Apps

Burn, Baby, Burn! GPS Inferno

I've used the Sprint Navigation feature 3 times now. I've never had a GPS device before. The first time was from San Francisco to Menlo Park. It went smoothly; I missed my last turn and the GPS recalculated quickly, and it handled navigation in the business park's small parking lot. The second time was for a trip from San Francisco to South San Francisco to the FedEx distribution center. This was a shorter trip and the parking lot was much bigger than on the first trip, but it got me there in one piece. … Read more

Sharetones: Make a ton of ringtones on Android

Industrious cell phone users can always create their own ringtones, and lazy ones can buy them packaged. Sharetones 1.0 beta for Android, released to the Android Market on Tuesday, falls somewhere in between.

The premise is simple, but intriguingly computational. You create ringtones from songs you already own on your phone. Instead of asking you to do the tedious editing legwork, Sharetones will send your songs to a database of over 65,000 tones and return several options that someone else has created. One ringtone may capture the intro instrumentals; another may clip the chorus.

The key here is … Read more

Waze brings free turn-by-turn GPS to Android

Waze is an innovative new GPS app for Android that supplements Census Bureau maps with user-generated data. This social approach to road conditions offers a new level of data that is not possible with other GPS services.

Just imagine your daily commute to work. Though you may have the best route down to a science, significant delays can affect even the best-laid plans. Fortunately, that's where Waze comes into play.

By utilizing real-time information from others, Waze can optimize your drive time and help you make informed decisions. It provides helpful information such as speed traps, accidents, and road … Read more

Email Love

Setting up my main email accounts on the Palm Pre was a breeze. Gmail automatically signed in and pulled my settings. All I had to enter was my email address and my password. Next I tried a business email associated with a self hosted domain name. I couldn't believe it when that too pulled everything in automatically! I'm used to having to set up emails manually, entering SMTP, POP/IMAP settings, SSL, etc.

The email application on the Palm Pre feels like a real desktop email client. My Samsung Instinct's email client worked more like text messaging. Seriously, it didn't feel professional. The only thing the Instinct has that I miss with the Pre is the ability to select multiple emails to delete without ever opening them. … Read more

SoundAMP turns an iPhone into a hearing aid

An iPhone can take the place of all kinds of gear--an air mouse, a metronome, a golfer's GPS, and so on. Now, thanks to SoundAMP, it can fill in for a hearing aid as well.

The $9.99 app turns an iPhone or second-gen iPod Touch into an "interactive hearing device"--a fancy way of saying it amplifies the sound around you.

All you do is fire up SoundAMP and plug in a pair of earphones. (iPod Touch users will need one with an inline microphone.) Then just raise or lower the oversize slider until you get … Read more

What I Like Most and My Wishlist for New Features

As promised, today's post will cover what I like most about the Palm Pre and features I wish the phone had that it currently doesn't (a.k.a. what I dislike).

What I Like Most

My favorite feature of the Palm Pre is multitasking. The card format for multiple applications is very user-friendly. Navigating between multiple cards is simple and intuitive: swipe up to go to card view, tap the background while in card view to minimize the cards and see more on the screen at once, swipe left to scroll among open apps, and tap the card … Read more

The Calendar

I like the calendar that comes with the Pre. For a few days I was a little irritated that only the time was shown on the home screen (unless the screen was locked, then you saw both the date and the time), but then I realized that the calendar icon in the quick launch bar contains the day. (Insert Homer Simpson "DOH!" here.) … Read more

"Synergy" - Using Email, Calendar and Contacts

I've been mostly pleased with my access to my work and personal email accounts. After setting up my email (my previous blog - LINKTEXTHERE), I was able to dive right into my email. Both my Gmail and Exchange mail started coming right in. From the email interface, it presents each of your email accounts (I have only 2 here). From each email account, you can select 'Favorite' mail folders which will have shortcuts at the top of the screen (I'm just using my inbox's). Additionally, you can click(touch) the arrow next to each account and you'll be presented all of the folders available within that account. It took no additional work on my end, it was able to easily pull in all of my folders from each account. Fully utilizing the Pre's "Synergy", you can have an 'all email' view, displaying email from each account in one view. I've chosen not to see this as I prefer to keep my email seperate.

The email client also renders HTML email very well to my surprise. I've seen a number of phones claiming to be able to view HTML email, especially for Exchange 2007, but I haven't actually been able to view html email in exchange yet. I began to assume my work blocked that ability for some reason. However, full HTML versions of email come through clearly and immediately, and look great, as you can see in the graphics above. Additionally, you can zoom in and out as needed with the "pinching" gestures on the screen. Additionally, replying and forwarding email appears to work flawlessly (yes, this has been an issue on other phones), and includes the original HTML message.

The only complaint that I have about the email is that from the main email screen, where you can scroll through and choose emails to open. Unfortunately, this is really the only thing you can do in this screen. I haven't found an intuitive way to search or sort my email, so if I want to find something specific, I have to scroll and scroll and scroll to try to catch what I'm looking for. I would also love to see a feature where I can 'press and hold' an item (equivalent to right-clicking) to bring up the option to do something with the highlighted message like delete, mark as unread, or something of the sort. Right now, you can only do this by opening the message.

… Read more

Becoming Attached

The Palm Pre is quickly becoming my lifeline. From posting to Twitter to checking my email, I'm doing more and more on the Pre. When I'm sitting outside enjoying the cool morning breeze I'm tackling my email inbox without having to drag out the laptop. While my kid is playing with the neighbor kids I'm conducting business just two feet away.

With all this technology at my fingertips, literally, I'm becoming more and more addicted to being connected. I can't decide if this is good or bad...

After unboxing the Pre I immediately installed … Read more