Give me back my TEXTS! #palm #pre

After almost eight months, I have had to grow accustomed to my Palm Pre, with the slow WebOS operating system, the cracked screen and the chipped edges (read my thoughts on issues and problems with the Pre). My friends always say, "Sanford - you can easily just get it replaced. Your camera has never worked, just get a new one." Or, just wait until the google Nexus One Phone gets released on Sprint (which I have been thinking about over and over again).

I would happily fix my phone - if it weren't for the fact that I can not get my text messages off the phone! (Makes me think of acting like Mel Gibson in Ransom and screaming "GIVE ME BACK MY SON TEXTS!")

I mean really(!), we are in 2010.

Just because the original concept of texting was short-lived, IM messages that were disposable, today - texting has become almost as important as email. Keeping telephone numbers, conversation threads, other important facts - all stored in the threads of text messages.

I have already spoken to the Palm Development Team about this, and this was the answer I got:

Hi Sanford -- I did check with the team on this, and given what we have in place today it's not possible to do. The only kind of work-around (and it isn't much) is to do a 'copy all' in the edit menu of each transcript, then mail it to yourself. You still can't get them back in to the app easily. (you could probably send them to yourself from an SMS bridge from your computer)

We are in the process of reworking our data models that would enable this, but that is still some time out from being deployed -- my apologies!

Unfortunately, that is not a resolution to the problem. It is more of a frustration than a resolution. I saw Jamie's frustration in his post (read his tirade here "Dear Palm, it's just not working out.) I am astonished at the fact that, even with a Linux distro, there is not a simple way to grab the texts in some form of tar-ball and migrate them from one phone to another. Or what about a simple CSV file of the texts? Why did the data model not take this into consideration?

Texts are not disposable!

In the 15 years I have owned a cell phone, and in the last ten where I have been almost tied directly to SMS though my time in England and Europe, I have retained so many text messages like old emails - simply because of the quaint aspect of the message, the information stored within them, or what have you. Texts are no different than email - just shorter and less likely to be spam.

Why can texts be treated as first-class citizens in the realm of the Internet? Please?

---

BTW - I have been building videos on the slowness of the Pre Calendar app (interacting with google Calendar), the dog-slow nature of the Pre Email client, the lack of camera (STILL!) and the general sluggishness in using the global search for friend's names when wanting to dial (though, the release of 1.3.5.1 seems to have speed up this every so often). And, my favorite new act - my phone suddenly dies after being put into airplane mode(!). Oooooh - this is exciting!

Doing my eval on the Nokia E75

Image by Urban Mixer via Flickr

Couple of weeks ago, I got an email from a social marketing team interested in my feedback on the new Nokia E75. Since I am working off a couple of different phones (and I happily own a Nokia 5310 and use it for my UK phone), I was willing to try a test run.

When the phone arrived, it was in typical Nokia fashion - with all of the components available. In playing with it for the last couple of weeks, I thought I might put some feedback on the various issues with the phone:

What did I like?

I got a kick out of the fact that the phone is supposed to be an equivalent to the Pre or iPhone in general features (e.g. music listening, web browsing, email and so on) and has some additional features like an FM radio (which did not work well at all) and supports SD cards on the phone. But overall - the Nokia is a foreign phone - using the Nokia OS (I believe it is Symbian) and the OS is just different.

Oh yes, I am used to it on my 5310, but other features like the email client, calendar, and web browsing - took a lot to get inspired.

What did I NOT like?

Sheesh - this is going to be kind of long - and I want to couch this the fact that I have been a Palm user for over five years, and a Nokia user for over ten years (yes - I still have the carcass of my Nokia 3310 in my tech drawer). So, when I am comparing features and functionality, it is with full understanding that this is a Nokia/Symbian phone - not a MacOS, Android or PalmOS.

