Some Notes on Settings and Features
The Palm Pre, like all smartphones, comes with a variety of features and software as well as the ability to purchase third party applications. In this post I'll discuss a few of the built-in features.
The Palm Pre, like all smartphones, comes with a variety of features and software as well as the ability to purchase third party applications. In this post I'll discuss a few of the built-in features.
Screen Lock and Location Services
What I want my screen lock to do is, of course, lock the screen, but I also want a little flexibility. I can set the screen to turn off after 1, 2, or 3 minutes, and I can set the screen unlock password as off, simple PIN (numbers only), or Password. However, if I manually turn off the screen, it automatically locks the screen after about 2 seconds. So, if I want to use a PIN or password, the screen is either off and locked, or on and unlocked. I would like turn off the screen and be able to set the time before it locks. It might sound a little nit-picky, but I think about it everytime I use the phone.
The Location Services include the ability to geotag your photos. The problem here is that it's either on or off, and the setting is separate from the camera feature. I'd like to see an option to toggle the photo tagging on the camera screen.
Copy, Cut & Paste
That T-Mobile Dash I wrote about in my last post lacked this basic functionality. I neglected to mention that probably because after so many years of living without this basic feature, I had just grown to think of it as normal. On the Pre, you highlight text by holding down the shift key and dragging your finger across the screen in order to move the cursor. You copy, cut, and paste by pressing the "gesture area" (the bit below the screen) and hitting c, x, and v respectively. It's still a slightly awkward movement for me, but I don't actually do it that often so I think I'll get better at it eventually.
Tasks and Memos
The start screen for the tasks looks like a moleskine notebook , which I think is cool because I love those notebooks. The memos program opens to what looks like a cork board, and the memos look like sticky note. You can choose yellow, green, blue, or pink by tapping on the corner of the individual memo. I haven't really found a good use for the memos yet, and I don't really think the program needs to be so cute. It just needs to work. I've been using the tasks more than memos because each item gets a check box, plus you can sort into categories and assign a due date.
There are more applications available for purchase of course. I'll cover a few of those in a future post, as well as more of the built-in features.