Comments about Palm Pre comments

I intended to post this yesterday but was having too much fun watching AC and PreSmith slug it out over the 'satisfied' and 'very satisfied' Palm Pre users.

I thought I'd address a couple points commenters left in the previous post about the Pre, but it's taken a little while to get answers on everything.

First, let me say I love the comments and with few exceptions feel that they really contribute to news, features, review and blog posts. They're passionate and (mostly) civil and show a broad range of opinion and knowledge. I also think it's important that Globe staffers -- reporters and editors -- get involved in comments, though time is a big factor and it's tough to keep up with a string of back-and-forths all day long as other things pile up.

And I see the site has been updated recently and staff comments now jump out in BRIGHT RED! (Who came up with that one?)

Invariably, I find consumer-product reviews generate a lot of feedback from readers. Maybe not as much as politics or other tech-related subjects like copyright and cellphone rates, but when it comes to cameras and phones and computers, people love to share their opinions and, ahem, point out perceived flaws in the coverage.

I feel that if someone takes the time to put up something thoughtful, no matter how critical, they deserve a response. The only issue I face is staying on top of them.

So in that vein:

mcsheffrey, who according to his profile page left his first-ever comment on the Globe site, suggested a few corrections in the post:

First, the BlackBerry does let you run multiple apps simultaneously. It sounds like Palm has a cool way of getting to them, but if you hit ALT and the back button on any BlackBerry you'll see all of your open apps.

Mcsheffrey is right, though there's a wrinkle -- I wrote that with a BlackBerry you have to go back to the desktop to launch or re-launch an app. Good call. I should have broken the two up. In most cases, you have to go back to the desktop to launch an app but mcsheffrey is right in that you can scroll through apps already launched. The Pre interface is a little different in that you can cycle through open apps and you don't see the default apps like you do on a BB. The BB also doesn't break out web shortcuts such as the Weather Network, Blue Jays.com or MLB.com, whereas with the Pre, each browser page is a separate "card" -- similar to Safari on the iPhone.

Second, I've never had a problem importing all of my contacts to my BlackBerry from Outlook or GMail, and I was given the option of importing my Facebook contacts too when I installed the BlackBerry Facebook app.

Again, good call, with a wrinkle. While most phones allow you to import your Gmail,, Outlook, Exchange and certain Facebook contacts, the Pre's method of merging everything into one card was pretty seamless, which was the point I was trying to make. Regarding the Facebook app for the BlackBerry, you can merge contacts if they exist on your BlackBerry but you can't currently import all of your FB friends into your BB contacts. I'll use an example -- my buddy Matt Hartley, now with the NatPost, is in my BB contacts and I've synced to his FB profile. In my contacts I see his bio pic and email addresses. On the Pre, the sync brings in his email and phone numbers and shows his Google Talk connectivity. But more to the point, the sync brought in all of my FB friends who were not already in my phone's contact list. So if you have 10 contacts in your phone who happen to have FB profiles and you have 40 FB friends, your phone will merge the 10 names that exist on both places. The Pre sync brings in all 40 FB friends and either merges with existing contacts or creates new contacts. That's what I found pretty cool.

Last, the BlackBerry that you're comparing to is at a much lower price point than the Pre...which really does matter to most people (although you do mention the Bold).

This is true, but I didn't really get into price and value, though it would be a good subject. Also, the more expensive BlackBerry's generally have the same core functionality in relation to the functions I mentioned in the original post -- sync, flipping apps and universal search, the whole point of which was to highlight a few things about the Pre that are done differently and IMHO pretty well.

Floating Polar Bear, who suggest it's a good thing I'm not the last word in technology, writes:

Great that you like the Palm. Enjoy. Just don't compare as it is pointless. Devices are meant to meet indvidual (sic) needs and yours and mine are not the same.

I wholeheartedly agree that devices are meant to meet individual needs (if anyone ever asks me what they should be looking at, my first question is always, "what do you do with your phone now.") and think I the first-person perspective and the fact that I mention several times that the Pre doesn't beat the iPhone's multimedia nor a BlackBerry's e-mailing sort of conveyed those ideas, too.

WYSIWYG2 follows a similar theme and writes:

What I find inconsistent about your article is you are comparing apples to oranges. You compare the apple (no pun intended) to the blackberry, and then to the pre. Yet you have completely skipped the only other Windows Mobile based device, the htc touch pro 1 and 2.