Physical Shape
The phone itself is a slider phone (similar to the Pre) but has the difficulty of sliding left-to-right, rather than opening like a phone (making it longer). The keyboard is kind of awkward - especially since the keyboard is trying to emulate a standard keyboard (numbers seem to be above the first line of keys rather than in a phone configuration). It relies on the standard thought that the keyboard should be separate from the phone keypad (like the old O2 and HP phones). I personally have never been a fan of that.

Additionally, the phone is bulkier than both the 5310 or the Pre, and feels kind of "heavy". And the screen is definitely not as clear as the Pre. And sadly, the screen was very easy to smudge - I was not impressed - even with the funky storage sleeve that came with the phone.

Keyboard/Keypad
I have a lot of friends comment on the smallness of the Pre's keyboard, but I must say, using the E75's keypad and keyboard is not so pleasant an experience either. Simply put - the number keypad is kind of "flimsy" - almost like the rows of the keypad have the keys connected, even when you are trying to hit just one number. (check out this review who gives it a slam on the flimsiness) Even the slideout keyboard has that "weak" feeling - not like the sturdiness of the Pre buttons or the hard glass of the iPhone.

Software/Apps
Sorry - this phone just fails in this arena. Even my Palm treo 755p with VersaMail is a much better performer than the onboard email app the E75 comes with. The Symbian OS is okay-ish - and I think it is quite nice that they offer a "work" view and a "home" view (each view can have certain apps on the launcher), but it was not a very compelling addition for me.

The web browsing - sorry, I left the Opera experience when I started using the Pre. Using the center pad to mouse around a limited screen - or to use the zoom out feature to go to different regions of the screen - wow, I did not realize how spoiled I have gotten by a richer web experience on the Palm Pre.

Calendar is a joke - even if it syncs up with google Calendar (which I am not sure it does). And even the FM radio, which was nice getting the information from the Internet was fine - but the tuner had issues even connecting to local stations.

And, sadly, I was not impressed with the video - especially after having the Pre or seeing it on the iPhone. And, they downgraded the onboard camera to 3.2 mega-pixels (from a 5 mega-pixel camera on the N95), which was not as good resolution or performance to my buggy Palm Pre's camera.

Would I recommend it?

Funnily enough, I might. But it would have to be someone who had not used either the iPhone or the Pre and was very used to the Symbian OS interface and vagaries. Otherwise, I would wait for the series of phones Nokia to arrive with an improved OS, a better screen, better applications and simply - a better experience.

I left the small screens when I upgraded to the Palm treos. Please Nokia - learn from the experiences. RIM - I think you are safe.

P.S. Thanks WOMWorld for the loaner. Nice change of pace...

Shall I discuss a heresy? What about the twitter ecosystem?

This evening, as I was helping explain how to use my Palm Pre to another Pre owner via twitter, I began to think about how to share a visual (via twitpic.com), count my followers (via twittercounter.com), connect in a video chat environment (via tokbox.com) and I wondered: if twitter finds that elusive business model, how will the ecosystem survive?

Are we building a twitter bubble?
I am flashing back to the 90s when everyone was building portals because "eyeballs" were king (because you could monetize them), then there was the ecommerce / eMarketplace growth that lead to very few successes, then there was the blog bubble (which had a few successful exits, but primarily was a publishing play) and then, lets not talk about the podcast bubble that left thousands (is it 50K publishers, tubemogul?) And our most recent growth spurts of organic, vertical search tools and social networking platforms - why am I not surprised what is next?

Two years ago, when twitter was just being used by a few hundred thousand users, there was a big discussion on what twitter's business model would be. But I think the question now is - how can twitter do a similar model where they provide a social good AND generate a revenue stream that benefits all who leverage it and sell services from it.

Case in point - look at the ecosystem from RSS and blogging and podcasting. With the lovely gift of RSS being the thread that supports syndication, the major player in the space (feedburner), got absorbed with it little revenue stream, into the mother ship. Modeled after the fremium service model, feedburner might demonstrate what the companies with traffic that offer compelling service (like Summize) can look forward to.

