It has been a little over 8 months since the Palm Pre was released to the public, and its just this week that Palm has finally released a Video Recorder as part of the operating system upgrade for webOS 1.4.

My initial tests with the video recorder generated video in .mpg4 that looks pretty good on the phone itself, a 60 second video takes up just under 40 megabytes of space on the phones memory.

It comes setup with a YouTube and Facebook video uploader, but neither one of them worked the first 3 days, I used the video recorder. 

But finally today, I was able to upload one of those videos successfully to YouTube so maybe the bugs are getting chased out of the new system.

So from my perspective, I am a mobile video blogger once again! I haven’t had this capability on a smart phone in almost 2 years since my Treo 700P on Verizon died and was replaced under warranty for the 5th time and I switched to a non-smart phone so I could actually make and receive phone calls.

You can also email videos with the Palm Pre but for some reason you are capped at sending videos of no more than 17 seconds (about 10 megabytes), which is very different from the Treo, which allowed you to send and attachment as large as the receiving email system would allow.

The webOS 1.4 update has a few other changes.  The buttons look ‘cooler’ and when you launch any given application, a slightly smaller than full screen image of the application shows up immediately on the screen as if your Pre is doing something, but unfortunately, the actual launch of almost all applications from the point of pushing the button to the point of actually being able to do something with the application seems to be a couple seconds slower.  (Score one for Form over Function!)

All in all, I’m still very happy with my Palm Pre.  Glad Palm finally decided to meet the minimum market standards for a smart phone by adding video.  I could never understand why Palm followed in Apple’s moronic foot steps and decided not to include video on the Pre (a year after Apple made the same mistake).  Regardless, I’m glad video recording is here now, and from my perspective the Palm Pre is now a fully functional smart phone.

Finally!  Palm is finally (almost) going to turn on the video recording and editing capability in Palm Pre’s.  The Pre has been out for a year and they expect to send this out in an over the air update in February.  Sure you might ask why the delay until February.  Well ask away, it was silly to wait this long, no point in expecting rationality at this late stage. 

Palm will be pushing out and over-the-air update to all webOS devices (Pre and Pixi) that will enable video recording and editing without the need to purchase additional hardware. This is a feature that has been sorely lacking on webOS.

The recording feature works nearly identically to that of the iPhone’s on-device video editing tool. It lets users crop a video and reduce the size of the clip. Users can then upload to sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace with a single tap. Uploads will occur the background. Once uploaded, webOS will alert the user and give then the opportunity to send SMS links or MMS messages to the video to their friends.

The update will be free and will be available in February.

Informationweek

Not Really?

There have been several major updates for the Palm Pre since it was launched last summer.  One update made the camera function a bit overly complicated, and another one fixed it.  In general that is rather representative of the 2 steps forward, steps back results that your typical user experiences with Palm Pre’s.  Completely absent still today is any video recording capability in the Palm Pre 1 year after it was announced at CES 2009, and over 6 months after it was launched in the US.  That’s rather extraordinary considering Palm has offered video recording capabilities in Palm devices for about 5 years or more, yet the Palm Pre designed to save the company doesn’t offer this basic standard functionality, following in the Apple iPhone tradition of releasing a very advanced phone with a very noticeable flaw (the same exact flaw no less).

So today, as I went to pick up my phone and make a call, I was call blocked with the news that an update was destined to be downloaded and installed on my phone.  Its been my experience that whenever one of these bad boys is coming down the pipe, NOTHING really works until you bring it in.

So I proceeded to download the update, which I later learned was about 13 mb in size.  I brought it in while at home, where my Sprint network bars on my Pre fluctuate from 0 – 3, even though my wife’s Sprint phone consistently shows 2-4 (not a Palm).  Maybe someone is curving up the bars on her phone, or maybe my Pre gets crappy reception, I don’t know.  I tend to think its partly the update from 1.3.4 and partly the Sprint network, which does not seem to broadcast at a steady strength despite the fact that we are just a few miles from the 4g rollout in Charlotte.

It took about 25 minutes to download, then I got the opportunity to actually ‘install’ it.  That took another 30 minutes.  Ironically, I was helping my wife pull in about 35 updates and one Office Service pack at the same time.  Crazily, the updates and the service pack downloaded faster!

