Palm Pre Plus: Touchstone Charger, Net2Stream, Car Charger

Alright, I have already lost count of how many days I've had my Palm Pre Plus for... I think it's been less than a week so far, you can probably do the math by looking at previous posts.

Anyway, here's the latest update:


1. My friend ashcrow hooked me up with a couple of Palm Touchstone Chargers this week, and I am loving it! Being able to charge the Palm Pre Plus by simply resting it on top of the 'stone' w/o having to plug it in anywhere is really cool and handy, specially, since I really dislike having to take off the micro-usb cap on that phone. To do so, one usually has to open the keyboard first (since it is even harder otherwise), and get their nail under the cap and pull it out somewhat firmly. I always feel like I am going to break it. Plus, the micro USB connector is pretty tight to push it in as well.

At least as far as I am concerned, the less I try to use that micro USB cable the better.

One thing I wish the touchstone did (although I understand why it doesn't) is to allow the 'stone' to be connect to a regular computer USB port for power, and not just a power outlet... oh well, c'est la vie.

And one very annoying problem/feature: When the phone charges up completely it keeps beeping me telling me it's charged... that's just dumb, tell me once, and leave me alone. Unless of course there is some risk of explosion if the phone were to be on the touchstone for a long time :-)

I've been told there is a preware patch to turn that off, I will give it shot sometime soon.

2. I have a car charger on the way as well... I will write more about that once it arrives.

3. As you know, I miss one app on the iPhone during the Fifa World Cup, and what actually makes me a bit mad is the fact that Palm Pre users under Sprint have the Sprint TV app which does let them watch live broadcast from ESPN... Why won't AT&T make that available? I am willing to P A Y extra for it!!!!!

Anyway, I think I found the next best thing to TV... radio :-) I downloaded Net2Stream which allows me to listen to several Shoutcast hosted radio stations on my Palm Pre Plus, and from what I can see there are multiple ESPN radio streams from it. I am not 100% sure if they broadcast the World Cup games, but I will have to try it out this weekend... even though it's almost over now.

4. Finally, I've also ordered a screen protector, I will write more about it when I get it.

At the end of the day, I am still liking my Palm Pre Plus quite a bit. I really enjoy preware and precentral.net and the community around it. I hope to try to write an 'test' app for it soon enough, I will post something if/when I do it.

One nasty problem with the Palm Pre Plus

My Palm Pre Plus is suffering from this issue.

One hardware issue seen with the new pre is that if you close the keyboard ‘firmly’ it seems to jiggle the battery enough that the disruption in power causes the pre to shutdown completely.

It has happened twice today while firmly opening the keyboard. I am going to try the work around, but that is really really lame!

20 minutes == 6% battery life

Just talked on my palm pre plus for about 20 minutes, and 6% of my battery was used.

Conditions:

The Google maps app was open in the background, and the wifi was on with the phone overclocked at 800Mhz.

The World Cup without the iPhone is tough...

During this past few days, I've really been enjoying my Palm Pre Plus, yet, I am desperately missing one app on my iPhone: MobiTV, which is the app licensed to broadcast the live World Cup games covered by ESPN in the US.

The quality is amazing and for only $10 for the month of June/July I have been watching all of the World Cup games during the work week. Even though MobiTV uses AT&T as one of its 'approved' carriers, as far as I can see, there is no application for the Palm Pre Plus, and that makes me very sad.

The work around for now, is to carry my old iPhone with me and use a wifi connection, which seems to work even though the phone isn't AT&T activated anymore.

Palm Pre Plus, Day 1

Day 0:

I got my Palm Pre Plus from AT&T yesterday, and wrote up a blog post about my 'transition' from the iPhone to the Palm Pre Plus.

Today:

It's still pretty early to have any form of 'concrete' opinions about the device... but right from the get go... a few things are already leaving 'first impressions' on me.