But what of the not so lucky ones?
My fear is the story of all tech companies that do not hit the exit. They either whither (or whimper) away and die or the sell to the best bidder to share their IP and staff or become zombie companies. Those are the ones that I hope take Nate Westheimer's tack and place their company/code in the hands of the Open Source community.

A month later, do I still like the Pre?

So, I was in SF this weekend and was showing off the Pre at various events and parties - and the Pre had all sorts of reactions.

The first and foremost are that people seemed to think that it is "cute" - as in, holding the round black piece of phone, they are quite amazed. For the first week, I heard endlessly about the ability for the Pre to "cut cheese". Yeah, yeah - funny. I can use an iTouch to cut soft cheese as well.

As for the functionality of the phone, there are some niggly details that are killing me still - and I even downloaded the 1.0.3 update - but no avail. These issues are:

• Battery life
  5 hours talk (or use) and less than a day standby. Yes, even when I forget to plug it in, the darn thing runs out of juice overnight more times than I can count. Another friend in the Valley also had terrible experience with the battery life - because of the problems, he missed a numebr of phone calls - and when we got together, I offered my TouchStone to charge. But lo, he only had the plastic backing.
  
  
• OS Slowness
  So thrilled about the multi-threading - but there is definitely a lag in the operation. Almost makes me wish for my treo once again. Starting apps, modifying elements, flipping between them - not sure what is causing the slowdown.
  
  
• Camera Phone Replacement
  My Sprint store said they would call me when the replacement phone came in - but no news yet. And we are a month out. Big issue for me: do I want a replacement when I learned that all of the actions on the phone do not get backed up - so I lose my history and settings from my current phone when I switch over to a new one. Very upsetting.
  
  And then the camera - almost like playing my own form of lottery. Sometimes it works (especially when I am entering a new person into my contacts), but more often than not - just sits there with the grey cloud. Very frustrating.
  
  
• Auto-capitalizing login names in form elements
  Oy! This one is driving me crazy - when I am logging into Facebook or google Mail from the Pre web browser, the first thing that happens is the login name gets the first letter capitalized. Why? Guys, come on - what's the deal? Can't you make this a setting or something?
  
  
• Hardware beginning to loosen up
  So, since I use the phone regularly, I keep finding the top piece beginning to shift a little bit more every week. Granted, it is plastic - and I am wondering if there will be some wear-and-tear that will cause problems. Only time will tell.
  
  
• Anemic App Catalog
  This is not a new story - but I have been trying to do development for the Pre - and do not even have the Mojo Development Platform for myself (which I was promised would happen). Quite frustrated actually about the dearth of apps - and I want to build FourSquare with the guys.
  
  
• google Maps on Pre is a memory and processor suck
  Recently, when I was traveling between San Diego and LA, I was trying out the google Maps on the Pre to see if it could help me get to my destination. Aside from the inability for this version of google Maps to retain my previous destinations (like it did on the treo version), the google Maps App is a memory and processor suck - as in, within 5 to 10 minutes of tracking your position (and potentially using the traffic option) the Pre gets hot, slow and can not open other cards/apps. Come on google/Palm - can you repair this? I get incredibly envious of the iPhone apps, and this is at least one that should be solid.

Yes, I still have it - and since I am still on Sprint, I will keep it - but boy, iot takes some getting used to.

Showing off the Palm Pre in NYC...

Tonight, just to see what would happen, I went to the nextWeb event at MI:5 and had people asking to see the Pre. Here are some shots (from @bpapa) and his iPhone.

Just off the phone with Palm Development Team

So - I got off the phone with the Palm team in Santa Clara and have a couple of good pieces of information from the call:

1. Why does the camera cycle like mine does?
   Turns out that one of the first things the camera app does is perform an auto white balance - and that causes a slight delay as the camera is starting up. But, it does not explain the 20-second cycle of the camera app not working - which we are investigating.
   