WYSIWYG2 goes on to argue:

The HTC is in my opinion the best thing to happen to cell phones in a long time, the reason compatibility. The device is already a windows based device, meaning all you have to do is plug them in with a standard USB cord and your pc will pic it up.

I admit my negligence. I have never having tried an HTC Touch Pro. While I don't discount your preference at all, I believe that consumers have pretty well established there are currently two heavyweight contenders in the supersmartphone category and they're made by RIM and Apple. I think market share breakdown supports that. Because the Pre was the subject of the post, I elected to compare it to the two reigning heavyweights.

AC, who waged an epic battle with PreSmith in the comments section (and has no idea that I'm a huge baseball fan), originally criticized my failure to write about apps:

The failure to speak to the advantages of the App Store really shows the bias (or sheer ignorance) in this blog. Just for example, run MLB 09 where you can watch thousands of MLB games live on your phone, Navigon's GPS, The New York Times, Open Table, and Public Radio on your iPhone and then go back to the Pre. And that's just five of the over sixty thousand apps that are available.

So you can scroll between 12 apps with a Pre or you can have access to over 60,000 apps with an iPhone--even if one were to argue that 90 percent of them are "not for you," that leaves over six hundred apps that are for you. You might want to build that rather significant point of difference into your next review.

While AC was quick with the criticism, I wonder if he read the second last paragraph of the post, which highlighting the fact that a) the Palm app store is anemic as compared to Apple's and b) that would be the subject of a forthcoming post. Don't know what else to add about that.

marc*.* pointed out that the cellphone review failed to mention something sort of important:

... can you tell us how good the call quality is and how the battery life is? Some of us actually use these things to talk to people!!

Emphatic use of double exclamation marks notwithstanding, good point. That could be a post as well. In short, the device's connectivity seems good, but it's hard to separate a device from the network to which it connects -- in this case Bell's. While my BB is on the Bell network, my personal phone is a Rogers phone and I find very little difference between the two unless I'm travelling in northern Saskatchewan. And re: battery life, I find phones generally never have enough juice. I plug all of my devices in at work and at home and find they run out on trips far too quickly. I'll look into comparisons, though.

Ottawa Mark and AC, both brought up the issue of disclose, and I admit this is the comment that provoked the most thought over the weekend.

Considering that this is a Globe and Mail column and the Globe is part of the same media group as Bell (which is the exclusive carrier of the Pre), a little disclosure is warranted! (Wiht 54 thumbs up and 0 thumbs down!)

And AC wrote:

It just so happens that Mike is getting paid to do this: more specifically, by a company that's owned by the company that's launching the Pre. Can you say full disclosure?

I don't think there's anything a journalist hates more than to have their integrity questioned. It rubs against my sense of professionalism and service to the reader and I often find comments that suggest there's some kind of hidden agenda are paranoid and baseless. However, it's not like the media has earned, or at least maintained, the lofty status they/it/we once had when it comes to balance and truthiness. I also firmly believe that one way the web contributes to better journalism is that it's easier to be transparent.

In this case -- a Globe editor (cause that's what I am -- the blogging is part time) writes about the Pre, which will be launching on the Bell network. Is there a conflict there? What sort of disclosure is necessary?

For the record, BCE Inc. owns 20% 15% of CTVGlobemedia, which owns the Globe. Other shareholders include the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan ( 20% 25%), Torstar, which published the Toronto Star (20%) and the Thomson family through their holding company, Woodbridge (40%).

I asked around and generally the newspaper doesn't print disclosures notices unless the story for some reason involves BCE's minority stake in the company (or others shareholder's minority stake, for that matter). The Globe also has an independent auditor evaluate if reporters' and editors' stock portfolios conflict with their beats (which mine don't. I own no media or technology stocks).

So there's a dilemma with this one. I don't want to dismiss it, because it rubs against my idea of transparency, but also don't think a series of Palm Pre posts, nor for that matter posts or reviews about Bell competitors (no calls for disclose on our iPhone coverage), warrant a notice. And, honestly, I believe Ottawa Mark and AC's comments were somewhat self-serving to their arguments and preferences. I wonder if they'd have brought it up if I'd ripped the Pre in favour of the iPhone or Bold. (To that point, by the way, I go back to the second last graf of the original post where I outline the Pre's limitations and write that I'll be discussing them at length further, hopefully by Thursday, with a full review next week outlining all the good and not-so-good).

Anyway, comment away. I'll jump in when I can. Cheers and thanks for reading.