Even though my wifi was turned on on my Pre, it didn’t help speed things up either.

OK, so complaining about the lack of progress (or benchmark maintenance), here’s what you do get with this update.

webOS 1.3.5

Version information

Version: webOS 1.3.5

Release date: 28 December 2009

New applications

NONE

Feature changes to existing applications

App Catalog

• App Catalog significantly improves the application download experience.
• A user can now download multiple applications simultaneously.
• Downloads continue in the background if the user moves away from the download screen.
• A user can manually pause, resume, and cancel downloads.
• A user can also download all available updates for the user’s downloaded applications with a single tap.
• App Catalog automatically resumes downloads in cases where a download was paused because it was interrupted—for example, if a user moves out of network coverage and then moves back into coverage.
• Users can now take advantage of the full storage capacity of the phone for downloading applications. This gives the user more control over how to allocate the phone’s storage space across applications, music, photos, and other media. Downloaded applications are now stored on the phone’s USB drive.
• App Catalog lists search results based on an improved search algorithm.
• Locations from which users can purchase paid apps from App Catalog now include U.S. territories.

Calendar

• In Day view, switching between days happens more quickly.

Date & Time

• When the user has network time zone enabled, a city and country are no longer displayed.

Device Info

• A user can perform a full erase by pressing and holding Sym + the orange/Option key + power for 10 seconds.

Email

• A user can now edit forwarded text for all email account types.
• When the user sets up more than one Yahoo! email account, the account names displayed in Account List view include the associated email address so that the user can distinguish them.
• If an account mailbox is too full to send messages, after the user frees up space in the mailbox on the server, the user can send the messages successfully.
• The default email signature no longer includes the macron over the “e” in “Pre,” so that the product name shows correctly on a recipient’s phone.

Messaging

• If a user deletes a conversation with a contact, new conversations with that contact are now correctly displayed in Conversations view.

Screen & Lock

• When the screen is locked, the time displays in a new font.

Sprint Navigation

• A user can launch Sprint Navigation from an address in an open contact entry in Contacts.

System

• Users can now take advantage of the full storage capacity of the phone for downloading applications. This gives the user more control over how to allocate the phone’s storage space across applications, music, photos, and other media. Downloaded applications are now stored on the phone’s USB drive.
• This update improves battery life in areas of poor wireless network coverage.
• If the user is working in an application that supports landscape mode (such as Web or Videos), notifications now appear at the bottom of the landscape screen.
• After a user signs in to an existing Palm profile, applications the user installed from App Catalog are restored in the background. The user can use other features of the phone while the apps are being restored.
• Swiping to delete a list item that contains a link no longer causes the link to open in the web browser.

Updates

• After taking the 1.3.5 update, users can download future updates over a 2G (1xRTT , GPRS , EDGE ) data connection by opening Updates and tapping Download Now.

Web

• The web browser now supports the display of animated GIFs.
• Audio files with a .3g2 extension play correctly as audio files, not video files.

Security

This release includes a security fix to the dev portal. Credit to Kris Siegal for reporting the issue. Individuals interested in contacting Palm to report suspected security issues can find more information at palm.com/security.

source http://www.precentral.net/webos-135-now-available-download

Palm Pre offers a one time Outlook synchronization with your Palm Pre.  The process to use this one time service, sucks.  I say this not because I have used the service myself, but because I can’t use the service myself. 

Somewhere between receiving the email, jerking around (its slang but the best description) with Gmail contact sync which is possibly the worst contact management system in the world, and then dealing with a new Palm Pre that died after 2 days, I lost the email from Palm that had the magic link that allows you to sync up your Palm Pre to Outlook, once.

There does not appear to be anyway to get that link back again, even though I never used it.  I feel like I have been ripped off a little bit frankly.  I paid $300 + for the Palm and I can’t even get my free ride through Outlook land with it.