   
2. Auto correct feature is currently a legacy function
   The guys told me that the auto correct system has approximately 55K words that are designed to handle most misspellings that treo users have experienced in the past. They are not keen on the iPhone style of auto-correct (with the floating word below and the X to dismiss) and are working on some of the issues.
   
   
3. How do I soft reboot?
   Just asked this one after reading one of the everythingpre.com threads - and asked. Turns out: hit the OJ key, the Sym key and the R key at the same time for a soft reset.
   
   
4. Multi-select of attachments - not happening yet
   One of my issues (in my last post) was the lack of a multi-select feature. They do not have one and will investigate if they could/would add it.
   
   
5. Repositioning the cursor in a text box
   One of my first finds was when I needed to reposition the cursor into a text field that already had content beyond the visible bounds of the field/screen (imaging a 20 character text form with a 50 character entry. Now go to the start of the form entry and then try to edit the last five characters.) Turns out the OJ key helps there as well. Hold it down and repositioning your cursor with your thumbs.
   

It was a great call - the team is really enthused and had already captured a number of my bugs prior to our conversation. I also think I am going to propose we call the OJ Key the Palm Key if only to keep the branding alive.

One week with the Palm Pre - what's my verdict?

So, I have been carrying the Palm Pre for the past week - and been enjoying it for the most part. You can read my former posts here, here and here on the issues about it - but as my friends comment, it is a Version 1.0 phone.

I learned a couple of other issues that have been demonstrated:

• Word auto-correct function has some glitches
  I love the fact that you can type "u" for "you" and the Palm Pre will auto-correct it - but couple of issues like it does not retain capitalization or when using it with the email app, it keeps the "u" instead of the "you" that is displayed.
• Camera is glitchy
  Sorry - this keeps happening - I have been to Sprint - they do not have enough phones to correct the issue yet. And, this time, when I went to Sprint yesterday, they changed the battery - and suddenly, the camera worked. But today, no working camera. Ugggh.
• Battery life is abysmal
  Again, I have been using the Pre and have had pretty sad battery life. I left the phone home one day - with Wifi off, GPS off - and still the phone went down to 30% battery just sitting there for six hours. Now, the iPhone also has issues (my friends tell me they have to keep their iPhone plugged in every day when not using it), so I guess the removable battery and Touchstone charger are better options that the iPhone. And I learned how to change the brightness on the phone (turns out it is a feature in the Screen and Lock app), which I hope reduces the battery suck.

But, must say once I get my spare battery, the Touchstone and other components from the online stores I ordered them from (yes, Sprint had WAAAYYY too few), I think I will be satisfied with my purchase.

My life on the Palm Pre - Day 2.66

After going through using the Pre for the past couple of days, I have learned a number of things that I am happy to share:

1. Camera problem is more than likely a faulty camera
   Reading at everythingpre.com - I have learned that others have had the same problem with the camera. They have been told that the camera is the problem and that I should get the Pre replaced. I will, after my family leaves.
   
   
2. Pocket dialing is annoying...
   Turns out that the Phone interface, while nice to use, has an interesting problem. After you finish the call and hang up, the phone interface stays active and if you are like me and grab the phone, you can accidentially either hit the numbers or hit the dial button. I think with my treo, once I was done with the call, the recessed screen was not easy to hit after finishing, so I would not accidentially call.
   
   
3. ...but the proximity sensor is terrific.
   When your face is close to the phone, the screen turns off. When you are ready to hang up, the screen relights - and you can hang up. Nice touch.
   
   
4. Pre had great heft, but it slips easy
   I love the feel of the phone - I have always loved how the Palm phones always feel strong and solid - but sometimes, when you are using the phone while eating or doing somethiong else and you grab it quickly, you can lose it like "a greased up pig at a country fair".
   
   
5. Pre battery life is a pain
   After using the Pre for a couple of days, I can affirm that it has a very short battery life. My guess is that, while the processor is energy efficient, the access to the networks and multiple applications open at the same time can be a battery suck. Additionally, the Pre does not have a brightness control (or at least I can not find it) which I would assume could reduce the battery life suck. Even Palm does not show how to reduce the battery consumption, but I did find some suggestions on everythingpre.com.
   
