With Our Powers Combined
Palm had a magnificent idea with what it’s calling Synergy, and honestly, it’s probably missing 10% polish to make it perfect. Synergy is the other feature that Apple needs to add to the iPhone pronto.
The concept of Synergy is ridiculously simple and completely possible given today’s technologies, yet no one, including Apple, has attempted to do it. Point the Pre at your Facebook, Gmail and local address books and it’ll not only sync with all of them, but combine identical entries to avoid making duplicates.
The Pre grabs my contacts/calendars from all of these accounts and stores them in my phone, eliminating duplicates and updates them automatically as changes are made. Please, yes.
My Facebook entry for Michael Andrawes is coupled with my local address book entry for Michael Andrawes so I only have a single Michael Andrawes on my phone, with all of his contact information.
It just works. Yep, I just said that about a product that wasn’t made by Apple.
Facebook and Gmail syncing works wirelessly. Update a Gmail contact on your phone and it updates in your Google account, and vice versa. Even more useful is the fact that your Facebook contacts essentially manage their own contact info. If they change their address or phone number on their profile, it gets updated in your phone - you don’t even have to do anything.
I didn't have to input a single piece of information for Manveer, his Facebook profile gave the Pre everything it needed to know
In fact, Palm doesn’t even want you to sync with your desktop after the first time. It suggests that you choose to sync with either Palm’s own online service or Google, that way you don’t have to worry about having your phone connected to your computer all of the time to sync address book changes. It’s freakin cool and it’s how a web enabled device should work, over the web, not over a USB cable. A self updating phone; next stop, Skynet.
There are, of course, issues with the system. Currently there’s no way to specify which Facebook friends to sync, so if you enable Facebook syncing you get everyone currently on your Facebook friends list. Finally! Punishment for those who simply seek to inflate their friend counts on social networking sites. It’s an easy fix of course, Palm should offer customization options for the import which I’m very confident it will if Palm plans on actually seeing the Pre through.
I also have no idea how long it takes changes to get reflected on the Pre. Facebook syncing appears to take over a day for changes to propagate, while Google syncing seems to work much faster.
The more bothersome issue to me (yeah sure, lots of Facebook contacts in my phone, that’s why they made the fast flick gesture) is that Synergy currently won’t combine AIM names with address book entries.
Using Michael Andrawes as an example again, I now have two entries for Michael Andrawes in my Pre’s address book - one for his AIM contact and one for the rest of his contact information. Great.
I have to go in and manually add his AIM name to his main contact to make that work properly.
Despite its shortcomings, Synergy is sweet and worth every last bit of praise Palm has earned since the Pre was announced. To out-innovate Apple like this deserves a commendation. If Palm can fix the system in 3 months I’ll be more than happy but even today it’s a plus.
Wireless Backups Too?
Oh, oh! Not only does the Pre keep your contacts synced wirelessly and automatically with Google/Facebook/Palm, your phone will automatically back itself up daily. Should your phone die or need replacing, you can restore from one of these online backups. Palm also supports wiping your device remotely just like the new iPhone OS 3.0.
The last thing you can update wirelessly is the phone itself. New OS releases are delivered to the phone, wirelessly. It will also seamlessly download any available updates in the background over the course of multiple days, while your phone is idle, to avoid interrupting your user experience. How very thoughtful.
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palmpre - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
Thank you for this great article / review !!The Pre isn't available in France, but many wait already for it !
http://www.palmpre-fr.net">http://www.palmpre-fr.net
JC Strat - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
Hi JMaine, it seems like you have been reading a lot lately.Just to quote from some of your messages here:
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I've been reading a lot about the Palm Pre's problems since launch - overheating, poor battery life, and software crashes. Don't forget that a smart phone's function is to be a phone first, and everything else after. If you can't use its features without affecting it's essential functionality as a phone, it's a failure.
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I've been reading many reports about battery issues with the Pre. Multi-tasking implemented poorly is far worse than not having multi-tasking at all. I feel this feature add a level of complexity not many mainstream users will appreciate and is an unnecessary waste of battery life, which contradict the primary purpose a smart-'phone' is there for.
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It sounds like you have been trolling for reasons to put down the Pre. I think the multitasking on the Pre is pretty brilliant. I like having 5 apps open. Currently on my mac I have iTunes playing, this web page open (with other tabs as well), a Finder window open, MS Word is open so I could cut and paste your comments, Xee is open from some recent picture work, etc. I think it's not all that complex, anyone with a PC or a mac understands how to have several programs open. The Pre's cards accomplish switching elegantly.
Now, you seem to have been looking around carefully for stories of people who had problems with their Pre so that you could cast them as general problems in forums such as this one. Why? A strong competitor will make Apple develop a better iPhone. It is in your interest for the Pre to succeed!
Palm has innovated with this phone. As Apple did before it, Palm has implemented ideas that will shape the direction phones go in. Innovation is a good thing. Using FUD to sabotage and stifle it as your comments seem to do is not cool.
The0ne - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
If the comments doesn't shout "trolling" then I don't know what will :Djap0nes - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
I think this is one of the worst reviews I've ever seen, and never expected to come from Anand in person. Why do I think that? Basically, because it's not a review, it's a comparison: Palm Pre vs. iPhone.On every single page Apple/iPhone is cited. Okay, they're competitors and all, but when Pre has an advantage, there are comments like 'Apple should do that'. That's ridiculous. I've never seen an review with comments like these. Pure fanboyism.
