There are some configurations from which it is mathematically impossible to put out all the lights. The app shouldn’t present these, but it does. Furthermore, it doesn’t even warn the user when this occurs because the app simply doesn’t have the algorithm to do so. Some credit should go to the developers, since this game uses well-designed icons and doesn’t look garish or tacky. Hopefully updates will fix these “no-solution” states, until then you can have fun first wondering if you can actually turn out all the lights before actually trying to do so.

Other features are similar to what GoodFood offers: user reviews, ratings, location-aware mapping, directions to the establishment from your current location, etc. The OpenTable app also lets you send a quick email from within the app with restaurant and reservation details. The app integrates well with your Pre calendar, so reservations can be scheduled appropriately with your other appointments. This is one of the more comprehensive and interactive Palm Pre Apps and will be useful for almost every Pre owner and, for now, makes other restaurant and food review apps redundant on your Palm Pre.

You can save all your times by selecting a preference button (recommended) and you can also select the precision you will need in the preferences section. In future updates I would love to see the ability to add different user-generated categories, such as billable hours, or study sessions. As it stands now, it’s still quite usable for these purposes, especially since you can just leave the app running in the background while you do other stuff on your Pre. Another feature to look forward to would be voice activation once Palm exposes the right hooks for the developers. A sleak and simple timer and stopwatch application for the Palm Pre.

Please see this updated post: Mileage Monitor. 

Hope the wait wasn’t too bad. But now you know we have good sources . 

You should subscribe to the Palm Pre Apps RSS feed for the latest and best apps, as well as sneak previews such as this one.

The one issue I have with the app is the presence of drop-down menus within the meat of the app. I generally like to see rich content in the middle of the screen and menus banished to the top or the bottom. However, the functionality is very slick and a little time spent with the app will no doubt allow you to get used to any such interface issues. There’s a wealth of data available and you can chose to get notification regarding your favorite teams and players instead of constantly hitting up the app or the website. The NFL Mobile app, while taking up another impossible-to-recover space on the launcher, is an excellent app for sports enthusiasts in general and NFL fans in particular.

There is significant progress being made in making the installation process for these homebrew apps much easier and pain-free. There is now a working desktop installer for Windows (still needs a little polishing though) that does a lot of the work for you. All of this is still not really ready for the mainstream but serves as a strong indicator that there’s a healthy developer community working away on apps for the Palm Pre. Even better, once Palm decides to open up the developer program a little further, these apps will soon be available right from within the App Catalog. Excited? So are we!

The interface is clean and easy-to-use. Playback is smooth and stutter-free for the most part. Unfortunately the app does not remember where you last stopped watching a show, an invaluable feature that should be a must with most streaming video players. With the ability to watch certain live broadcasts, on-demand episodes of some shows, and customized mobile offerings, this is a solid entertainment app for the Palm Pre.

The first time I launched the app, it froze for a few seconds before it allowed me to move forward – I wasn’t able to reproduce this even after uninstalling and installing it again so it’s probably no big deal. The app is still in its early stages in other respects as well. There is little ability to customize search parameters for instance – the search will always only parse the first of the many fields. There’s really no way to export your information from the Pre, so backups are out of the question for now. Perhaps an update will provide this much-needed functionality.

You can search the AP news service right from within the app. The search feature is available with a single tap from every screen on the app and is reasonably quick and responsive. I would have liked to see the ability to search within a given news story, but that functionality is not offered yet. The breadth of member services offering feeds into this app easily makes this app more useful than the New York Times app previously reviewed. This is a true News junkie’s app.

It does all of this with an intuitive and easy-to-user interface. Trailers automatically appear in landscape mode and the quality is excellent with no stuttering at all. The video buffering is intelligent even on slow or overloaded WiFi networks. Once you purchase tickets, the event is automagically added to your Pre’s calendar. There’s a lot of attention to detail with this app, and it shows a treasure trove of information on any movie, including cast, run time, photos, and more. If you’re a movie buff, this is the app for you.