Wiley Palm Pre For Dummies
Contents
1. Most importantly your phone has to be simple and intuitive to use After all what s the point of a phone that can send e mail if it s too much trouble to compose a new message in the amount of time it takes you to run between your 9 o clock and 10 o clock meetings For starters an easy to use interface and a full QWERTY keyboard would help wouldn t they Fortunately Palm s product line was founded on a couple of very basic principles These devices should be small enough to fit in your pocket and durable enough so that they won t break while they re there Check 10 Part I Introducing webOS and the Palm Pre 1 These devices should make your life simpler not more complicated Double check vv These devices should be affordable Triple check And although the Pre bears little resemblance to its predecessors in Palm s rich lineage those principles remain as true today as they ever have And as you embark on your magical journey through this book you ll find out exactly why that is How the Pre Came to Ge To really understand how the Pre came into this world go back way back in fact to the formative years of the so called personal digital assistant PDA See Figure 1 1 In the early 1990s companies like Apple were experi menting with portable devices long before the iPhone mind you that could hold your contacts appointments and documents in one portable device that went everywhere y2. your phone and your computer both have access to the same Internet so what s the point in connecting them to exchange information when they can just communicate to the same services like Google Exchange and Facebook These kinds of Internet based communal services are collectively known as the cloud and not because they re white puffy and in the sky See Figure 1 5 The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet Your data simply isn t all stored on one magical computer somewhere on the Internet that d be too easy But how do you get to all of it without tearing your hair out in the process Put simply your Palm Profile is what ties your information to you the cloud You are you no matter where you are or what you do As you add e mail and calendar accounts applications and other information to your Pre details are automatically saved to your Palm Profile If you ever change to a different Pre or change to another kind of webOS phone whatever that may be you ll be able to instantly associate your Palm Profile to it and get back all your most important information right away Gone are the days when losing your phone meant losing your contacts As long as you have a Palm Profile you can get back all your important info no sweat Chapter 1 Your Palm Pre The Pre fect Phone 7 Figure 1 5 Your Palm Profile keeps your identity in the cloud ee The Sky s the Limit The Pre is an incre
3. 4 Look ma Pandora is still running a Synergy Here s a problem you re probably all too familiar with You have umpteen different instant messaging accounts and a bunch of e mail inboxes and you manage your contacts in three different places The Synergy technology of webOS seeks to make managing all those tools a lot simpler by aggregating them into a single place For example say you have information about Joe Smith on Google Contacts and you also know the same Joe Smith through Facebook Your Pre can pull information from both sources into a single contact on the phone and it won t duplicate the entries It s got other tricks up its sleeve too like creating single threads of communication between you and others In other words if you talk to Joe on two IM accounts and you text message him a few times on top of that it ll all appear on your Pre in a single window organized by time Very cool Guanxi Original Menno De Jong Run more than one app at once Data freedom Because your contacts calendar and application data are all silently and continuously synchronized to Palm s systems on the Internet it s not a big deal if you lose your phone Well it is but hopefully not as big of a deal If that happens and you end up getting a new phone just enter your Palm Profile login information to immediately get your critical information back right over the air You can even remotely delete your old phone
4. fixes performance improvements and enhanced features thanks to the work that s been done in the Linux programmer community Programmed like the Web You probably won t notice it but most applications that you use on your Pre are based on the same technologies that power the Web HTML JavaScript CSS and the like That means that it s easier and faster than ever for developers to create smartphone applications so even if the App Catalog seems a bit light at the moment you should be seeing a plethora of exciting programs become available for your Pre in record time Open to you application developers and the world Palm provides interested developers with all the tools they need to develop apps but Palm goes one step further and offers to the public much of the code used to create webOS By allowing developers to see this code they can better understand how it works which helps them create better apps of their own and point out potential flaws to Palm that can be fixed with an operating system soft ware update And speaking of operating system software updates keep reading Over the air OTA updates Some smartphones ahem most notably the iPhone need to connected to a computer to be updated In webOS however application updates and OS updates can be performed using your wireless signal alone That means that you ll have the latest greatest version of webOS available faster and with less effort In fact the Pre wi