   
6. Selecting multiple attachments is a pain
   Oi - I was trying to add multiple photos to an email and/or text message and I discovered that 1) the text messages only take one attachment, 2) multiple attachments on email takes an insane process of confirmation and attachments. What happened to my lovely list with a checkbox to choose what I want on the message?
   
   
7. Love dismissing alerts with a swipe
   With every alert on the main screen, you can get an insane number of interruptions (if you get email, tweets, IMs, texts, and voicemails). Nicest item is to sweep the item away to the right and they go away.
   
   
8. Text message history and delete via a right swipe
   When I first saw the text app, I was worried because I did not know how to see all of the old text messages in one location. Text message history has come in handy (incredibly handy) when I needed an old text for another meeting. My life was made much happier when I learned with a left ball swipe (across the LED field), I could see ALL of the text messages.
   
   
9. Direct dialing from the keyboard
   On my treo, I used to love just typing out the phone number directly from the keyboard. Now, I can do the same with the Pre and I have more than just phone as an option. To make the call, you need to hit the Return key (bent arrow) on the keyboard.
   
   
10. Missing global search
    Please. Fix this.
    
    
11. How do I get to my photos off the Pre?
    When I had my treo, I could sync up my phone with the computer and go to the photo folder. Where are my photos from the Pre? I do not want to download one photos at a time. And having to do it one photo at a time to my photo is not helpful (even if it is going to Facebook) because I can not get the original photo itself.

But - still enjoying the Pre. Just wish it had a better battery life.

Continuing my odyssey of the Palm Pre - Day 1.33

After charging my phone last night, I decided to see what would happen with the Pre after a full-night charge.

While I still have issues as described in my earlier post, I have learned a little more about the phone in showing it to my family and friends.

Battery power might be lagging

As described in David Pogue's article, the Pre's battery life is somewhat lacking. I was in a badly covered area of the Sprint network, and found my phone getting warm the entire morning. But, when I got into the city, I decided to recharge the phone and see what would happen. The phone was at 2% and after one hour, it charged back up to 52%. But an hor later, the phone gave me the 20% battery warning.

So, while I understand hunting for a network could run the battery down, I would not expect the batter to lose 30% of it's charge in another hour.

Apps have some improvements to go

After being such a treo / Palm OS fanatic, I am missing a couple of things such as:

1. Accidential pocket dialing
   I discovered that the phone app has a sensitivity to dialing - without a lock/unlock feature on the phone app, I worry that I might make another pocket dial.
2. A better set of menu options
   When I would use the productivity apps on the treo, there was always the menu of other options/features that were available at the top. Right now, the apps seem to be missing "something"

What do I love about the Pre?

So, with all of these complaints, why am I still carrying it around? Well, for all of the complaints, I have a slew of compliments:

1. Its not a treo!
   As in, it does not use Windows Mobile or is over three years old.
2. Its a phone with a keyboard!
   The styling of the phone (when open) is amazing. It has great heft and the speaker phone actually works.
3. It works!
   Yes, I know - it should, shouldn't it? But after having smartphones for the past five years, the phone is very usable instead of completely buggy.
4. It does not require a theraputic reboot!
   Yes, one of my favorite acts (sarcasm alert) was to restart my treo every so often when too many apps had taken up all of the memory. So nice to have memory and a stable OS.
5. Love the interface!
   Yes, after this long wait, I love the way the OS operates and allows me to play with the apps. Might not be terribly intuitive (see my last post), but it is fun to play with.

My big concern is that @palm is posting only the good issues, not addressing the bad ones so far. @palm - when you are ready, give me an email and we can talk about how to solve the camera issue.