1. Size:

I guess one could say that the Palm Pre Plus has 2 different sizes: with and without keyboard open. I like the size quite a bit, smaller than the iphone, and I actually find it easier to carry it around.

2. Screen Resolution

When compared to the iPhone 4's 960x640 resolution, I really thought that the Pre's 320x480 was going to be a major issue for me... I mean, I really thought it was going to suck.

But it really doesn't. GUI still looks pretty sharp, I can 'pinch' the screen to zoom in and out, so other than seeing less information at a time on my facebook wall, I haven't really had an issue with it.

3. The keyboard

I love the 'real' keyboard on the Palm Pre Plus, the buttons are a tad small, but I can hit them pretty well, and somewhat efficiently well. I like the 'real' keyboard, and specifically, the layout of the keys much better on the Palm Pre Plus than the iPhone... Feel free to disagree :-)

On the other hand, I am not a huge fan of having to flip the keyboard open when I need to write something... Maybe I'd prefer the Palm Pre Pixi (at least when it comes to this 'feature'). I always find myself in a awkward position and I haven't mastered flipping the keyboard open with one hand yet w/o feeling like I am smearing the entire touchscreen with my nasty greasy hand! :-)

4. The Mirror

I don't know if other palm pre plus phones have this, but the one from AT&T has this metallic shield behind the touchscreen that can be used as a mirror... Sounds a bit girlie, I know, but I am a bit paranoid about my teeth, and I am constantly checking after I eat something to make sure I don't have anything stuck between them. Kinda lame, I know, but it really will be useful for me :-) I guess the front-face camera on the iPhone 4 would do the job for me as well :-)

5. The Battery

I read many reviews, and virtually all of them said one of the biggest problems of the Palm Pre Plus was the battery life. I am usually really good about not draining out battery in devices, not sure why, maybe because I don't use them as much as I should or maybe because I am not a 'power user'... who knows... but let me tell, the battery life on the Palm Pre Plus is sure a short one. It seems enough to hold up for an entire working day... but barely.

A friend of mine from work will be giving me his touchstone charger so charging up the phone will be a bit less painful... Taking off that little piece of plastic to plugin the micro-USB connector is actually kinda of a pain.

Also considering a car charger, I've always had one for the iPhone and they prove to be quite handy.

6. webOS

I am not going to say much about webOS yet because I know I have hardly touched the surface of what can be done with it, so all I will say for now from the little bit of hacking I've done (to install an 'unofficial' app) is that webOS is awesome!

I've gotten quite a few replies on twitter from people who actually went from webOS to an Android phone and had to go back to the Palm Pre because of the awesomeness of the OS :-)

I also got a tip from a couple of different people to check out: http://preware.org/ and that's what I will be doing over the weekend between F1 qualifying/race and World Cup games!

I will post more soon.

Update:

Ok, I didn't wait until the weekend, I installed WebOS Quick Install and Preware tonight... and it is what everyone has been telling me: AWESOME!

My Palm Pre Plus is flying, I have onscreen keyboard (for quick tweets), I can see more icons on my screen, easier access to brightness and I now have access to a bunch of other stuff, which I will write more about as I get to play with them.

Tilt-shifting w/ Gimp

Tilt-shifting a Screenshot
Originally uploaded by afsilva

The idea is to make things look like miniatures...

Examples: www.hongkiat.com/blog/tilt-shift-photography-80-beautiful...

Directions at: randomoid.com/2010/03/16/howto-miniature-faking-tilt-shif...

Inspired by the work my brother in law, Justin Bond, did with some Indy 500 photos: n07.us/s/Ff

Hacking RPMs with rpmrebuild, 2nd Edition

An oldie, re-published: http://linuxgazette.net/175/silva.html.

Marco Andretti / Indy 500

Marco Andretti
Originally uploaded by afsilva

I had the opportunity to take my two oldest sons to the Indy 500 this year. It was a blast! More photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/afsilva/sets/72157624032061881/.