Ah. Sorry. I meant the iPod database and not the internal iTunes one. If you're going to the effort of making an app that looks inside the iTunes DB, finds the relevant playlists + music and syncs it then you might as well bolt on a GUI and make a preTunes app. The Palm method is basically a hack. They get to use iTunes as the desktop app and they just need to make a basic player on the Pre.


iTunes already knows if you're trying to sync with an iPod that it doesn't manage. The only thing the hash did was prevent a third party app from creating/modifying the iPod database.

To find out where the music is you don't even need to look into the actual iTunes DB. You only need to look at the XML backup which is much easier to parse.

Doesn't make it not suck, though...

On MacOS only, and note that all those supported devices are ones which were released and/or popular before the Ipod was released and/or popular. (No Forge, no Nitrus, no Karma.) That wasn't an open-kimono policy, that was an attempt to remove a roadblock from potential Windows-to-Mac switchers.

Peter

Not quite relatedly, I've never before found myself hoping th...tly invented it.

Peter

Even more reason for Palm not to rely on it and a sure sign that they could obviously make something much better. Of course there's the flip-side, which is that no one in the software industry has made anything better yet.

So yeah, I agree it does have some sucky bits, but it's the least sucky program of its kind.

And for Peter, yeah, more proof that software patents should simply not exist. I actually have prior art (myself) which predates anything iTunes is based on, including the work done by the guys that pressured Apple into paying them a settlement for patent violations involving iTunes and some software they never actually created, but supposedly showed off ideas for at a tradeshow.

I should probably contact Apple to see if they want to reverse that and get their money and royalties back - I shopped my idea around on the net in the very early 90's, including sending descriptions and artwork to a number of prospective partners. I'm not saying definitively that this other company based all their designs on mine, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility and at least as plausible as Apple having copied them for iTunes.

I find that very, very hard to believe. Though admittedly I haven't played with the competition for very long AS I AM STUCK WITH USING ITUNES BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONLY THING AVAILABLE TO SYNC MY IPHONE (mainly because Apple have gone out of their way to make it hard for anything other than iTunes to talk to the iPhone).

Sorry for the shouting, I really don't like iTunes. At least after 8.2 it is finally reasonably reliably syncing my phone, I had a period of a couple of months where it would _always_ fail mid sync. Now it only fails sometimes.

I don't have now nor have I ever had those problems with iTunes, so that's not the type of thing I'm referring to when I say there are some sucky bits.

I'd say that your issue is not an inherent problem with the iTunes design nor implementation however, otherwise there would be thousands and thousands of complaints about the same issue. There has likely been a solvable problem there and it's something that Apple's support should have been able to work with you to fix. At least you'd have been entitled to have them try.

I don't think I've tried all the music software either, but I have tried SongBird, Media Monkey, that JR program, MusicMatch, software from Creative which I can't remember the name for and a few others that I also can't remember the name of. This related only to apps that can actually manage a collection, so I don't include the older versions of WinAmp that I've used and I have no idea how it's progressed over the years since I stopped using it - I don't really listen to audio on my computer, so that part's not really a top feature for me (though iTunes handles playback quite well anyway).

I found iTunes sucky long before it started failing to sync. That was just the icing on the cake.

I always found iTunes sucky on my previous attempts to use it. It worked quite well for my party playlist though (although I needed a 3rd party app to export an m3u playlist). Not a convert but definitely a lot less sucky than it used to be.

All versions of iTunes prior to 7.0 were crap and I simply went without using any music management app. No "album" functionality so it was just a mess of loose tracks in a list view.

Aha! That's the main reason I disliked iTunes. I'd forgotten. I remember now that the default sort for me was Artist-Album ordered. But once you got it to sort another way, it was impossible to get back. I have no need for it now since I have SlimServer, but it's good to know.

I've had slimserver for years, why have I never used it to generate playlists????

I use iTunes primarily for tag cleaning, including adding album artwork, with the ultimate destination for the music being Slim Center.

It's also a good way to browse my collection to make sure that everything is showing up in Slim.

Finally tried out a Pre today at the local Sprint store prior to getting my 3GS. First impressions were good, with the interface working decently. Multitasking worked, and the phone was responsive enough, though it did chug from time to time, even with most apps closed. Probably a 1.0 thing that I'm sure will improve, especially considering the Pre is very similar spec wise to the 3GS.

