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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TheProf - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
That's because to most non-PhoneGeeks, a good interface to a feature is more important than the feature itself. Usability trumps power in most if not all cases.If a feature is too hard to find or too hard to use, it might as well not exist, for whatever values of 'too hard to find' or 'too hard to use' apply. "pack[ing] as many features into a phone to make it a powerful device" may appeal to tech geeks, but it doesn't fly with the broader computing audience, let alone the general public.
That's the true overriding 'feature' of the iPhone and the Pre; they take features that existed in previous phones, but were so complicated that hardly anyone used them, and made them things that a much broader audience actually *enjoy* using.
cplusplus - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Now I'm not actually expecting a G2 review at any point, but Android is only brought up twice in this whole review? The G1 has been out for 8 months and already pulls from the cloud (Google natively, and I believe it can pull from Facebook) and has multi-tasking. Two of the things you say you really like about the Pre. The G1 isn't as good as the iPhone (for the most part), and I know that, but the G2 is supposed to be much better, and I would like to see how Android stacks up against webOS, at the very least.Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
I played with the G1 while writing this review, while I think the OS has some definite promise - the current hardware is just disappointing. Multitasking has been around long before any of these phones, yet it was the Pre's interface and relative quickness that made it a very desktop-like experience. The next-generation of Android based phones will hopefully deliver a full set of gestures and better performance; I think that would be the appropriate time to look at a comparison.To my knowledge, Android doesn't natively handle Facebook integration and has no mechanism for removing dupes between Gmail/Facebook contacts on the fly. Google (Android) is closer than anyone else (other than Palm) right now though.
Take care,
Anand
mrhumble1 - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
This is kinda disappointing, Anand.You are saying the G1 doesn't cut it simply because of Facebook integration??
Newsflash... plenty of people (and phone geeks) don't care one bit about Facebook. That's a terrible reason to knock the G1.
As for hardware, the G1 shouldn't be judged only for its hardware. The G1 is all about Android.
The G1 has PLENTY of functionality that most review sites completely ignore. Does the iPhone (or Pre) have widgets? Do either of these phones have skins/themes/ or home screen replacements that include custom icons/backgrounds? These features greatly enhance the customization/usability options of the phone yet nobody seems to care.
I use apps every day on my G1 that Apple would never allow on the iPhone. The Pre may have great synching capabilities, but it has a similar notification bar like the G1 yet nobody gives the G1 credit.
You say the Pre gives a better "desktop experience" but the G1 is EXACTLY like using a laptop. I have the icons where I want them, I use the app tray like the Start button (XP), I have shortcuts to every function I could want, and separate home-screens for each category of app (Home, Settings, Games, Contacts, Multimedia, etc.), I have widgets set up on the various screens that provide me with information and functionality (from weather to wireless settings)... the list goes on. I haven't even mentioned the browsers which are excellent.
I often jog with my G1. Here's what it does for me:
-I open one app that plays streaming internet radio (over stereo bluetooth)
-I turn on the GPS and use another app to track my workout. The app reads back my elapsed time and distance aloud so I don't have to interrupt my music or look at the phone to check my stats. Then, when my run is done, it uploads the info and emails me a summary of my workout which includes a map and detailed stats regarding time and distance.
Can the iPhone/Pre do that? The iPhone can't even run 2 apps at once!
Android is not a small player in this game. Let's give it a little more credit, ok?
J
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
I think this is the key point we differ on:"As for hardware, the G1 shouldn't be judged only for its hardware. The G1 is all about Android. "
I agree that the G1 is nothing without Android.
I agree that Android is extremely important.
But where we disagree is the value of the hardware. In my eyes, the G1's hardware keeps it out of the running for the top places. It lacks all of the major gestures that the iPhone and Pre support and the UI/device is much, much slower.
Many PCs can run an impressive set of applications, but what we're looking for is the right combination of features and performance - the latter just isn't delivered by the G1. I do fully expect future versions to fix that however, I just don't believe the time is now. And I believe most of the reviews of the G1 echo my sentiments; the hardware doesn't do the software justice.
Take care,
Anand
cplusplus - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
Just as a quick reply, the only reason Android doesn't have multi-touch is because they were afraid they would get sued by Apple for having it. Everyone was. It's not big news/problem because since Palm has been in the PDA game much longer than Apple, they have patents that Apple are probably infringing, too. There are cooked roms out there that show that the G1's screen is fully capable of multi-touch. Now that Palm has shown that it can be implemented without being sued, I fully expect it to show up in the 2.0 version of Android.http://gizmodo.com/5150354/apple-stopped-multitouc...">http://gizmodo.com/5150354/apple-stoppe...-on-andr...
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Griswold - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
"Even the individual buttons on the Pre don’t feel as good as those on the iPhone. The ringer and sleep switches both feel cheap."But does the ringer switch fall off as easily as the one on my iphone? Personally, I dont care if some parts feel or look cheap, as long as they arent cheap - like the ringer switch on the iphone.
joos2000 - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
[quote] Pinch two fingers to zoom in, move them apart to zoom out.[/quote]Certainly it is the other way around?
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Hrel - Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - link
no, why would it be??? That would make no sense at all.>>> <<< to zoom in. <<< >>> to zoom out. How does that NOT make sense?