There is a service that you can pay for outside of Palm from Chapura, but frankly, I want my freebie(expensive as that was).  Palm’s absolute disregard for customers on this particular area is frankly amazing.  The phone is excellent, can’t say enough good things about it, but with all of the amazing brain talent that went into perfecting this 3G phone, you’d think someone would have been able to call out the turkey that made the three biggest mistakes in the Palm Pre

1. Lack of Outlook sync capability
2. Flaky 1 time sync with outlook which seems to have self destructed (almost literally) in my case
3. Forcing people to use the crappy Gmail contact sync, seriously Google should pay people to be forced to use this!
1. Note the facebook integration kicks butt

There’s that old office joke, its hard to soar like an eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys.  In this case, it seems like the eagles on this project were all tied to a big fat turkey on the ground that was staked to some weird anti outlook dogma.

I’ve never used the iphone nor the iphone 3G.  The reason, I don’t do business with at&t, and I don’t futz with unlocked phones.   My mobile phone karma just sucks too much for me to chance a jail broken phone on a non-standard network.  So today when I was reading this article in PC World about an in depth 2 week comparison of the iphone 3G vs the Palm Pre, I was curious.

People often ask me which is better, and I don’t have a clue because I avoid at&t like a Republican politician avoids remaining faithful with a spouse. 

This review however, seemed to encapsulate all the things I do like and some of the dislikes I have for the Palm Pre.  In charting up these pros and cons a bit, you get a little cross section flavor of where the iPhone 3g is better or in some cases worse.

Here’s My Pros on the Palm Pre

• Its not on at&t nor Verizon – That’s a big one, would have been better if on T-mobile and tmobile were 3g
• At $200 after rebate, the price was right
• It has a keyboard – that’s a big one
• Its fast
• It does email very very well
• The camera is excellent – major point its fast and takes great pictures
• It is small and fits in my pocket very comfortably – another big point
• The MP3 Player sounds good (via earbuds)
• Surfs the net both real and mobile well
• Touch screen works great
• I can type easily on the phone with one hand, and after 2 weeks almost without looking most of the time
• Love the Facebook, LinkedIn, Pandora, Tweed(twitter client) apps, and the ability to easily use them at the same time pretty much

For me these particular Pros out weigh the following Cons, you might consider the merit of some of these items for yourself. and this is also one of the reasons why I liked that PC World article, it did a good job of putting this in context

Here’s my cons on the Palm Pre

• The plug for the charging cord/ usb connection is a pain in the ass to open
• There is no micro SD card slot – used to be very important when I had a treo, so far its a non-issue
• The phone can’t record video – that’s a big point for me, but counting on a firmware upgrade or future ap upgrade
• It really likes to sync with Gmail and Gmail Contacts – Gmail Contacts is a terribly clunky technology, to put it in my heritage midwest vernacular, Gmail Contacts is piss poor  – big thing, note the Android uses the same crap
• The battery drains kind of fast – medium issue
• Still looking for a good nerd holster – little thing
• The power button is flaky – small thing, rarely turn it off
• The re-awaken button is the power button and also flakey – a medium issue
• The rebate mail in was a bit of a pain – Almost missed the deadline and lost $100
• Doesn’t support Audible yet – for this one I blame both Palm and Audible.  Palm should have had this ready out of the box, but Audible’s format (drm stuff) is a pain too.  I’m now solving this problem by removing the DRM protection from my audio books, no chains for me please
  • Solution –> Convert Audible files to normal mp3 files using SoundTaxi Platinum cost $19.95 (they do offer a –> download link for exe file -> free trial download but it only converts the first 90 seconds, still it does prove that it works before you buy.
  • Note. I paid an additional $10 for the pro version to run more files at the same time.  After the fact, I’d just recommend the $20 version. 
• Palm Tech Support pretty much sucked when my first Palm Pre died
• If you want to transfer your files through a music player, then you are stuck with itunes, which is one of Apple’s worst interfaces and products – you can however just transfer files to your Pre like its a hard drive

From a Palm Pre perspective, I found this test to be very similar to my own results.  However, I think the lady using the Pre might have pushed a couple buttons wrong on the browser test, which might have slowed her down even more.

I am still stunned every time I use the camera.  The Palm Pre is actually faster than my crappy Kodak 10 mp camera with HD.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE

It is now 7:50 PM about 7 hours after my first Palm Pre died.  After much hassle (see below) my original Sprint store was able to replace my first dead Palm Pre with a brand new Palm Pre, which I’m calling, Palm Pre #2.

