A few thoughts on the new pre, after only a few hours of lightly tinkering.

It's pretty nice. The web browser is a significant improvement over Blazer (the built in browser on PalmOS devices).

My gripes

1) I miss my directional buttons from my Treo - Being able to press an arrow and move the cursor in that general direction is extremely helpful, rather than having to click in the right place when editing a text field (like changing the https to http in a URL, for example). Maybe there's a better way to do it rather than clicking the screen, but I haven't found it yet.

2) You cannot currently change the ringtone of text messages or event notifications. As trivial as something like this sounds as a gripe, this is a possible deal breaker for me - I'm seriously considering returning it because of this one thing. My entire life revolves around me being able to react to my website going down, and if I can't hear the message at night, or in the other room, or whatever, I can't react to the problem and fix the downtime before my users start to complain. My phone is also my alarm clock, and I have no intention of dicking around with a normal alarm clock.

3) Lack of tethering. This one I can live with until someone hacks it to work. There've already been some reports of folks getting very close with Tethering, so I'm not worried about this one.

4) The mail app can do push email with Gmail which is cool. Unfortunately, it doesn't do the "conversation" grouping that Gmail does, which makes me rather use the web interface anyway, making the mail app and push email useless for me.

Overall, the WebOS software is very nice, and a very polished phone. The keyboard will take some getting used to, but I can manage that.

But the SMS ringtone issue is a very serious concern for me.

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Do it for the Lobster

I suspect that the ringtones and such will be fixed with an OTA update. I feel like Palm probably rushed the phone out to try and beat the iphone craze. Let's just hope they are quick about the updates; I've read about a LOT of little niggles with the phone.

Pictures, video, anything else you feel like posting, keep it coming. The Pre is still a consideration for me, and in a few months when I'm ready to jump on something, I'm hoping it'll come into its own.

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no fat chicks

So after posting my big complaint (the lack of SMS ringtone customization) on the PreCentral.net forums, I was pointed to rooting the phone to change just that.

I'm going to do it today, but it's pretty trivial to get a command prompt via telnetting into the machine.

http://predev.wikidot.com/change-the-default-notification-wav-sound

As for more stuff, I'm liking it a bit more now, primarily because I'll have that option to tweak the ringtone (at least for the time being until they deploy some customizability).

Also, that predev site lists how to change the presets for the "universal search" to add search options for imdb, amazon, etc. It's just tweaking some javascript file. Awesome.

I'll likely be picking up the touchstone, since trying to pull the little usb thinger off the side every time to charge is going to be a royal pain, especially with my fatass fingers.

Very much liking this phone now. I haven't yet run a speed test to see the network speed.

I tested out the "Classic Emulator" app to see if SSH worked through it, since there isn't yet a native SSH client for the pre, and it worked fine. I'm a little hesitant to pay the $30 for the full emulator app, but if necessary (like if I'm out somewhere and I absolutely need to fix something right now), I may pick it up in an emergency.

The appstore is sparse, as everyone pretty much knows, but those that are there seem useful. I've picked up the Accuweather app.

And the multitasking is beautiful. Just having multiple browsers open at a time is wonderful (especially since my desktops always have 10+ tabs open).

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Do it for the Lobster

Speed Test results:

1.489 mbit
174 ping

Not fucking bad. I'm REALLY curious what it'll be like up north.

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Do it for the Lobster

The reviews weren't kidding when they said the Pre had terrible battery life. It's 4pm, I got up and disconnected the phone from the charger at 10am, and the battery is now at 54%, under what I would consider very light usage.

So there's that. I was going to use the contacts transfer option at the Sprint store, but the guy couldn't get my Treo to communicate. I'm almost positive that he was missing a step to install software on the Treo first to prepare the IR port, rather than just turning it on.

In any case, I used the one-way transfer from the Palm Desktop software (for the old PalmOS) to the Pre, and that worked just fine.

I'm now beginning my adventure of rooting my Pre to change the SMS ringtone and modify the preset universal search options.

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Do it for the Lobster

Rooting the pre was a breeze. It took longer to download the OS image, install the driver, and download and install python than it did to actually root the device.

I managed to change the notification sound, but the OS is making it quieter, and I've yet been able to find where that volume control is in the code (most of it is js and json).

I've added imdb, amazon, and ebay to my "universal search" options, since only having Google, Wikipedia and Twitter wasn't enough.

Having access to the OS is making this a little adventure.

Here's the dmesg if you're curious

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Do it for the Lobster

More fun.

A list of 1700 apps compiled for the Pre's ARM processor:

http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/cs08q1armel/cross/stable/

This will make things interesting. Recently, I was considering how I could make an ultraportable development environment with a beagle board, and an SD card (rather than relying on having my laptop with me set up for those things).

With sshd, php, erlang, vim, lua, and perl all available in this set of packages, I could effectively run a complete development webserver off my phone, probably create an app of some sort that will give me my IP address, and modify the iptables to allow http and ssh ports into the device.

This would make the ultimate ultraportable development environment, though I'd have to be careful as the root password is empty by default. Not sure away around that yet, and I don't want to risk setting a root password only to have the device stop booting. I suppose I could add a new user and disable root from sshing in, that would probably work.

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Do it for the Lobster

That's pretty dope. Have you tried installing any of those other apps?

I like that the phone is basically just a Linux phone. It's what a cell phone SHOULD be, funny that it took Palm to make it happen. Keep it coming with the updates, I'm quite interested.

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no fat chicks

Quote

Have you tried installing any of those other apps?

Not yet. I've got to be careful I don't brick it, I don't exactly have a reinstall disc. But I'll be installing something small first (like lua first probably just to see what happens).

It's important to note, though, that none of the programs there are related to the GUI, they're just standard console apps, while (from what I've seen) the GUI is powered almost exclusively by HTML, Javascript and CSS, with a few JAR files there.

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Do it for the Lobster

I believe you can use the Pre recorvery doctor if you DO brick it. You can download it and read about how people are using it to hack the Pre on precentral.

Other fun links:
The secret to Palm Pre dev mode lies in the Konami code
Palm Pre runs Doom, smartphone-loving space marines rejoice
Homebrew Pre firmware just a button, cable away?

Looks like quite the hackable phone. It's earning HUGE points in my mind. Just wish they'd drop a GSM version...

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no fat chicks

I'm surprised at the "openness" (limited of course) of the phone. I didn't realize that WebOS was almost literally, a web-based os. heh. They did a phenomenal job it seems. At least for a 1st Gen.

How does the phone feel? The people I've seen comment say it feels cheap. Being a slider that is a huge deal.

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I am no more an evolutionist than I am a gravatationalist or an electromagneticist.

Yeah, it's very interesting how the whole UI is almost like just a web server. Makes tweaking very interesting, rather than dicking around with window managers and whatnot. Clever way to take the interface.


As for those that say it feels cheap, it feels good to me. I like it. It's not that huge bulky mass that my Treo was, and I don't feel like it's going to break on me (and if it does, I always have phone insurance, since I've already broken a handful of phones in my day).

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Do it for the Lobster

And now you can get data tethering with a little hacking. That was quick! The Pre is getting hacked wide open pretty damn quickly here.

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no fat chicks

SDK leaked. Apparently this has forced Palm's hand and they have now posted their own download links. Get to it!

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no fat chicks