General Pre Complaints

[milominderbinder]

This is the thread for general Palm Pre complaints and replies. All "I'm leaving" posts and replies go here as well. Here is an article summarizing major complaints.

If you are looking for help with a specific feature or problem, check the Tips Forum, search for an existing thread, or start a new thread if the topic is not already being discussed.

If you want Palm to know about your issue, please post in their official Palm User Forum or tell them directly: www.palm.com/us/company/feedback.html.

First, please check to see if this issue is already being discussed in these:
1. Battery Tips, Ringtone Tips, or general Pre Tips & Tricks.
2. Homebrew Gallery - Is there an app for that?
3. Patches - There's a Patch for That
4. Music Player (Remix) fixes dozens of the biggest complaints with the Music Player.
5. My Notification lets you set your alert sound.
6. How to Install the On-Screen Keyboard gives you that feature too.

Please note specific complaints in one of these threads:
1. A Comprehensive List of Fixes, New Features, and Workarounds - request list
2. Features or Apps you would like to see - List them here
3. Bug List for Pre - List bugs here

The Forum Guidelines apply: do not be rude or use inappropriate language and no personal attacks or name calling, etc.

To report a post, click the triangle icon under the name of the person who made the post.

[Eazy123]

Don't get me wrong, I love my Pre, but look at what's going on - average joes are creating homebrew applications that allow you to do things like categorize your contacts, change your alert tones, scrub through your mp3s and more...things the Pre is SUPPOSED to do from the start. What is Palm doing? And you could even say "They're probably working on their own solutions to these issues", but seriously...if the average joe could come up with a fix in a matter of days, why aren't we getting updates from Palm? If the story is "They're gathering 50 different fixes together for one update", then split them up - I'll take a mandatory update that fixes 5 things each week. I just want to know that they're doing SOMETHING.

Who's making the Pre - Palm or its users?

[meangreengdub]

Good post.

[turbooxide]

well, let me say this... we as users wouldn't be able to do all this tinkering if it wasn't for palm. and the only reason it seems so easy for all of the "average joes" to create apps is because we've had some really awesome people develop some tools and wiki's which makes it easy for the "average joes" to create apps/mods.

we've been really given alot to work with to make the pre the way we want it. i wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth...

as far as updates, people will never be happy. if you were to send out an update which fixes 5 things, people will complain that "they didn't fix this, they didn't fix that". personally, i rather have a large update which addresses MANY issues once a month rather than having to update 5 times a month with each one addressing one or two issues.

[babydaddy75]

Some people are NEVER happy. How about you thank palm for building such a great and open product that people A) Want to make it better B) Have the option/ability to do so.



Insert typical go by an iphone comment here.

[Elysian893]

The same thing is going on with Android, people have been tweaking it to their liking since day one. What is your point? Is it also embarrassing that people are jail breaking their iPhones? Oi.

[Eazy123]

The Pre wasn't touted as the "do it yourself" phone, though.

And I don't mean to call the homebrew devs average joes, they are VERY talented people, but THEY should not be the ones users rely on to write the programs that do things that the Pre is supposed to be doing out of the box anyway.

Have any of you SEEN the update wishlist? Have any of you USED a Zire or a Tungsten before? There are things that hardcore business users of those products would EXPECT to be in the Pre since it carries the Palm logo. And they're completely missing. These are things Pre users should NOT have to be relied upon to make.

[bluemoon219]

I would have to disagree with your statement. I

think it is admirable of Palm to allow developers to create app for the Pre instead of waiting for inhouse to develop-test-determine a deployment date. Trust... as someone in the IT field it isn't easy to deploy the amount of apps that Homebrew takes in as 'Beta' and have a staff create requirements, system specifications, technical specifications, unit to user acceptance test and deploy...and then the break fixes the list could go on and it gets expensive.

I think Homebrew is an excellent idea for Pre to get Beta apps and users of Pre to 'test' and make an offer to buy and make it an Alpha app.

Sorry to ramble- but I often think people don't think things completely through- and you are entitled to your opinion...I just disagree with it

[mrloserpunk]

i'd rather palm leave changing notification tones and quick dials to the homebrew guys, so they can focus on other bigger changes. Palm was in a dire situation and had to take the phone out of the oven. Maybe a tad early, but if they didn't they could have died with the pre inches from the starting line. I appreciate Palm getting it out, and making it simple to develop for....because to be honest, on all my other treos anything palm could do, homebrew did better!

[Eazy123]

Originally Posted by bluemoon219

I would have to disagree with your statement. I

think it is admirable of Palm to allow developers to create app for the Pre instead of waiting for inhouse to develop-test-determine a deployment date. Trust... as someone in the IT field it isn't easy to deploy the amount of apps that Homebrew takes in as 'Beta' and have a staff create requirements, system specifications, technical specifications, unit to user acceptance test and deploy...and then the break fixes the list could go on and it gets expensive.