5. s founders wanted to stretch their legs and try something new They left the company they helped create to start a new one Handspring which made more advanced PDAs incorporating innovations like color screens using Palm s software Over time Handspring got into the business of creating smartphones which at the time were almost unheard of Many people hadn t even yet begun to carry a cellphone of any sort let alone a smart one It was a bold move that led to the creation of the first Treo smartphones that elegantly combined Palm s established software a phone and attractive design in a single gadget Treo went on to become one of the most successful smartphone brands in history and odds are good that you ve owned one or two in the past ten years I know I have Palm knew a good thing when it saw one and ended up buying Handspring reuniting the company s founders and bringing the Treo line of phones into its own product portfolio In an effort to strengthen the business the company split into two separate firms PalmSource focusing on the Palm OS software and palmOne focusing on the actual PDA and smartphone hardware Of course nothing ever works out quite the way you expect it to does it PalmSource ended up being purchased by the Japanese firm ACCESS and palmOne which eventually changed its name back to Palm go figure gravitated toward the competing Windows Mobile software from Microsoft Palm eventually st
6. Chapter 1 Your Palm Pre The Pre fect Phone In This Chapter Tracing the history of how the Pre came to be Understanding the difference between the Pre and webOS Finding out what makes webOS so very different Peeping behind the scenes with the cloud and your Palm Profile Understanding why the Pre is so powerful and its limits f you re reading this book odds are very good that you have a slick glossy beautifully crafted compact smartphone in your hand or pocket or sitting on the desk next to you conspicuously placed so that passers by can gawk and ask questions of course And I can t say that I blame you for getting a Pre Palm s latest handset cell phone whatever you want to call it is widely regarded to be the best looking gadget the company has ever made and arguably it s one of the best looking smartphones ever made by any company period Of course looks aren t everything supermodels movie stars and purveyors of 300 haircuts can disagree but then again they re not writing this book Long gone are the days when a phone could simply do a decent job of making calls and sending the occasional text message Chances are that you re spending nearly as much time fiddling with your phone as you are with your computer if not more You expect it perform as the consummate electronic helpmate to organize your life entertain you and connect you with the people places and things that matter to you most
7. dibly powerful phone and you ll find that you can do all sorts of stuff from the road that you may not have thought possible You won t just be replying to text messages and e mails you ll be viewing Office documents watching TV finding your way when you get lost browsing your favorite Web sites and everything in between There s even an application you can download that helps you run old Palm OS apps that you might have lying around The possibilities are limitless with webOS and it s still a young platform It ll be exciting to see what the Pre is going to be able to do as application developers stretch their imaginations and Palm rolls out updates over the coming months and years And remember any update that Palm makes will be automatically downloaded to your Pre with no hassle and no fuss It doesn t get any easier than that 18 Part I Introducing webOS and the Palm Pre But It s Still a Limit Is there anything your Pre can t do If you purchased your Pre from Sprint in the United States or from Bell in Canada that means you re using the CDMA version of the phone CDMA is a wireless technology that isn t very common around the world and you generally won t be able to take it overseas with you it simply won t be able to make or receive calls or connect to the Internet Note As of this writing Verizon is also expected to release a CDMA version of the phone GSM is the far more common type of wire
8. e You won t have to relearn basic tasks which is a nice little bonus Palm has said that webOS is its platform of choice for the next decade so your expertise will be useful for many years to come It also means that this book shouldn t see a recycling bin for a ongtime so keep it around as a reference even if your Pre is long gone web0S Contacts Sara Livingston Michael Martinez o M Eric Rogers 4 04p Can you meet for lunch Lee Miller o B Teresa Shultz 2 40p Pictures from our trip M Gerard Drouet 2 02p A x Trip to Tahoe this weekend Justin Reed 7 amp Cindy Beaumont 1 28p i k Figure 1 2 Desiree Reinhardt Old versus Back 2 c u soon sane New Marcus Rogers alm left and IVR web0S Sb ne right Ce The Truth behind webOS To be sure the Pre is a great looking great feeling nimble phone but the real story at Palm these days is the all new software that powers the Pre webOS Here are some of the big stand out features that make webOS special Chapter 1 Your Palm Pre The Pre fect Phone 13 Linux based Like Windows and Mac OS X Linux is a powerful secure OS capable of underpinning some of the world s most high performance servers desktop PCs and laptops Linux renowned for its versatility has been adapted for use on everything from cable boxes to the GPS system in your car For you it means that webOS already comes built in with 20 years of bug
9. less phone network around the world used by carriers like AT amp T T Mobile Rogers Vodafone and countless others If you purchased your Pre in Europe that means that it s a GSM version and you ll be able to use it pretty much anywhere although you won t have access to high speed data services when you re in the United States or Canada because of the different radio frequencies that are used If you have a Sprint or Bell Pre you might want to ask your network provider whether it has GSM phones available that you can take with you when you re leaving the country Providers don t often advertise it but typically they can help you out so you still have access to a phone while you re globetrotting
