wake.eat.sleep

Has it really only been a year since Palm released the Pre?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sprintnextel/3545303017/

Yesterday, HP's CEO Mark Hurd essentially validated what many suspected could be a distinct reality once Palm started looking for buyers: the reality that Palm's buyer would be looking to buy it, not to save Palm and WebOS in its current form and form factor, but to take one compelling part (WebOS), and discard the rest.

Here's the quote, via ZDNet:

"We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. And I tell people that, but it doesn’t seem to resonate well. We bought it for the IP. The WebOS is one of the two ground-up pieces of software that is built as a web operating environment…We have tens of millions of HP small form factor web-connected devices…Now imagine that being a web-connected environment where now you can get a common look and feel and a common set of services laid against that environment. That is a very value proposition."

Quite a journey from the excitement of CES 2009, the thrill of launch day (which I was a part of), to yet another painful nail in the "WebOS on a Palm/HP smartphone" coffin.

But, I'm not here to play Monday morning quarterback on what could have been, or what should have been different. Instead, let's just reminisce on some of the good and bad of the Palm through the my experiences with the Pre.

What I Liked About the Pre (And What I'll Miss)

WebOS UI Experience

(The CES 2009 presentation of the WebOS UI)

Quite a revolutionary experience, I must say. Being able to bring up, re-order and quickly dismiss apps is something I take for granted now. In fact, I sometimes catch myself trying to do that on similar devices. With Matias Duate joining Google to join Android, I'm pretty sure that we'll see some similar or even better concepts get incorporated into Android.

Touchstone

Inductive charging is not so revolutionary that we've never seen it before (think of your powered toothbrushes). But building it into a magnetic dock for your phone? That's pretty nifty.

Once you have it set up, it's pretty nice to be able to just set your Pre down, without having to fiddle with any cables. Good stuff.

Palm Profile / Synergy

This doesn't get much of a mention now, but Palm allows you to connect to multiple sources of data (Google, Outlook/Exchange, Yahoo, Facebook) and link them all under one universal entry in your contacts. You could freely associate and disassociate the connections WebOS would make for you in the case of common names.

Messaging also worked the same way, where all conversations, whether they were text or IM were held in the same thread. It was pretty nice not to have to switch applications to keep a conversation going.

Frequent Updates

As of today, the OS is at 1.4.1.1. Releases are usually coordinated with the carrier and released after testing. OS releases were sent over the air, which was pretty convenient. WebOS would optionally download the update gradually, unless it detected you were on a wifi network.

In about a year of updates, we've had stability fixes, UI improvements, and even the addition of video recording! Quite a contrast from my experience on Windows Mobile where despite some minor to moderate issues, nothing was updated in the 2 years I had that phone.

...And What I Didn't Like About the Pre (And What I Can't Wait To Leave)

Erratic Alarm Behavior

I don't think I'm that different from most people in using my phone as an alarm clock, primarily since I can easily set alarms and customize the alarm ring tone to use the most effective sound to wake me up. Early on, alarms worked as expected. I could snooze through alarms, leave them on, and as long as I set them up properly as Daily, Weekday or Weekend, I could always expect to have all the right alarms in place.

Nowadays? I've had alarms disappear. I've had set alarms fail to go off. I've had alarms remain, only to have their times switched to some default time. Instead of opening the alarms setting only when I have a modification to make, I am now in the habit of always checking it before I go to sleep. For those of you that care, the only way that I've been able to maintain my alarm settings, is to set all alarms to off. It doesn't save you the trouble of having to reactivate them before you go to sleep, but it's much better than having to re-enter all the settings.

Memory Management

If you don't have an issue with your phone running out of memory, there will never be a need to see the details of how much memory is being used. But far too often, likely due to memory leaks from a particular app or two, you would see the above screen. Unfortunately, there was no details on how to best manage this. In fact, early on you would need to reboot the phone to clear out the situation. It's great that a lack of memory wouldn't forcibly cause your phone to reboot, but without additional information it was somewhat annoying to have to divine which apps may have caused the situation.

Developer Interest

On release, Palm had roughly 20 apps for the device, which would gradually grow to the 2400 apps available in the App Catalog today. In terms of developer interest, there are some pretty significant names that have developed Palm specific apps such as Pandora, Fandango, Facebook, and Slacker. There are even games like Sims 3 and Oregon Trail.

Unfortunately, most developers don't create apps for fun, but rather to at least have the chance to make some amount of money. The fewer people that have a chance to see your app, the less likely you'll make any money. Thus, most of the interesting app development happens on other platforms. On WebOS, interest has plateaued even as the device has been released on a couple more carriers here and abroad.

Build Quality

In some ways, I'm fortunate that I'm still using the same unit I bought on launch day. But I'm likely in a small minority, since a larger number of folks have burned through multiple Pres, and likely still are. Now out of the box, it was fairly sturdy. Through about half a year of usage, I had no issues with any of the hardware pieces such as the sliding keyboard, the buttons or any of the internal components.

In the last couple of months, my power button has turned to mush, essentially losing its ability to click when depressed. Where I previously had the tactile feedback of knowing that I had pressed the power button and would just wait for the desired software response such as locking the screen or starting the power down process, I now had to rely on the software to let me know that I was (or in a lot of cases, wasn't) pressing the power button correctly.

Also in the same period of time, I've had signal issues in areas where previously I didn't have a problem. Quite specifically with the data signal, a pretty big issue as constant polling for the signal tends to eat up battery life. Sprint capacity issue? Palm hardware breakdown? The only definitive conclusion? It sucks.

So What Now?

I took a chance on a new operating system, and although we had some great times together it's about time to move on. So, what am I looking for in a phone?

Well, to some degree, my phone is Tank from the Matrix movie. Anything that I can't easily get on my own, I rely on my phone to give information, directions, entertainment and communication. Additionally, my phone is my second set of eyes and my backup memory device, chronicling my journey through the use of pictures, video and text.

What phone is going to be up for the task?

...to be continued?...