Palm Pre to merge GPS with calendar, contacts
updated 05:05 pm EST, Mon January 19, 2009
Palm Pre Calendar GPS
Palm's Pre will try to claim an edge over its rivals by using its built-in GPS to provide relevance to the calendar and contacts, company investor and Elevation Partners co-founder Roger McNamee tells Yahoo. The inaugural webOS smartphone can directly compare a user's schedule against the location of an event, warning owners that they will be late if the drive time is too long. The Pre can optionally e-mail affected contacts automatically instead of prompting the user.
The software should also use its mapping as part of the daily routine, the investor adds: taking advantage of webOS' Synergy, the Pre will have the option of automatically caching information about relevant calendar dates and contact information, including locations, ahead of the events themselves. The feature should let workers keep maps and other data available ahead of time rather than waiting until it's absolutely necessary.
McNamee's updates give the company a potential edge over both the iPhone as well as BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices, none of which offer significant out-of-the-box integration between GPS and personal data besides finding locations on request. [via PreCentral]
wow
01/19, 06:32pm reply
The Palm Pre has some nice touches, a couple of which Apple should adopt and improve. This most certainly is not one of them. This is just retarded. Plus it would require the GPS to be constantly running in the background (or at least running at a regular, frequent basis), killing the battery life in the phone.
bigmig
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jan 2004
GPS
01/19, 07:29pm reply
GPS wouldn't work in a person's pocket while they are indoors anyways. I'm pretty sure it would only provide "late" notifications if they were using the GPS function in the car. In which case, it's already on and battery drain isn't an issue. In fact most car GPS receivers already have an estimated arrival time function anyways. All the phone would have to would be to compare that arrival time to the schedule time and that's that.
Maybe useless. But it's a cool idea.
luckyday
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2008
This combo is perfect..
01/20, 12:38am reply
GPS plus calendar. This combo is perfect for people who don't know where they are, or what day it is either!
Those who identify with this combination of cluelessness will definitely want to own a Palm to prove they will a) know where they are and b) know what day it is. At the same time!
ggirton
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
Multitasking
01/20, 10:13am reply
The keynote for the Pre was fantastic. It looks a really good product. And it certainly beats my iPhone when it comes to the multitasking features.
I with Apple would allow the iPhone to run multiple applications at the same time (and sort out copy&paste).
coldfusion1970
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2004