the middle of the screen.
Isn't there anyone here that can get a hold of a Pre and do a quick hands on of the device?
Yeah! What we need is a Pre beta tester who can feed us some real info. I bet there are a million little things, good and bad, that aren't evident from the demoes.
Although, given that there wasn't the barest whisper online before the unveiling, Palm must be playing things pretty close to their vest. I wonder if "hands on" stuff will start to leak out, now?
I bet there are a million little things, good and bad, that aren't evident from the demoes.
Although, given that there wasn't the barest whisper online before the unveiling, Palm must be playing things pretty close to their vest. I wonder if "hands on" stuff will start to leak out, now?
Agreed. The more I look at Palm's announcment of the Pre, it seems clear that they did understand the strategic timing of all this.
Palm had to make an announcement early, because people were giving up on them and they needed to get developers interested.
On the other hand, they were careful not to release too much that would give Apple and RIM a solid advantage. The next version of the iPhone is probably already feature locked, but Jobs always has the capacity to surprise.
Agreed. The more I look at Palm's announcment of the Pre, it seems clear that they did understand the strategic timing of all this.
Palm had to make an announcement early, because people were giving up on them and they needed to get developers interested.
On the other hand, they were careful not to release too much that would give Apple and RIM a solid advantage. The next version of the iPhone is probably already feature locked, but Jobs always has the capacity to surprise.
I don't know, watching their keynote now and it seems like their biggest mistake is announcing this and showing off quite a bit of the functionality.
Apple has been very agile with their development, by not releasing the Pre now they at least give Apple the chance to pick off any of the low hanging fruit from the Pre. If we're looking at Summer for the Pre, Apple could probably do one, maybe 2 system software updates, and possibly a new hardware revision.
Even something as cool as the Global search wouldn't be that much work for Apple to pull off IMO.