The first annoyance came though when it was time to type something. The keyboard is pretty bad. The keys are just way too tiny, and I was finding that I mashed a lot of keys at once frequently. Interestingly, it seemed like the phone does seem to have software to prevent issues when multiple keys are mashed, but this wasn't 100%. Over time, I don't see myself growing into the keyboard as well as I did the virtual one on the iPhone. What was really bad was when it came time to type symbols. I gave up on typing my BBS password in pretty quickly.

Overall, the experience was good, and if I didn't already own an iPhone (and now a new one), I'd consider it above a Blackberry or Windows phone. I'd want a better keyboard though to be really happy with it long term.

I got my Pre on Friday. Here are my thoughts/experiences so far.

I'll start with the really frustrating part. The first unit I got had an area of discoloration in the corner of the screen. Basically, it was brighter than the rest of the screen, and as I'd use the unit more, it would become more noticeable and distracting.

I went back to the store on Saturday morning to exchange it, but they were all out, so they said they'd order me one. I called a few other Sprint stores in the area, and one of them said they were all reserved for people on the waiting list, but when I told them my story, they said they'd do an exchange for me.

So, I do the exchange, and the new one doesn't have any of the discoloration problems. However, on my way home, I check the screen some more and realize there's a different problem -- a dead pixel. Yeah, one stinking dead pixel. I go back to the first Sprint store, and the Palm rep is there hawking Pres. She says that she had never seen the discoloration problem, but had seen a couple of units with dead pixels. I told the Sprint rep to keep my original order for a replacement unit, since I wasn't going to deal with a dead pixel on a phone that's costing me nearly a grand factoring in the extra cost of my plan.

So, hopefully, the third time will be charm, and some time soon I'll have a Pre in my possession with a pristine screen. I don't know if it's just my bad luck or if these problems are very common, but it's certainly something I recommend being very careful about if you decide to buy one.

Now, onto my impressions of the device itself.

The OS is basically what everyone says it is. Loaded with potential, still a bit rough around the edges, but ultimately very usable and natural. I don't think the value of true multitasking can be overstated -- it's one of those "how did I ever do without it" things that I'd have a hard time giving up if I decided the Pre wasn't for me.

The built-in apps are a bit spartan, but will improve over time. Basic functionality is there, but expert options/customization are not. The camera works well, but the flash isn't really bright enough to be useful unless you're in a nightclub or something, and video recording is absent (but Palm has confirmed it's coming.) The push IMAP works fine, but the email client could benefit from some flexibility in terms of notification options, display preferences, etc. The Sprint navigation app works surprisingly well, though I found at least one inaccuracy in the map data (Google Maps is also available and works well, but doesn't have the voice prompting for turn-by-turn, or a 3D map view.)

The 3rd party apps are limited now, but there are some good ones. Pandora is obviously a highlight, but the Fandango and Flixster apps for movies are solid as well. The quality is good so far; it's quantity is lacking.

My typing speed is basically where it was at on my Treo, except for the fact that I can use KeyCaps600 on my Treo to do capitals and numbers/symbols more quickly through double-tap and tap-and-hold. Hopefully something equivalent comes out for WebOS. My average Pre typing speed at mobiletypingtest.com was about 30-35 wpm, a number I think will get better as I get used to differences from the Treo keyboard.

The battery life so far is less than what I was hoping for, but users generally report things get a lot better after the first few days as the battery is calibrated.

Ultimately, there are a lot of things that just don't feel finished, and I guess that's to be expected of a 1.0 device, but some of them are just plain puzzling. There's a "back" gesture that works in almost all apps, but no "forward" gesture anywhere. There's no option to turn the screen off when the Pre is connected to the Touchstone charger. The accelerometer works to turn web pages to landscape mode, but then the back gesture doesn't work because the orientation is different. Things like that.

On the hardware itself, two things that I'm having a tough time with coming from my Treo are the lack of a D-pad or 5-way navigator and the capacitive screen. There's a "cursor movement" mode where you hold the Orange button down and move on the screen, but it is no substitute for a true D-pad or dedicated cursor keys.