I think Homebrew is an excellent idea for Pre to get Beta apps and users of Pre to 'test' and make an offer to buy and make it an Alpha app.

Sorry to ramble- but I often think people don't think things completely through- and you are entitled to your opinion...I just disagree with it

You and everyone else are entitled to yours, as well. But if you're going to release a phone that's going to compete with the top names, I would think they'd have the resources to keep up with the demand for fixes a little better, not release a beta-stage product with features that Palm users have come to expect be flat-out missing. They've got a reputation to live up to.

Like I said, I love my Pre either way, it's the best phone I've owned. I appreciate that they allow the homebrew community to develop apps for it, but again - there are some of these apps that the homebrew devs shouldn't have to make.

[mrloserpunk]

I'd hope they would have the resources too, but I just dont think they did. They were literally burning money each month as their sales of other devices sunk. I really feel that if palm held the Pre for even another month they would have been DOA...

[ADGrant]

Originally Posted by babydaddy75

Some people are NEVER happy. How about you thank palm for building such a great and open product that people A) Want to make it better B) Have the option/ability to do so.

The reason Palm created such an open product is not because of some deep seated belief in openness (these are Apple people we are talking about). They needed to get something to market ASAP and the quickest way to do that was using 'pre'-existing open source technology.

[Jordus]

Originally Posted by bluemoon219

. as someone in the IT field it isn't easy to deploy the amount of apps that Homebrew takes in as 'Beta' and have a staff create requirements, system specifications, technical specifications, unit to user acceptance test and deploy...and then the break fixes the list could go on and it gets expensive.

I think Homebrew is an excellent idea for Pre to get Beta apps and users of Pre to 'test' and make an offer to buy and make it an Alpha app.

You are in IT but dont know that Alpha comes BEFORE Beta?

Shame.

[Abyssul]

I just fail to understand why some of these homebrew modifications arn't implemented into existing updates. If Palm could do this, then it would make most Pre users happy without even spending a day in coding. I mean look at the homebrew section. We even obtained a updated media player out of the stock one that is better is every way.

I wanna know what Palm is thinking at the moment...

[DougB541]

Someone let me know when they have ever owned a phone that had EVERYTHING they wanted on it.

Seriously.

[Tubal]

Originally Posted by Eazy123

Don't get me wrong, I love my Pre, but look at what's going on - average joes are creating homebrew applications that allow you to do things like categorize your contacts, change your alert tones, scrub through your mp3s and more...things the Pre is SUPPOSED to do from the start. What is Palm doing? And you could even say "They're probably working on their own solutions to these issues", but seriously...if the average joe could come up with a fix in a matter of days, why aren't we getting updates from Palm? If the story is "They're gathering 50 different fixes together for one update", then split them up - I'll take a mandatory update that fixes 5 things each week. I just want to know that they're doing SOMETHING.

Who's making the Pre - Palm or its users?

Probably you should take your pre back and get an iphone.

Or better yet, create your own phone that does everything exactly the way you want it. It's obvious palm can't live up to your expectations.

[big_bopper]

To be honest...the "open sourceness" of the phone is one of the major reasons I bought the Pre. I for one think it's neat to not only have a phone, but a gadget I get to tinker with in my spare time to make it truly mine. Palm released a solid PDA/Smartphone that would fill the needs for a majority of the market and at the same time grab some the social networking crowd. There is nothing wrong with what they release and it will only get better in time. Be thankful that there are people out there that are willing to take their time to make your Pre even better and stop holding your breath for Palm to do it.

If I wanted just a phone, I could have picked any of the dozens of models that flood the market.

[Peteman100]

Originally Posted by ADGrant

The reason Palm created such an open product is not because of some deep seated belief in openness (these are Apple people we are talking about). They needed to get something to market ASAP and the quickest way to do that was using 'pre'-existing open source technology.

WebOS isn't open source enough for this to be true. If that was the case, they would have just used Andriod.

[alan7467]

I tend to wonder if the lack of what some view as basic features is partly the bi-product of the folks that actually designed WebOS, Ex-Apple employees.

Look at the iPhone when it was first released (and even currently IMHO). Plenty of rather basic features missing, but this seemed to be the result of Apple focusing on making what they did implement work well.

Back to the Pre. I feel like Palm with their influx of Apple employees did the same thing to an extent. Yeah, there are some things missing, but I think what's there out of the box works great. Certainly more than one can say for just about every other phone out there.

[Freshyz]

Original post has merit and I believe the learning curve that is a part of this phone should not have had us taking steps backwards on basic features, however the steps Palm took us forward with are pretty great which makes me deal with things the way they are, for now...
I do think the following homebrews or aspects of them, should have been stock on the Pre:
My Notifications
Stopwatch / Timer
Brightness Unlinked
Switcharoo
Quick Dialer
Digi Clock
Text Manager & Quick Text
Music Player Remix
and a alarm that I can actually rely on!

Now that the security issues were fixed on from the last big update, hopefully the next one will prove worthy of what customers tend to complain about most.
Time will tell. . .