Please, change the title of the article to: 'Can Palm beat my Iphone' or something like that.
The0ne - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
I have to agree with you. I'm not entirely sure why so many users are applauding the review because they think it's an "in depth review." It's not. It's a "got a new phone to compare to Iphone and have to get a general review out ASAP fever/syndrome.I'll be waiting for the "in depth review" of the Pre from Anandtech soon.
However, if reviews use the Iphone as the criteria in the first place you will have reviews such as this one. Unless the Iphone really does set standards I would have to say it's not going to change until people find standards to test phones too. For example, if battery lasts 3hours+ than it should qualify as being a good phone. It shouldn't be said that the Pre is "lagging" or "isn't better" than the Iphone. That's just really giving a bad impression to those that actually do testing in real life. If anything it makes the author look bad IMO.
7Enigma - Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - link
And I'll disagree with you both. :) While a traditional review focuses primarily on the product at hand, this one works for a very good reason that Anand restated over and over. The iPhone has been the dominant force in the "smart" phone for several years now with really no direct competition. There were products that had more functionality, more horsepower, but none that had the complete package. The iPhone didn't and still doesn't but it came the closest. So it makes total sense to compare the Pre directly.It is very similar to the cpu market where you have basically 2 competetors. Could you imagine a new AMD cpu coming out and having no comparisons with the i7? Of course not. The current "best", be that from performance, functionality, or the package deal of all aspects, should always be directly compared to give the reader the best information to making a buying decision.
Now cpu's are easy and objective decisions. You run 10 benchmarks, compare hard data, and declare a winner. Obviously a phone is a different beast. It has an OS, and this makes for subjective issues. What I like you may not like. What I think is functional you may find annoying. But the fact is that Anand, who many of us highly respect for honest and detailed articles/reviews, seems to have a good grasp on the smartphone market, and is ACTIVELY looking for an upgrade option to the iPhone.
Just like we are always looking for a gpu/cpu upgrade by comparing how much better the new part is than our current part, Anand is saying the Pre is coming out years after the iPhone, so it had better damn well match or exceed in all areas that the iPhone already "perfected".
And I think most of us saw through the article to the underlying message, which was to inflate the level of competition between Apple and Palm so that we, the consumer, benefits in the end.
jap0nes - Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - link
I understand what you say and I agree with you, but that didn't happen in the article. I partially understand when you say that "And I think most of us saw through the article to the underlying message, which was to inflate the level of competition between Apple and Palm so that we, the consumer, benefits in the end", but in the end the "review" sounded ridiculous, towards fanboyism.jmaine - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
Anand,Thanks for a really well written comparison between the Pre and the iPhone. A few comments:
"The multitasking ability of the Pre is honestly one of two features I really, really wish my iPhone had. Multitasking has been done by many smartphones before the Pre or iPhone, but no one has done it as smooth and as Apple-like as Palm. "
I've been reading many reports about battery issues with the Pre. Multi-tasking implemented poorly is far worse than not having multi-tasking at all. I feel this feature add a level of complexity not many mainstream users will appreciate and is an unnecessary waste of battery life, which contradict the primary purpose a smart-'phone' is there for.
As you noted in the article, Apple built up it's UI and feature set, gradually perfecting each with every successive update. Do you think battery life is a strong reason for them not adding multi-tasking beyond the ipod music into the iPhone? I personally feel push notifications is a better implementation than true multi-tasking on a phone.
Doommidget - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
Had to create a login to address something that made me laugh...Thank you for a great review, although I don't hold out much hope of the Pre hitting the UK in the near future. I also think it is right to heavily compare the Pre to the iPhone given that it is the only credible competition for a very user friendly and fairly feature full phone (and by features I don't mean crammed with hardware I mean the services).
I just have to say, to anybody trying to mention Nokia as producing better phones than the iPhone with S60 having more functionality and the handsets having better hardware... this may be true but Nokias implementation is waaaay off. Every new flagship N series phone is plagued with software issues... N95, N96, expect the N97 will follow shortly. 5800 is also terrible for software problems. The list of handsets with poor reliability extends further back than that and will no doubt carry on into the future. Irrespective of whether the hardware in the Nokia phone is quicker, or the camera is better, or the handset is more open, if you have to have your phone replaced or repaired 5 times within a few months of purchasing then to be honest it really isnt worthy of comparison. And I know not everybody has had issues before I get flamed, myself being one of them as I moved from an N95 8GB to the iPhone 3G, but working in the mobile phone market, I can tell you that there are no end of Nokia software problems and virtually no issues with iPhone OS or the hardware.
So iPhone > N series pretty much every time; it may not have 2 processors, open bluetooth, great camera etc, but at least it works.
On a side note, I bet Nokia don't have a 5 day turnaround for fixing or replacing a handset that comes back to them.
Its all about the ecosystem that surrounds the handset, people in the top end of the market are becoming less impressed with pure hardware these days and are looking for more out of their phone with regards to web integration and services, and Apple have pretty much got everything down to a T as it currently stands.
So yes, compare the Pre to the iPhone, the Pre looks potentially worthy as an alternative, but not quite there.
And don't ever try to compare a Nokia to an iPhone, not even in the same ballpark as the iPhone ^_^
/wave
finbarqs - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
YES! Now I can sync with my Exchange!!!!