Re: the screen, on my Treo, I can get really accurate cursor positioning with my fingernail, but on the Pre, I'm limited to what I can get with my fingers. Maybe I'll get used to these limitations and learn to love the new screen, but to me, I don't know that the benefits of multitouch really make up for these two weaknesses. Certainly, if you're going to sacrifice the ability to use a stylus/fingernail on the screen, at least make the multitouch useful by adding more and richer gestures.

So, overall, with all of its warts and yet-unrealized potential, this is without a doubt the smartphone for me. Something more ideal could possibly come around, but of the available options, it's the only one that was worth the cost for me to upgrade. I do think it's incumbent upon Palm to support the device, and on that front, things look good so far, as they've announced SDK availability by the end of summer, and have already pushed out 2 OS updates since the launch. With the homebrew scene already coming out with some great hacks, I think things really look good for this device and the WebOS platform going forward.

Tony, hopefully for Pre customers, Palm will be able to survive and flourish on limited device sales. I do think they need to move their product to additional networks to even hang on in the top 5 though.

Palm moved some 100k devices in their first weekend. Apple just moved 1 million 3Gs in the first weekend for a phone, that to many, was only marginally different than the previous version.

Palm only *had* 100k devices in the supply chain the first weekend. Two weeks after the launch, every Sprint store in my area is still sold out, and has a waiting list at least a dozen deep. Would they have sold a million Pres if there were no shortages? No, but to blame lack of sales on a lack of excitement about the phone is, at best, an incomplete explanation.

Verizon's already announced they'll be getting a WebOS phone (maybe not the Pre) once the exclusive period runs out at the end of this year.

But yeah, Apple is the king of smartphones right now, and nothing will change that in the near future. All I said when this thread started was that Apple should take the Pre seriously, and I stand by that statement now that I own one.

This has been my long-term beef with all "smart phones" that have physical keyboards. The process of logging in to any system with a reasonably secure password is a nightmare.

Aside from the issue of not being able to "see" the entirety of a WEP key while I'm typing it (discussed in an old thread), logging in to a resource with a password on the iPhone is a breeze. Sure you have to toggle between a numbers screen, a symbols screen, and the alphabet, but at least you can SEE which of those character groups you're currently using and clearly see which character you're hitting. With most of the physical-keyboard smart phones, you've got no idea at any moment if you're in shift mode or function mode or whatever, and even if you did, whether or not that current mode is going to produce the desired special character.

I'd heard Palm had 250k phones available (which included Best Buy locations). Problems with supply chain can end a company just as quickly as a lack-luster product. I don't think I read that all locations had sold out on the first weekend, so if they were truly limited to 100k phones, that means their sales numbers where even lower than common estimates. Regardless, having only 100k or even 250k phones ready for a launch that had been planned for so long is a real, and very serious, issue.

If you correlate sales to mindshare, I do think Palm has done better than the iPhone with these two weekends however. I suppose it doesn't mean much, but I can't imagine you'll even find 1 person that knows what a Pre is out of every 100 "normal people" that know what an iPhone is. Despite this, they managed a 1/10th sales rate. When you factor in this complete lack of awareness, the numbers seem pretty good. May not be good enough to pay back Elevation Partners at the rate they expect though.

I think Apple should take all competition seriously, but I maintain that they need to keep a closer eye on the established RIM Blackberry and the Android platform from other established players like Motorola. Palm has never been a big dog in the mobile communications space. While I think the Pre and perhaps a follow-on product will increase their share relative to where it was prior, I don't think any of the big players, including RIM have much to worry about. It's showing to be an extremely niche product and the road to change that seems very steep and a difficult climb for Palm given how they have gone about with their Pre roll-out.

BTW, how's the camera on the Pre? People are raving about the one on the 3Gs and frankly, I'm questioning their sanity. In the examples I've seen, the real showcase is the talent of the photographer first and foremost and the device's software. In the end you still have a crappy sensor and a crappy lens to deal with. The result is extremely grainy photos that don't really look very good unless down-sampled by photo editing or presentation software (such as Flickr). I think these folks aren't looking at the large or 1:1 versions of the images.

