When we weren’t accidentally spotting GSM SIM cards in the Palm Pre, we were getting a closer look at its Synergy functionality. Synergy is Palm’s answer to the multiple contacts lists, address books and schedules, bringing together multiple Exchange Active Sync accounts, GMail and Google Calendar, among other things, and presenting them in one hybrid interface. Today we want to share some video and details of the Pre calendar app from our 1-on-1 briefing with Palm.
The video we’ve already seen recently showed the concertina-style collapsing of empty calendar space; a single tap opens it up, with the total free time always displayed. You can view all of the appointments across multiple calendars, or filter out all but one: time slots occupied in other calendars are subtly greyed-out to avoid clashes.
What the Pre’s calendar can’t do right now is enter a single new calendar entry to multiple schedules simultaneously. That is, you can type in a new appointment – either to your default calendar or by selecting any other you sync with – but you can’t select multiple calendars to put that same appointment into. That would be a useful function if you’re adding, say, a team meeting to your Exchange calendar but also to a group Google Calendar. According to Palm, it’s a feature they’ve considered but they’re still trying to figure out the best way to present the GUI without detracting from the Pre’s usability.
You’re also unable to change the color coding that the different calendars are assigned – Palm apparently tried adding the functionality in an earlier build, but it got too complicated to manage – and as with contacts two-way sync is only possible with clients – such as Exchange and Google Calendar – that support that. Palm did address the question of how cloud data is handled when you’re out of network range – in airplane mode, for instance: the Pre caches important data, such as schedules, locally, based on its own prioritization of what might be important (Palm didn’t expand on how it did that; it could be as straightforward as using as much free space as is available to copy as many appointments as possible). Any changes made when out of network coverage are cached and synchronized once you’re back connected to the cloud.
All the details – at least, those Palm could show us – are in the video. We’ll also have more footage from our live Palm Pre demos at Mobile World Congress over the next few days; believe us when we say this is one very slick handset.