I must say that once I turned on Palm Pre #2, my new Palm profile setup for Palm Pre #1, immediately kicked in & started updating Palm Pre #2 with all my email address configurations (cool!) & my Google GMAIL contact info (Gmail contacts suck, but this did pull them in).  My Facebook settings did not work quite so well, but after entering my password all was well with Facebook too.

My Palm Pre #2 came with firmware version Palm webOS 1.0.2.  I’m not going to update to 1.0.3 nor 1.0.4 anytime soon, because I have no idea what killed PP#1 and can’t afford to waste more time if PP#2 dies on me.

UPDATE

I started this article to chronicle a couple important issues with my Palm Pre.  The second was apparently a terminal condition for my phone, and as I write this update, I’m trying to find the fastest way to replace my 3 day old phone.  Palm phone support kept me on the phone for about 146 minutes through 4 dropped calls, and ultimately told me they would call me back, maybe by tomorrow morning. 

Below is the original article and below that is the stream of twitter comments I made while on the phone with Palm for far too long.

In general I am extremely unhappy happy with my new Palm Pre.  I upgraded from the G1 to the Palm Pre last week, and this is a much much better phone on more levels that I’ll tick off here.  In the last 2 days, day 2 & 3 of my ownership I have noticed 2 problems that are somewhat troubling.  They have not yet repeated themselves, but I wanted to mention them as I document my initial experiences with the Palm Pre.

The first happened when I attempted to go into camera mode.  I tapped the camera application and instead of the rapid fire transition to camera, a function that has been amazingly fast thus far, the application seemed to hang as it started up.  I was unable to take a picture as the viewer never showed up on the screen.  It took some effort to close the application as well, which kept going from full screen to a tab / page view.  Finally it ended and no more issues since (that happened yesterday).

The second was a death sentence apparentlymore problematic.  I missed a call that went to voice mail.  I tapped the notification at the bottom of the screen indicating the voice mail existed, it dialed my voice mail and then my screen went black.  Nothing I could do could awaken the screen.  The voice mail played, but I could not tap any buttons or work the voice menu.  The speaker worked but the screen and the qwerty keyboard were both dead.  I attempted to power down the phone, but that button was dead also, so was the volume button.

So mid stuck-call, I had to figure out how to remove the battery cover, something not mentioned in the users guide that I could see. 

It involves pushing a button at the bottom of the phone then plying the back cover off despite the fact that it bent in an odd way that made me fear the cover would break.  Fortunately it did not break and the slight bend did not alter the shape of the cover permanently.

Then I pulled on the plastic tab to remove the battery.  That also was an unintuitive experience with no guide. 

Tip pull away from phone, not down nor up, the plastic tab is NOT attached to the battery, just used to lever the battery out.

Super Troubling Palm Pre Failure

After I reset the device, I attempted to dial my voice mail again.  All the fuss with the phone made it impossible to get my message.  When I went to the keypad and hit the voice mail button again, my screen and keypad went dead AGAIN!

This time the voice mail system hung up on me after it timed out.  Even after it hung up, my phone was still dead, so I removed the battery again to reset the phone.

Question – Is there a reset button on the Palm Pre?  Haven’t found it yet, but I hope so! Partial Answer – apparently there is, but it deletes lots of information from the device, still do not know where it is.

In the comments section of this Engadget article you’ll find some other complaints from other users

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/06/07/palm-pre-trouble-roundup/

Now, keep in mind the restarting of the Pre takes about 1 minute and 45 seconds.  This is normally not a big issue, because I usually only restart it once a day, if that, but having to restart it twice in a 10 minute period, well. it gave me the time to write this silly 550+ word article.