Problems with the Palm Pre - Day One

I have been a long term user of Palm products (way back to the Palm 5000) and I have been waiting for the Palm Pre since I have played with my friend's iPhones. So, when I found out that the Pre was available on Saturday morning at the local Sprint store, I got up, pulled on my clothes and headed to the store.

Nicely enough, the store was incredibly gracious (Thanks guys!) and within 20 minutes I had the hot little object in my hand going through the tutorial. So, an hour later, when I caught up with my brother and his brood, I was deeply engrossed with the Pre.

Love at first site (yes, site)
Initially, I was enamored. The new cards interface, the interactions within the browser and interface elements (form elements and navigation) are incredibly familiar from using my friend's iPhones. As I played with the Pre, it became evident that the Pre interface had things that I did not see how to address - such as how to take a picture (since my camera app seems to be having problems).

So while you can read all sorts of great posts on the Pre (which I agree with them all), I have my issues with the Pre:

Help Info is "slow"
When I discovered that the camera was not working as advertised in the excellent reviews, I started looking for information on how to use the camera. I started with the documentation in the box (which was limited to gestures and other high-level options) and then went to the Help documentation. Since the docs are online, the speed of the Sprint network seem to impact the access to the Help documentation. Took me a bit of time to find the info (since there is no Search option within the documentation), which made me a little disappointed in learning how to use the phone through the documentation.

-1 point for the increasing difficulty to use the Pre

Camera App is "flaky"
Since I heard that the Pre had a 3.2M pixel camera, I chose to to leave my standard Canon IXUS at home as I headed to my cousin's bat mitzvah. While in the car, I tried to use the Pre camera and wondered why I could not take a photo. I would choose the camera icon, a grey screen would show up, the camera icon would sit in the middle of the screen and sit for 20 seconds, then would go dark and restart the campera app. Twenty seconds later, the camera app would end, restart and go through the sequence one more time until the phone went dark based on the power settings.

After wondering if I had done something wrong, I discovered how to kill the app (toss it north) and tried a couple of times, I thought "Maybe there is an update" and I checked for updates and downloaded the 1.0.2 update on to the phone. Much later, after the webOS 1.0.2 update was installed, I tested the app - and still the same behavior.

Later in the evening, just on a whim, I would try the app. One time out of five, the camera app suddenly worked. And yes, the photos are gorgeous. But still, I have no camera on the Pre.

-2 points for a flaky app or driver management

Pre web browser has weird quirks
The web browser is very similar to what I have seen on the iPhone - full page support, zoom in, zoom out - all of the things that make the iPhone mobile experience wonderful (heck, I even can use the x.facebook.com interface for iPhone, the m.facebook.com interface for WAP browsers and the www.facebook.com interface for normal browsers. But, the Pre web browser has some other quirks:

1. Strange reflection of a short page on the lower third of the page
   When I logged into twitter via their Login link, the top part of the browser shows the login div - but the lower part (2/3rds) should be blank. Instead, there is a stretched out version of the login div in the lower third of the browser. And this is not only on twitter, I also saw it on the opening page of Spymaster.
   
   
2. Form elements do not expand to access the hidden parts of the content within
   On the Blazer browser, if you entered more text into the form field that was visible, the browser would become an editable text field that showed up on the lower third of the page. You could modify any portion of the text that was entered - and did not need arrow navigation to get anywhere, since you could point to the needed correction. Now, with the Pre web browser, you find yourself having to make sure you type everything correctly, or you have to refresh a page if you make a mistake and need to edit character 23 in a 20 character visible field - when the text has already exceeded 25 characters.
   
   
3. On mobile sites, the browser does not support number shortcuts
   On the Blazer browser and other WAP browsers, mobile site designers could set up a situation where, if the browser sensed a number being pressed, it would act as if the link was hit that was tied to the number key (see this action on the mobile version of twitter, Yahoo! Mail and Facebook). Now, when you hit a number key on the Pre web browser, the browser thinks youa re typing a new URL - which makes shortcutting difficult. Additionally, on mobile twitter, hitting the aforementioned number shortcut link via a finger touch changed the page - but has the page still at the same location on the browser (the page does nto refresh with the start at the top of the page).

