Inspecta-Gadget
21Aug/090

Dear Palm: What I’d like in the next update

Palm Pre

We know that webOS and the Palm Pre are 1.0 1.1 products, so we’re going to cut you some slack for now. But that slack is starting to run out, and looking at the competition there are some areas where I think you could improve the Pre to both catch up to and leap frog over iPhone and BlackBerry and Android. So here’s what I'd like to see in the way of software updates before that slack runs out and the real complaining starts.

My list is after the break, and it’s by no means comprehensive. Feel free to sound off in the comments if there’s something you think should be added in!

Oh, and Palm, this isn't an ultimatum or anything. It's a wishlist. Of stuff I want. So consider it a shopping list, and you're the grocery store. Some things we can do without, but others are staple items that we need to get through the week, and if you don't have it, we might have to go across town to the other grocery to get it. After a while, that can get kind of old and we might consider just going to the other store. We don't want to, as it's simply not as nice, but they have a lot of what we need.

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7Jul/090

How to: Sync Notes and Memos on the Pre (Sort of)

No Note Sync

Want to sync Notes and Memos from your Pre to your Desktop and vice versa? I wish I could tell you that you could actually synchronize the notes from the Memos application on your Pre, but then I’d be lying to you. For whatever disappointing reason, the Pre in its current form does not support the synchronization of Memos and there’s not much that we can do about that. There are at least four different ways to deal with this. The first way is to just deal with it. The built-in memos application is both easy-to-use and plenty fast, plus it comes with type-to-search. But... it doesn’t sync with anything.

And then there’s Evernote, currently in free beta form in the App Catalog. You can take the notes in Evernote, in addition to snapping pictures to storing tasks, and all of it will sync with your PC, Mac, and even Evernote’s web services. But, as is so often the reality of betas, Evernote is a touch slow and occasionally buggy.

Have a Microsoft Exchange account? Then you can sync your notes, so long as you’re willing to make them notes attached to your tasks. And we know what you’re thinking, it’s kind of hacky. And we agree, it is hacky, and we shouldn’t have to stoop to using applications Tasks to sync our memos. Palm, are you listening?

Lastly, there’s email. If you’re a Gmail user, you can send messages to yourself with the subject prefix of “Note:”, and then using Gmail’s filters and labels you can have your notes automatically sorted into folders on the Pre. It’s a great magical sync and lets you use the Pre’s fantastic email program, but like the aforementioned Tasks notes syncing, it’s a hacky work-around that we should have to deal with.

So there’s four solutions, and we’re sure there’s more out there. We want to know, how do you sync your memos?