10. ll automatically update itself 14 Part I Introducing webOS and the Palm Pre Ea Figure 1 3 webOS and Pre puta fresh face ona phone interface Ea A revolutionary user interface Unless the Pre is your very first smartphone in which case welcome to the club you ve already seen what a typical smartphone s UI looks like And I can guarantee you that regardless of whether you re coming from an iPhone a Windows Mobile phone a BlackBerry phone or any other phone you ve never seen anything that looks quite like webOS Between the card interface the wave launcher and gesture support all of which I cover in the coming chapters it s a very fresh take on how a phone should work and I m pretty sure you re going to like it Check it out in Figure 1 3 Multitasking As any iPhone owner can tell you it s a bummer not being able to use multiple applications at the same time Take Pandora Radio for example which is on in Figure 1 4 On the iPhone you have to cut the music and exit the app if you want to check your e mail but with the Pre the music just keeps on playing On your Pre you can run as many applications as you like at the same time like you see in Figure 1 4 You re limited only by the amount of memory that the Pre has available and don t worry there s plenty of it and it ll let you know if you re running out Chapter 1 Your Palm Pre The Pre fect Phone 15 E Figure 1
11. opped making PDAs altogether to concentrate on its smartphone business but with fierce competition from the Apple iPhone BlackBerry and others it was unclear how it d manage especially without a modern OS of its own Palm knew it needed a change to stay on top of its game a big change It had to create a really awesome smartphone and an even more awesome OS to underpin it It took a couple of years but the groundbreaking Pre was ultimately introduced in January of 2009 and released in June of 2009 along with Palm s all new operating system webOS You can see the significant look and feel in Figure 1 2 Finally after years of floundering Palm had returned to its roots It s an exciting time to own a Palm again 11 12 Part I Introducing webOS and the Palm Pre Pre and webOS Like peanut butter and jelly There s an important distinction between the Pre and the OS under its hood webOS Just like Palm OS inthe good ol days webOS can run on a variety of devices not just the Pre At the time of this writing the Pre is the only webOS device available but that s not to say that you won t be able to pick from 2 or 5 or even 20 webOS powered smartphones down the road So a lot of what you can glean about the Pre from this book and from experience using the amp Stephanie Matei RE Cool websites phone will be transferrable to other webOS phones that you might buy in the futur
12. ou did The look to the future was that such gadgets would eventually become standard equipment in every business person s and every consumer s arsenal E Figure 1 1 An early PDA the Apple Newton and a sleek sexy Pre M a bo These forethinking companies were right of course PDAs and PDA like gadgets would eventually gain tremendous popularity among the young and old alike but this wouldn t happen exactly the way these companies envisioned The problem was that these first PDAs were heavy frequently too big to slip into a jacket or pants pocket often required many hours of training to use correctly and were devastatingly expensive putting them out of reach of virtually anyone who couldn t foot the bill with a corporate expense account Chapter 1 Your Palm Pre The Pre fect Phone That s where Palm came into play The company s first models PalmPilots were released in 1996 and totally bucked the trend set by Apple and others All Palm wanted to do was make a cheap tiny organizer that could effectively manage the information you needed to make it through a day run forever not literally but almost on a single set of alkaline batteries and sync your calendar effortlessly with your computer so that you could have your information at your fingertips regardless of whether you were at your desk or on the road It was a brilliant concept and Palm sold these first models by the boatloads Eventually Palm
13. s memory so that if your phone is truly lost or was stolen no one will have access to your data 16 Part I Introducing webOS and the Palm Pre Alerts As important things happen on your Pre meeting reminders occur new e mails and so on they collect at the bottom of the screen That way you can continue working without having to immediately acknowledge an alert The alert icons keep hanging out at the bottom of the screen as a constant reminder that your phone is trying to tell you something important And that s just the beginning Throughout this book you ll learn more about all of these great webOS features and a whole lot more Plugging In with Vour Palm Profile Just like your e mail address or your Google account your Palm Profile helps define who you are in the digital world When you turn on your Pre for the first time it will ask you whether you already have a Palm Profile If not you ll create one on the spot because it s just that important for everything that the Pre does But what is a profile exactly If you owned a Palm from the old days you probably remember the connecting your phone to a dock and pressing a button to synchronize your contacts schedules tasks notes and other goodies between what you d changed on your computer that day with what you d changed on your Palm With the Pre though Palm decided that syncing by connecting your phone to a computer is way too much trouble After all
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