-2 points for browser issues

Charging up the phone is a bit cumbersome
One of the comments I heard on some blogs was the fact that the Touchstone charger might be an extravagance for $80. But, after trying to charge up my phone a couple of times, I can see why they did the Touchstone. If you try to plug in the USB cable into the phone, you have to work the cover off of the mini jack, which I will bet wears out eventually. Additionally, you need to know that the mini jack has to be inserted in only one position, you might accidentially insert it into the Pre upside down. To extend the life of the cover, you should get the Touchstone recharger.

-1 point for product issues

Conclusion?
Now, all of these issues are not critical - and will more than likely be addressed soon. But it is funny - I was one of the people who got a treo 650 when it came out, and went through 19 (yes, nineteen) returns to the Sprint store (because Sprint at the time did not have a solid tech support for the treo smartphones).

I have only had the phone for a single day (not even 12 hours yet) so i will continue to learn more about the phone as I use it.

I am happy to be a guinea pig for the Pre (and the new one), as I was for the treo 755p and the Centro - but please fix the phone. I want to love this device - I have waited almost two years.

Dear Ed Colligan, please send the Pre out...

Dear Mr. Colligan -

Since 1995, I have been a staunch supporter of the Palm platform through thick and thin.

Image via Wikipedia

I have gone through more versions of the Palm platform than I can count, kept away from silly things like Mobile Windows, Blackberry Pearls and MP3 players and network computers masquerading as telephones - and have patiently waited for the next Palm device.

Please, please get the Pre and other phones out - my treo 755p is on its last legs (the power button is working intermittantly) and I am sick of having my treo called a Blackberry when I am a proud Palm customer.

My Palm History

When I first started at Andersen Consulting, your company launched the Palm 1000 and 5000 - two devices that revolutionized the use of handheld devices and made my memory Swiss cheese since I let all of my dates, numbers and efforts on the small RAM found within.

Over the next five years, I told, showed, extolled and rubbed my screens raw with the devices - moving onto the Palm V and Vx, and even purchased a m505 simply because it was hip and happening. But, when the treo 180 came out, I could not get my carrier to support them in London. And, when my friend Luke showed me his three 180s that were all in various states of disrepair - I was worried.

So, when I moved back to the US, the first thing I did was salivate over the treo 600 - it was the accessory that all hip, well-equipped Washington DC power-user had attached to their hand. I was still stung from the incredibly poor screen resolution and incredibly slow processor - but it was an incredible step up from all of the cheap, plastic phones I had seen from Sony Ericsson or Nokia, I knew I wanted something better.

Then, I found the treo 650 - and on December 2004, I made a heady purchase of the phone without a two year contract (I hate those lock-in things) - and promptly spent two months getting the phone to work properly with nineteen exchanges (yes, 19!) with Sprint on a regular basis - having to update the OS, get patches, incredible issues. And when the treo 755p showed up at Gnomedex two years ago, I even convinced a friend to sell me hers that she had won (since she loved her Blackberry).

And then, the same PR guy who helped me with the treo 755p got me to test out the Centro - which I absolutely loved....until I lost it. It was small, hip and absoultely rock-solid. The first time the PalmOS did not crash on me - the first time all of the features worked the way they should. I was so excited, I even published my thoughts on how to use the Centro for the field.

And that was the end of 2007.

I am ready for the new phone

I have been waiting patiently - and wanted to become part of the next evolution of the networked community - and have plodded around with my treo 755p, while my friends show off their iPhone 3Gs and Blackberry Storms, Pearls and Bolds (the last two phones coming incredibly close to me purchasing).

Please get out the Pre and the other devices being hinted about - I am your early adopter customer, and I am the word-of-mouth you desire. I am happy to deal with the bugs you OS may have, and I am a devoted Palm fan.

Email me if you want - because I can only wait so long.

A devoted Palm user