BTW, all (recent) reports indicate that Palm's exclusivity agreement with Sprint is longer than 6 months, though neither party has come forward with a specific time-frame. I also think the ATT deal is seriously holding back Apple's sales numbers, though probably not revenue. I'd love to see the phone sold unlocked just like any other device from them, but $599-$699 would be a hard pill to swallow for most people. I don't think the price elasticity stretches that far.

For a camera phone, I think it's pretty good, but it's still a camera phone. Indoor shots are grainy, sunny outdoor shots are a bit less grainy. This thread has some pics people have taken... Some of them are nice, others are bad. If you find the ones in the original 3MP resolution, most or all of them have some level of digital noise visible. It's not going to replace anyone's digital camera, but it takes better pictures than any other camera phone I've used.

I think most of the raving is due to it actually having a variable focus. It's possible to actually read text clearly, and the touch focus is handy (much like the feature on several touch screen digital cameras). Most of my camera phone pictures are either whiteboard shots, or attempts at product labels for serial numbers.

Tom, I agree, the implementation of the touch focus is pretty cool and that's what I meant by the software. I'm just not drinking the coolaid that some others are obviously swimming in. I've seen multiple times people saying that they'd have to seriously question ever buying another point and shoot camera again after using the 3Gs. That's a pretty bold statement when you have small pocket P&S cameras like the Elph series from Canon which produce really great shots, have usable zoom though wide and tele ranges, stabilization on some models and of course sometimes a decent set of manual controls if you need them. Images at the camera's full resolution look better than anything I've seen from the 3Gs at 1:1, and lastly, if you take any of the photos from these pocket cameras and down-sample them to 3MP they can even look dramatically better.

Maybe people surfing Flickr and Facebook don't care because all they'll ever look at are 320 pixel wide thumbnails (like viewing the image on the iPhone's screen).

It seems like every few months you hear about someone inventing/prototyping or releasing some new amazing sensor and lens package suitable for a mobile device, but I can't recall ever seeing these amazing components making it into things like the iPhone. I've been saying for at least 6 or 7 years that Apple should integrate a camera with their iPods.

I'm pretty sure that if focus could be corrected through software alone, that feature would have been added to every picture-taking device in the world.

People like having a cheap camera available at all times for snapshots. Few people are likely to carry a camera around with them all the time. Adding focus capability to a camera phone is significant. I don't know that anyone else has done it.

I definitely don't see these new phone cameras replacing point and shoots, but I could definitely see the 3Gs putting an enormous dent in the Flip's sales.

Pretty much. People don't care about actually getting a good photo. They just want to "capture the moment" even if thats an fuzzy, out of focus and grainy photo.

People have been saying for years that now they've got a camera in their phone, they're not going to bother buying/using a proper digital camera. *shrug*

I've tried the various phone cameras and found them to be blunt crap. I'll still carry around a compact digital to get photos. My friends still go on about how my photos are better quality than theirs. They've not noticed that I'm not using a phone camera I guess...

I'm sure the DSLR people are thinking that my compact digital photos are crap. Its good enough for me and I'm guessing thats what people think about the phone cameras.

The focus interface, the extremely cool part, is done through software. Apart from being able to simply focus on things that are relatively close to you (as opposed to a permanent setting of infinity on a small lens), it's the way the focusing works from a UI standpoint that's so cool.

Not only because of focusing, but also metering, which makes it possible to capture photos with the 3Gs that were previously impossible with the older sets.

BTW, the people that I was referring to were certainly not talking about the 3Gs' ability to simply capture moments. They were genuinely impressed with the quality of the photos. I suppose if taken in the context of other camera phones they may be great, but they're not P&S level. Not even at the level of a sub-$200 P&S.

In terms of convenience, I agree, nice to have it around. But if you want/need better quality, even if only a little better, then you're carrying a camera as well and the one in the iPhone is largely duplicated and unused. It's going to be cool for live barcode scanning though.

...or to merely take pictures in low light.

So the fact that it can do something no other camera phone can do isn't relevant, but the user interface to it is?

Quite a few phones have variable focus, including the G1 and N95. It looks like one of the earliest phones to have it was the mova P505iS, released in late 2003. How they handled the focus is another question, and I'm not sure if any other phone has done the tap to focus.