Here’s  a reverse order run down of my twitter accounting of what happened when my Palm Pre died a partial Death

• ended 147 minutes w @Palm support-my 3 day old dead Palm Pre, still does not work-Tier III may call me back by tomorrow @Sprint15 minutes ago from web

• @Palm Tier II guy came back told me Tier III might call me back by tomorrow (trying to stay calm) my dead Palm Pre fm @sprint25 minutes ago from web

• been on hold now 37 min to get to @Palm Tier III support after working with Tier I & II for 98 minutes for my dead Palm Pre31 minutes ago from web

• The static filled, broken nasty hold music that @Palm plays for Tier I, II, & III support is grating on me while staring @ my dead Palm Pre38 minutes ago from web

• on hold 10 minutes awaiting Tier II trsfr to Tier III fm @Palm after waiting 13 minutes for tier I to Tier II trsft for my dead Palm Pre42 minutes ago from web

• @gtowna not getting any work done here, fooling with a dead Palm Pre and @Palm support about time to get a beer or 4about 1 hour ago from web in reply to gtowna

• If this were SnowCrash Pizza delivery instead of Palm Pre smart phones, I’d own Uncle Enzo’s Ass by now @Palm @Sprint #idiocracyabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm tier II is now putting me on hold to connect me to @Palm Tier III at 17:13 of 4th call- on phone w @Palm 114 minutes so far todayabout 1 hour ago from web

• back on the line with the latest tier II service specialist, only a 13 minute wait to get to him from tier I @Palm in re: my Dead Palm Preabout 1 hour ago from web

• @learningSEO before my Palm Pre died, I would have DEFINITELY recommended it, having some doubts now that @Palm can’t seem to fix it . . . .3 minutes ago from web in reply to learningSEO

• @Palm Tier I is putting me on hold for Tier II so Tier II can put me on hold & refer me to Tier III for my Dead Palm Pre @sprint5 minutes ago from web

• @sprintcare thx for the offer, just sent you an email, calling @Palm tier II back now after firmware 1.0.4 install completed – Pre dead10 minutes ago from web in reply to sprintcare

• Installing firmware upgrade 1.0.4 for my dead Palm Pre fm @Palm @Sprint – 2 chk 4 updates type U P then click Updates on your Palm Pre19 minutes ago from web

• figures 30 sec after @Palm hangs up 1.0.4 dwnld finishes, hope this fixes my dead Palm Pre got calls to make, business to salvage @sprint21 minutes ago from web

• 3rd call to re-re-escalation rep, tier II, ended after 43 minutes-no resolution 4 @Palm Pre death-don’t call us we’ll call you ahmm @Sprint23 minutes ago from web

• @Palm escalated representative is now telling me to just wait an hour and see if it works later dead Palm Pre 28 minutes ago from web

• @JGoldsborough thx 4 quest, Yes, called them 1st, told me to return Palm Pre to store, but store has few/no replacements, trying to fix 1st33 minutes ago from web in reply to JGoldsborough

• Put my Pre into airplane mode to turn off @Sprint forcing wifi which is on, but download still seems to be stuck coming fm @Palm35 minutes ago from web

• @WarrenWhitlock Yes I have a Pre @Sprint is telling me to return it, on phone with @Palm escalated service rep -was great phone till it died38 minutes ago from web in reply to WarrenWhitlock

• download of Palm Pre firmware 1.0.4 fm @Palm failed while on phone with re-re-escalated tech support40 minutes ago from web

• after over an hour on phone w @Palm they now have me checking for firmware updates, per my mention I’m on old version @Sprint42 minutes ago from web

• while on hold for the last 20 minutes (3rd call w @Palm) Learned there is Palm Pre firmware upgrade 1.0.4-wonder if it can be pushed to me?about 1 hour ago from web

• Got to the re-re-escalated rep-kate, she didn’t read the case notes, wanted me to start fm begining -nonstarter- she’s now reading the notesabout 1 hour ago from web

• Apparently @Palm ’s Alex was also disconnected when talking to re-escalation team & so I’m getting re-re-escalated now-time for Idiocracyabout 1 hour ago from web

• apparently rebooting a Palm Pre really drains the battery, having to recharge while on hold for @Palm re-escalation of call – 15 Pre crashesabout 1 hour ago from web

• apparently tier 1 @Palm person-alex after putting me on hold has to re-escalate my call I can’t just call back & be escalated post drop callabout 1 hour ago from web

• just confirmed that my Palm Pre crashes when making calls whether wifi is turned off or on (crashes either way) @Palm @Sprintabout 1 hour ago from web

• back on hold with @Palm as they track down my last service repabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm Like yourself, I am recording these calls as well for quality improvement purposesabout 1 hour ago from web

