Google iCal Support Stinks on Ice

Google Calendar's iCal feed support is bad...there...I've said it. The emperor has no clothes. My iCal feeds regularly take 24-36 hours to refresh. Its been this way for months. That's simply not good enough in my "change by the minute" life.

I'm not the only one saying it as witnessed by the growing unrest in their support discussions...just do a quick query for "ical refresh". Google knows its an issue as noted in this "understated" FAQ in Google's Calendar Support Pages:

"Currently, calendar feeds are automatically updated by Google Calendar every few hours. We understand that some users want to have the ability to refresh the calendars they added manually and we are exploring various ways to enable this. If the calendar you're subscribing to using Google Calendar isn't refreshed after 24 hours, please send us the calendar address and the detail of the problem so that we can investigate. "

Every few hours is tough to take. 24 hours before you think this is a problem? Really? That's laughable. Even worse, its a silent failure. There's no last updated info available. I have to go to each subscribed calendar to see if Google is accurate. If I have to do that then what's the point? And it's likely that some users don't even realize there's a problem until its too late.

Google, if you want me to take you seriously and depend on your services as the focal point for my life then this HAS to get fixed. Google centric phones with this kind of backend calendar support don't deserve the consumer's support yet either. Many Google-centric phone buyers (G1, Hero, Droid, even Palm Pre to some extent) are finding this out too late to do anything about it.

Things my Palm Pre does Wrong

Updated: Some things have been fixed along the way :)

My personal list of things my Palm Pre does not get right.

WRONG!!!!!
No Voice Dial
Treo Pro...press the bluetooth button on my earpiece and speak.
Pre...slide up, enter PIN number, open dialer or hope I have PhotoContacts open, type select...bah! not a good situation in the car. I literally have to pull over or just avoid calls in the car. What a waste of time.
Cannot select the amount of time to snooze an alarm
5 minute snooze? Really? Flippin' annoying when I need to remind myself to get going somewhere and hour prior but need that 5 minute warning just before the same event.
UPDATE: Preware and a patch fixes this one thank you. But it still should be built in functionality.
No categories on anything
just plain dumb to regress like this, Palm OS did it
No "Today" screen"
Good lord do I miss this from WinMo...soooooo handy!
Tasks app is so simplistic its unusable
The basic app in Palm OS and even WinMo is infinitely more ususable than this. Was this a complete after thought?
UPDATE: The stock app is still grim but there are some useful Toodledo based apps that show promise. Done! in particular is headed in the right direction.
Application Space Limit
Really? Hundreds of apps available through the official catalog including some really good ones that I have kept installed. And now I am done. I can't install any more because Palm decided apps should live in a relatively tiny chunk of partitioned memory. So sorry app developers, would love to buy your stuff but I can't buy what I can't install.
UPDATE: Fixed by Palm, thanks!
3 Page App Launcher Limit
I now have a multitude of little apps that can do good (or fun) things. Unfortunately I have to wedge them into one of 3 available App Launcher pages. Was it that hard to perfect and release an "add a page" function? Homebrewers had it done in about 12 seconds.
UPDATE: Easy enough via Preware and a patch but Palm should just support it out of the box.


REALLY WRONG and BAD!!!
Appointments added to Pre do not show up in Outlook via Exchange
started with 1.3.1. simply unacceptable. Work around found thanks to some work by users over at the Palm Support forums
UPDATE: Fixed with an OS update
Appointments show up on Pre that are not on my Google Calendar
started in 1.2. simply unacceptable, seems to be related to iCal feeds from external websites.
Reminders from Exchange events triggering 1 hour early
this paired with the 5 minute snooze limitation is absolutely brutal
UPDATE: Fixed with an OS update
Email notifications not vibrating when ringer switch is on vibrate??
started with 1.3.1, still trying to confirm this one. Seems sporadic.
UPDATE: Fixed with an OS update
Locking devs out of calendar data
Makes it impossible for them to develope killer apps to replace your PIM trash.

Annoying
Battery Life
I seem to crush the battery life on this thing. I look for any opportunity to charge (at my desk, in the car, almost always leashed to a charger at home) Granted my set up may stress this poor little battery. The prime users have to be my email accounts, along with Twitter or web browsing. Dont make that many calls during the day.
Exchange account: as delivered
Gmail (IMAP): as delivered
Gmail (IMAP): every 30 minutes
Gmail (IMAP): every 1 hr

Workdays: off the charger at 5:45am . 50% by 9am. At work I am on roam almost all the time so its even harder on the battery
Weekends: off the charger around 8am, 50% around 2pm, sooner if I make some phone calls. Good coverage at home
UPDATE: Some of the new uberkernels were showing a lot of promise including some incremental battery life improvements. Nothing stunning, but better.

UPDATES:
11/17/2009 at 0930: added battery life entry.
7/2010: updated as a parting gift to my time with webOS :)

Things My Palm Pre gets RIGHT!

Here's my running list of things my Palm Pre gets right. This is just a start

Synergy
I love love love the way my Outlook, Google, Facebook and Linked in stuff come together in one happy little device.

Interface
webOS is just nice to use. You can still see some Palm "zen" in there. Pinches, zooms and flicks are all very intuitive

Form Factor
Maybe its a tiny bit thick but the full face screen with a slide out keyboard are a big hit with me. The round edges make this one of the most comfortable smartphones to use or to carry around in a pocket.

App Download/Install Process
Aside from the stupid app space limit the rest of the app install process is really good. Find it, download it, install it...simple.

Web Browsing
The Pre opened up a whole new world of mobile browsing. Generally speaking I find the browser to be pretty brilliant. It quickly and accurately renders 90% of the sites I visit.

Palm Loves You Man
OK, this isnt so much about the phone but Palm itself (and even Sprint) Palm and Sprint could have over-reacted when the homecrew community sprang up and made webOS their own in less than a couple of weeks. But instead of devoting time and effort to lock these folks out they seemed to just smile a say "hey that's amazing...just be careful using some of that stuff 'cause its likely to break when we do an update". This, in comparison to other companies, was the equivalent of a big warm hug and a welcome to the family. Let's hope this continues and that we see Palm open up better access to the contact, calendar and task...and GPS too.

Rapid OS Progress
Palm has not been shy about pushing OS updates. Lightning fast when compared to other platforms. Apparently Sprint is pretty tight with this process too as we are not hearing about them holding up updates for testing. So keep on delivering those improvements Palm!