Palm Profile Manager gets a small update 14
If you head over to the Palm Profile Manager right now and log in using any profile that you've activated in the past, you'll see a few small changes have been made to the page that give us thoughts about the future. Up until now, logging into a profile would give you access to manage the current ONE device that is logged into that profile, and allow you to perform such tasks as remote-wipe a device (when lost/stolen), or look up bits of data like the S/N or MEID.
Today, though, Palm has given us an update to add a new feature to the "device options" menu in the right-most column, and added two new device info columns that hint at a feature coming with the Touchpad release. The new feature, which is shown in the center column after clicking "device options", will allow you to "Remove From My Profile" the device that you are currently looking at. A simple click and the device is now freed from that profile to allow you to log into another without erasing all of the data off of the device (except, of course, profile data). It's a handy tool for those of us with multiple profiles and devices for testing applications or settings.
The two new device information columns that have been added, Device Name (to the very left column) and Product (fourth from the right), hint at a feature we've been expecting to come for a while with the TouchPad. How else are we supposed to pair a Pre 3 and TouchPad for sharing apps and using the Touch to Share feature without allowing them to share the same profile? And if they're already bringing this feature to the Palm Profile manager site, we can assume that there are people out in the wild with the TouchPad and Pre 3 combo that are testing some final builds on devices/OS's.
Like we said, the update isn't much, and it doesn't really confirm anything specifically about release dates or how profiles will react to being on multiple devices. But it does give us some clues about what we might expect to be in the public soon. For all our sakes, we hope it's very, very soon.
Source: Palm Profile via: WebOS Internals (Twitter)
14 Comments
I Was Wondering When This Was Going To Happen. Good Catch!
How much do you charge to go away VIPStores?!! ....
We need a way to sign back into a profile on a device. Currently if one gets signed off (at the server side) when they sign back in the profile, it resets their entire device with having to download all the apps and patches again.
If you think about it, that is what they are trying to do and what this article mentions.
Being able to sign into profiles without deleting the data off the device, thus you should be able to sign into the device again and just have all your apps etc ready to go.
What they really need now, is a way to get into the database that houses your profile and see what is in it, be able to edit it on the web and then save it. This is a pain now as if your device crashes, you hope the backup had everything you needed in it. And yes I know most people use google, but I still use the Palm Profile as my main as I had tons of contacts migrated from my Treo 650 to the Pre at launch which defaulted to the palm profile, so I decided not to deal with the hassle, and just export to a vacard once a month for backup duplication.
Does this mean I can have my Pre2 and Pre on the same profile now? I just created a second profile when I heard about the problems with that a while back and never bothered to investigate further.
Not yet.
Thanks. I figured Palm had some work to do on that front.
I am betting they eventually settle on 2.x and 3.x on the same profile, but ditch 1.x. I'm not trying to be a downer on that, but I have worked on the software vendor side for a while and backwards compatibility is often a "nice to have" rather than a requirement.
And only for WebOS 2.+ devices. Legacy devices are left behind. :(
why is there no "dot" above the "i" in profile? looks super weird.
but, yay!
That's an amazing question. I have no idea, because the dot does exist in the next line... hmm...
Hopefully this is also a first step to getting access to paid apps on a device that has already been activated outside Palm territory.
The issue that I see coming when sharing the same profile with multiple devices is the possibility of editing the same information at the same time.
If a note is open in both a Touchpad and a Pre3 and it is deleted on the Touchpad, is it subsequently deleted on the Pre3 nextime it updates? If so, what happens when a note is being changed on a Touchpad and a Pre3 at the same time? Does one have priority over the other? I see where it would be possible to have a information mixup.
What I'd like to see is the reverse (sort of), multiple profiles for one or many devices - that way I can have a profile for my kids and the wife on the TouchPad (when it appears), that has it's own config (emails, IM, etc) which follows from device to device - you know, multiple user accounts like a computer synchronised via the cloud. If the enable/disable was not distructive (except when requested online), then the initial setup would be the most time consuming, but after that it's just updates as an when I use/logon to an alternative device. I know HP would rather I had 4 TouchPads, a couple of Veers and two Palm Pre 3's, but even in business, a tablet or phone might get shared between users, and those users may have different apps, documents, images, music, etc (think job share, part timers) - or even if the Phone or tablet breaks, simply picking up a handy spare and signing into your account will allow for the download of a profile, without removing existing profiles on the device. Now, who do I have to speak to to get this sorted?