• OK, refill of coke zero, choc chip cookie, time to call @Palm back after dropped call to get my Palm Pre fixed – maybe I s/become a Luditeabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm dropped my call on the other line while trying to call my
  mobile to see if it would kill my Palm Pre again- Deep Breath Aaaahhhhmm Ahmabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm is calling me now to figure out why my Palm Pre crashes (screen keyboard become unresponsive during calls) @Sprintabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm has me back on hold while Palm Pre boots up after crash – Speed tests show Palm Pre takes 1:45+ to turn on http://bit.ly/WnLlzabout 1 hour ago from web

my Palm Pre dies when i dial phone numbers from the qwerty keyboard too @Palm @Sprint Palm Support going 2 try calling me nextabout 1 hour ago from web

@Palm transferred me to a higher level specialist, who has me on hold while reading case notes from previous specialist #PalmPreDeadScreenabout 1 hour ago from web

@cartermason had great experiences w Treo on tmobile but Treo on Verizon was awful-> Verizon loaded too much crapware & killed the phoneabout 2 hours ago from web in reply to cartermason

Back on hold with @Palm re my Palm Pre that dies whenever it makes a call on @Sprint awaiting transfer to higher level of supportabout 2 hours ago from web

Palm just dropped my call while transferring me to higher level of support for my Palm Pre Crash, hope I don’t have to go through this againabout 2 hours ago from web

@ldbaldwin My Palm Pre was awesome up until today. I hope they can fix it, I do want to keep it.about 2 hours ago from web in reply to ldbaldwin

getting escalated to higher level of Palm support for my failing Palm Preabout 2 hours ago from web

Deleted all my downloaded aps on my Palm Pre per Palm but the phone still crashes when I call my voice mailabout 2 hours ago from web

My new Palm Pre crashed again while on phone w Palm support-recalling smug Palm Developer @CES He smirked at reset button question about 2 hours ago from web

on the phone with Palm about my dying Palm Pre, Sprint told me to returnabout 2 hours ago from web

@thepete lol I AM THE IPHONE KILLER!!!! Suspect if I bought an iPhone 3Gs it would go up like white phosphorousabout 2 hours ago from web in reply to thepete

Sprint doesn’t know how to fix my Palm Pre, suggested I return the phone to the store. Odds of store having replacement Pre VERY LOW.about 2 hours ago from web

I truly have the worst phone karma in the world 5 Treos on Verizon -> all dead, 1 G1 on tmobile -> won’t sync/slow, Palm Pre dying next?about 2 hours ago from web

calling sprint, I think my 3 day old Palm Pre might be half dead (screen and keyboard die when I make calls)

Does the Palm Pre support Audible.com?

So far I don’t know but think it should work.  I was told that the Pre supported Audible at CES in January. 

When I look on Audible, it doesn’t list Palm as a brand, but if you go to PDA, you will find PalmOS listed.  But the PalmOS is not the same as the Palm WebOS I believe, and I just don’t know yet, but after I get this slow itunes thing figured out, I’ll be testing Audible next.

I did some checking on PreCentral and the long and the short of the story from the long forum thread is that

1. the Palm Pre and Audible do not currently support each other.  
2. There is an emulator that allows you to run the old Palm OS on your Pre, but that does not work with Audible either for many users
   1. I saw a couple users that were able to get this to work, but its the activation required by Audible Manager that causes this to fail for most users, plus the emulator known as ‘Classic’ costs $29.95.  If you have palm apps already, you may want to plunk down $30, if you are just looking for an Audible solution skip to step 4, which will save you $10 and make all of your audible books functional on any device that plays mp3 files.
3. The theory that linking Audible to your itunes might make it work, does NOT work
4. The only workaround that I found in the forums that DOES currently work is converting your Audible files to normal mp3 files using SoundTaxi Platinum cost $19.95 (they do offer a –> download link for exe file -> free trial download but it only converts the first 90 seconds, still it does prove that it works before you buy.  I’ve tried a few programs like this in the past that did not work/convert at all, so I was happy to see that this program DOES work.  )

SoundTaxi Platinum CAN convert an Audible .aa format to mp3 so that it can then be played on any of your devices.

