Get started using the Palm Pre Video

Get started using the Palm Pre Video Transcript

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>> Hi. I'm Molly Wood from CNET.com, here to show you some of the basics of using the Palm Pre. Now, one of the intriguing things about this phone is that introduces a whole new smartphone operating system like you have never seen before, and that is not always a good thing. The Web OS is fairly intuitive once you get used to it, but it does take some getting used to. So let's do a little overview. Now, this space here, next to the center button, is galled the gesture space. It's touch sensitive, and you need to know that because this actually functions like forward and back buttons for navigating through applications. So, for example, let's say you open an email, like so. Now the only way to close this open email is to swipe the gesture area to the left, which takes you back to the inbox. Now, this trick also lets you navigate back from an individual account to the main account screen. And it took me awhile to figure out that this is how you back in and out of application screens, so use this tip well. Okay now, speaking of apps, here's how you open a new one. The Pre offers multitasking, or the ability to have more than one application open at a time, so you open apps by basically tapping them from this little quick launch dock here at the bottom of the phone. The launcher, here, brings up all of the available apps on the phone. Now, once an app is open, and it's in full screen, here's a cool way to open a new one. You press the tip of your finger or your thumb on the black part of the phone face, either to the left or right of the center button, that gesture area. And you slowly drag it to the center of the screen. And this pulls up this kind of fluid application dock, like a little wave. So you keep your finger connected there, and then you just pick one of the applications that you want, or you can land on the launcher to open all of them. Now, to minimize open applications and scroll through them, you just press this little home button here, and then, of course, you can always just choose applications from the quick launch dock. But it's not quite as cool as the wave thing. Now, when you're done with an app, and you've already hit this center button, you just flick it up toward the top of the screen to close it. Now, you can also customize the apps that appear in this quick launch area here. To do that, you open the full launcher, and then you hold down any one of these quick launch icons here and just drag it up into the launcher screen. Then you've got an empty space there, and you can replace it with any other app, let's say web because I think that's kind of a handy one to have in quick launch. All right, now, one last tip because this is kind of a tough one to figure out, copy and past on the Pre. It's not obvious, and it's very limited. You can only, at this point, copy or paste editable text, so something that you're actually writing. That means nothing from a web page, nothing from an email that you've gotten, nothing from an already fixed calendar item. You know, nothing that you basically want to copy or paste. But you can at least edit, like, and email in progress. And here's how. Use your finger to put the cursor where you want it, and then you hold down the shift button, which is this little arrow key here, and use your finger to select the text that you want to copy. Then press and hold the gesture space and the "C" key at the same time to copy the text. Now, just put your cursor where you want to paste the text and then hold down the gesture space and "V" to paste. And then, plus that gesture space and "X" will cut the text out. This is the most useful copy / paste implementation, and it can be a little bit laggy, but, well, there it is. Now, if you're looking for more help, and to be honest, you will be, Palm includes some neat video tutorials on the phone, and they're sound-free, so you don't need any headphones, which is nice. You tap the menu button in any open application. Tap the help menu icon, and you can choose clips to show these short videos. And it'll show you how to copy and past and a bunch of other topics. You'll also find written tips under the same menu, which are also pretty handy. All right, here you go. Now if you get a new Pre, I hope you won't feel quite so lost, and I hope if you don't have one that you aren't totally scared off. For CNET.com How-To, I'm Molly Wood. And you're welcome. ^M00:04:08 [ Music ]