There’s been a lot of talk around town… or the blogosphere… or the web… or the internet… or my apartment, whatever… about what Contacts and Synergy will really mean to the Pre owner. While I’m not going to be able to answer all your questions with this news item and these screenshots, I can at least get you a little closer to understanding what it will be like. With that in mind, let’s dive in and meet your Contacts app on the Pre.
The first time you launch your Contact app, you will find yourself at a screen like the one below where you can link up with Google, FaceBook, or a Microsoft Exchange Server to populate your contacts list.
Let’s set up our Google account, shall we?
A quick sync later, your list is populated by all the contacts from your different cloud accounts and it looks like this:
If you need to add a contact, not already found on the list, tap that bottom left button and an empty contact form will appear for you to fill out:
The application menu, accessed by tapping “Contacts” up at the top left, looks like this:
If you tap on the “Preferences & Accounts” menu item, you get to tweak out some things on this screen:
Looks to be pretty standard stuff, what sets it apart is the “Synergy” integration between accounts and how effortless the entire thing seems to be. And that, children, concludes our fairy tale… as always, remember to drive safe, buckle up, and flip off the moron who cut you off in traffic! Good night!
18 Comments, Comment or Ping
jonathan
Thank you but I really wanted to see if there were options to filter who makes it into your contact list from Facebook, I don’t want them all in there!
But once again, amazing, thank you so much Palm Goon.
May 23rd, 2009
Arsen
Looks good.
Question:
I have all my contacts on my PC in Thunderbird, mostly – they are not online or synced with anything. Can I still transfer my contacts to the Pre? Will the Pre work with offline Address Books? And how are the contacts handled when I am using an old Palm device?
May 23rd, 2009
jmangotti
i like how someone is named JM… my name in that contacts list.. this is pretty sweet cause not many people go by jm, unlike maria or mary
May 23rd, 2009
loocas
i’m in the same boat too. i have all my contacts offline in apple addressbook, which i synch w/my treo using mark/space.
i’ve heard that there will be a one-time transfer process that happens initially to get the info on to the pre and then backed up in the cloud somewhere. but then what happens later on for new contacts that i add to address book on my computer?
May 23rd, 2009
Angel
Don’t you guys understand? After the initial setup, your contacts will be backed up to the cloud? Palm and pretty much everyone are really pushing the whole concept the cloud. Whether its through google, facebook, and any other third party cloud like windows live, or myspace, your contacts will eventually be saved up in the cloud, which is basically the internet.
-sigh-
Seriously. Gadget like the palm pre will be wasted on people won’t even know how powerful this phone could be.
May 23rd, 2009
kindaskimpy
@jmangotti, that is in fact you on there. you’re on my facebook so there you are on my contacts.
@loocas and @arsen, i share your concern. always have from the very beginning but rest assured, it’s all but confirmed now that Mark/Space is working on a desktop sync solution for us. Also there will be a first time only utility from Palm to get your info from your computer on your phone. Plus, once you join the cloud, you’ll love it i’m sure… your address book contacts on your mac can be set up to sync with google contacts… and google contacts with your Pre… so you see, constant updates all the time back and forth between your device, the cloud, and computer.
May 23rd, 2009
loocas
@angel
it’s not that i don’t understand the cloud. it’s that i *don’t* use facebook, as a personal choice. i have and do use gmail but not as my main personal email account, which is on my own domain and thus stored offline.
May 24th, 2009
youssef
Can’t you just get your contacts from your Sim card and then it will go onto facebook and myspace, twitter etc and get there info instead of getting them from gmail and facebook at the start cause i dont no half the people i have on facebook or myspace and i dont no any1 from twitter and gmail has no contacts. so yh my initial question was Can’t you just get your contacts from your Sim card and then it will go onto facebook and myspace, twitter etc?
May 24th, 2009
Reality
@angel
Gee, you’re so smart yet so naive. Why can’t you understand that everyone isn’t necessarily keen on the idea of putting all of their info out in the cloud 24/7? Think about how much data Palm will have from everyone who gets the Pre. For a company that is as close to going out of business as they are, that’s a lot of info to sell off to the highest bidders when it come time to shut the doors.
I’m sure the fine print in the acceptance agreement will put your mind at ease…
May 24th, 2009
xShadow
Why is the email ilovemyiphone@gmail? lol
May 24th, 2009
mikemick
Few questions I had were, how often is the device synced to your cloud contacts? Is there a timed-interval,or do they update your local data everytime you open up the contacts app?
Also, for some of the people concerned above, it has been mentioned elsewhere that the Sprint store can setup your initial contact list for you . I’m not sure how in-depth their complimentary 1st time sync service is, but it might be worth checking out for some of you guys.
May 24th, 2009
printergirl
Any clue if this will work with contacts that are hosted on gmail, but with google apps, using our company’s domain? i seem to have problems with a lot of thing that are gmail compatible, because we us google apps, but our login address is at our domain.com, not gmail.com.
May 24th, 2009
loocas
@mikemick that’s a great question! i’d like to know as well. i’ve read/heard that the autobackup happens daily, but i haven’t read or heard anything about data synching interval for normal data entry/inputs.
May 24th, 2009
David
Google Contacts uses a single field to store the entire address as opposed to the discrete fields (street, city, state, …) that PalmOS and most PIMs use. How does WebOS do it? If WebOS does discrete fields, how does sync-ing (synergy-ing ?) work with Google?
Google Contacts was recently updated to include new fields such as “birthday”. Will these new fields sync to WebOS?
May 26th, 2009
serpentor
Can I ask that people not use Sprint to setup their contacts at the store, please. There’s going to be tons of people in line, so let’s just get in and get out as quickly as possible!
May 26th, 2009
rishio
Hey Printergirl,
Did you get an answer to your question. I have the same exact issue..
May 26th, 2009
IGoDwnTwn
What about yahoo?…Can I add that account?….not everybody has Gmail or an Exchange server….
May 31st, 2009
Brett
Do profile pictures from your gmail account download?
May 31st, 2009
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