It also converts the following formats

Convert your audio and video at one click with an easy to use software created with you in mind. The SoundTaxi simple and intuitive design will let you concetrate on your music and movies, instead of technical details.
Easily convert DRM protected music and movie files and various audio/video files to unprotected MP3, MPEG4, CD,
iPod and other MP3 player file formats at high speed and CD quality – legally.
SoundTaxi unprotects and converts music and movie files from:

* iTunes
* Napster
* Zune
* Yahoo Music
* MusicMatch
* MSNMusic
* MusicLoad
* MTV / urge
* MusicNow
* BuyMusic
* AOL Music
* Virgin Digital
* Sony Connect
* Beon Music
* Peer Impact
* iMusica
* Rhapsody
* Wal-Mart
* AOL MusicNow
* Audible
* connect-europe
* akuma
* Listen JP
* ongen
* hmv
* Bigpond Music
* Soundbuzz
* digirama
* imusica
* cdigix
* cingular mMode
* puretracks
* metro tunes
* fnac

UPDATE

Forgot to include the final source from Precentral that helped get me in the right direction, it came from user quest1772, who stated

I called audible and they assured me they were working on it and expected the app should come out in about two months. for the short term I bought ‘soundtaxi‘ and converted a few books to mp3’s (it takes as long as the track is to convert). This creates a 6 hour mp3 with no bookmarks but the fast forward goes really fast when you hold it down so I can get to where I was in less than a minute, the only problem is now I have to remember where I was or leave the music app open.
edit: also tried the classic+audible air route and crashed my phone. i wouldn’t say that is a viable option unless i did it wrong

Returning the G1 for the Pre

Over the last couple weeks I have tried to use the G1 sometimes known as the g-phone, google phone, or the first phone running on the android OS from t-mobile.  All in all, the phone was not that great in the performance (speed) department and contact management, specifically imports/export functionality from Outlook or any desktop application through gmail to the phone was TERRIBLE. 

The available aps for the G1 were fantastic, and the phone did grow on me, even after I decided to return it, but the contact management issues were a non-starter, the device slowness moving from ap to ap, and the very poor camera (shutter speed terrible and the button didn’t really work right when you pushed it to click a picture) were all serious issues that I could not look past.

So instead, I picked up service from Sprint and got a Palm Pre.  (at&t is not an option for me because they stole $1,000 from me in 2000 and I won’t do business with them ever again, if I can help it).

The Palm Pre out of the box was a great experience.  Connections have been much much easier to manage, and I’m very very impressed by many features of this smaller, lighter phone with a keyboard that I can type on with one hand if I choose (something that was not an option with the G1).

Battery ‘Life’ – Battery Optimization Tips

When I first got my Pre it was half charged out of the box.  I was porting a phone number from T-Mobile over to Sprint and the activation was delayed by about 5 hours (can take up to 72 hours).  Anyway during that time the phone was cycling through a 5, 3, 5, 3 activation attempt cycle.  After it activated, I was using it heavily to get things set up.  Long story short, the battery didn’t seem very strong out of the box.

I let it charge all night long, and will see how it does now that it has reached full.  That said, having talked to one of the engineers/product designers at CES, I was given the distinct impression that this would be a device that needs regular if not constant charging.  So I also went out looking for some tips on how to improve the battery life, by optimizing some settings.

I found 3 tips that seemed relevant to me.  The first two are below:

Turn on Wi-Fi. Sounds unintuitive, right? Well, the Pre doesn’t have the greatest Sprint reception of anything we’ve ever tested, and it actually has a relatively power-efficient Wi-Fi radio. When the Pre’s Wi-Fi is running, it uses Wi-Fi rather than 3G to make Internet connections. So connecting via Wi-Fi saves battery rather than wasting it.
Change your e-mail settings. By tapping on the upper left corner of the screen in the e-mail program, you can pop down a menu that lets you change e-mail preferences. For accounts where you get relatively little mail, set them to push. But for accounts where you get an e-mail every five minutes or more often, set them to check every 15 minutes. That will save battery.

Source ExtremeTech.com

The third I found in a forum on Pre’s and it recommends turning off the GPS locator when you are not using the GPS functionality.  Thing is I have no idea where to do that! 

So after I finish this quick article, that will be one of the next things I look for, along with an application for the Pre that takes screen shots!