This is Why We’re Hot… Another Pre Video Highlights its “Beauty" 16
If you haven’t seen it yet, you might want to take a gander at the 26-min Palm Pre video that Chris Davies posted at precommunity.com and on YouTube. He claims it is “one of the most complete demonstrations of the Pre that we’ve seen to date, showing app to app transitions without the covert tinkering Palm execs had to do with their pre-production devices at CES last month.”
It definitely reinforced why most of us are dying to get our hands on a Pre. The interface is hot. The way you navigate is hot. The way you can multi-task using “cards” is hot. Universal search is hot. Synergy is way hot. You get the point. This video may be preaching to the choir. But if Palm investors take the time to view it, they would definitely be pleased (and perhaps a bit relieved).
Note: I substituted hot for the word most often repeated in 26 minutes – beauty (and its companion phrase, “beautiful part”).
My colleague Jason weighed in on the new things he saw: 
- When a calendar event notification pops up, you're given the option to contact all the attendees via email
- Confirms the earlier speculation PreCentral had on the "Add to Launcher..." browser menu item.
He also noted that they still don't explain what the "browser_page.png" file is that is part the “Sharing a Link” email. It seemed to me that webOS somehow has the capability of making a thumbnail of the screen the URL points to, so the recipient of your message has a visual reference.
So yeah… the video is like an extended trailer for an amazing must see movie. Now if we could only move off the “Coming Soon” screen to an actual date, we all could at least start a countdown or something.
16 Comments
I strongly disagree. I don't think that the spinning circle is a bad idea, but I wouldn't put it in the middle of the screen either. I'd put it up in the black bar along the top of the screen. That way, it's out of the way of apps, but in a position where it's typically always visible.
There were several times in this demo where the person did a gesture and the device was thinking, but the person didn't know that because of the lag. So instead of waiting, the guy repeated the gesture over and over (possibly compounding the lag problem). With a "loading" circle, you'd know that your gesture was acknowledged and that the device was processing your request.
And in general, I think a loading circle is especially good for any touch device. It gives all users, from amateurs to pros, confirmation that their commands are received and being processed.
I've looked at 'clouds' from both sides now, myself. Losing a simple and secure local sync and backup does seem a major regression.
Facebook was recently involved in some seriously troubling changes to their Terms of Service (posted 2/4/09 without any announcement). They rewrote it to retroactively claim ownership without compensation of all your info, pictures, and anything else you posted - AND the rights to lease and sell it off to anybody they want to. This was not pleasing to many people, especially musicians and photographers and writers and other businesses.
Facebook was forced to revert to their prior TOS, only AFTER word got around and people were closing accounts enmasse.
Now, is Facebook the sort of company I want to trust with my personal contact details - especially if one random day they again claim the rights to sell off my info to junk mailers and other nefarious creatures? No thanks, I'll stick to direct hotsync with all its flaws.