[eekinsman]

I, and apparently much of the free world, had no Google services all morning and early afternoon, including calendar and email. see Reports point to widespread Google outages | Digital Media - CNET News

Just another reason why Cloud Sync CANNOT be exclusive and local usb cable sync should be directly supported by the the Pre and WebOS.

[jayzun]

+1 for local cache! cloud + local cache = perfection.

[hparsons]

I, and apparently much of the free world, had no Google services all morning and early afternoon, including calendar and email. see Reports point to widespread Google outages | Digital Media - CNET News

Just another reason why Cloud Sync CANNOT be exclusive and local usb cable sync should be directly supported by the the Pre and WebOS.

Cache

[Darth Pooh]

I, and apparently much of the free world, had no Google services all morning and early afternoon, including calendar and email. see Reports point to widespread Google outages | Digital Media - CNET News

Just another reason why Cloud Sync CANNOT be exclusive and local usb cable sync should be directly supported by the the Pre and WebOS.

There is a local cache stored on your device. It doesn't mean you can't get your schedule, contacts, and numbers... you just can't update/sync at that moment.

BIS goes through outages all the time. It happens.

[eekinsman]

Yeah well we've all herd about local cache. But can anyone state how much data is cached, all of it? some of it? who determines what and how much is cached?

There is a local cache stored on your device. It doesn't mean you can't get your schedule, contacts, and numbers... you just can't update/sync at that moment.

BIS goes through outages all the time. It happens.

[prr]

What exactly is the cloud service?
May someone please explain.
I know it has to do with getting your stuff from your pc to your phone.

[EeZeEpEe]

There is a local cache stored on your device. It doesn't mean you can't get your schedule, contacts, and numbers... you just can't update/sync at that moment.

BIS goes through outages all the time. It happens.

Very true. It would dumb and slow if you had to access all the stuff over the air every single time rather than have as cache on the phone. I'm really not worried about Synergy. If anything I'm really excited for it.

[jayzun]

Cloud is a generic term for Internet based services.

It is not exclusive to the Pre or any other device.

Basically it goes like this.

You create data - it is sent out and stored in the magical internet cloud (google, for example). now, you don't have to worry about backing up that data and you can access that data from any web enabled device (PC, iPhone, Pre).

It separates the device from the data.

A quick example of how I use the cloud on a day to day basis.

I use multiple computers at work and then different computers at home...

I find a website that I like at work, I create a bookmark on my browser at work. I have an add-on for firefox (xmarks) that synchronizes this bookmark into the cloud. Now, when I go home I can have access to that same bookmark so I will always have the information I need no matter where I'm at.

[hypocaffeinemia]

Yeah well we've all herd about local cache. But can anyone state how much data is cached, all of it? some of it? who determines what and how much is cached?

All the PIM data.

It's not like if you put your phone on airplane mode you'd lose your contacts or stored emails or calendar.

[EeZeEpEe]

What exactly is the cloud service?
May someone please explain.
I know it has to do with getting your stuff from your pc to your phone.

Cloud computing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically all your info contacts, calendars, email is all in a "cloud" server. With the Pre it's an easy way to keep it synced without having to physically connect it to a specific computer.

[B-model#CB]

What exactly is the cloud service?
May someone please explain.
I know it has to do with getting your stuff from your pc to your phone.

please don['t take this as rude, but you'd be best served searching on this topic. there is an enormous amount of discussion on what cloud is and the good and bad of cloud sync.

to get you started: Cloud is the idea that data can be stored remoting, in some random location, and retrived via an internet connection. this is how the data from the pre will be stored / backedup / synced. Goolge offers online services which can be consdiered cloud services.

[ScrapMaker]

The only 'fail' of the cloud that I can think of is that we are all happily HANDING over ALL of our personal details to the likes of Google--who's business is to SELL our personal information and spam us with advertisements.

Personally, I will be synchronizing with Exchange, but I will have a gmail email account on there... No contacts or calendar or anything from them.

I just hope the Pre doesn't try to merge or copy data from one source to the other... That would create a security risk with my company.

[Laxidasical]

If one part of the cloud is down (in this case Google) you still have access to your cached data. As a matter of fact, say you are in a basement and loose connectivity all together. You will STILL have access to the cached version of your data. As soon as you are reconnected (and/or the downed part of the cloud comes back online) the data will begin to sync again and any NEW changes will be present on all systems.

This is no different than if you are walking down the street and added a contact to your wire sync phone such as a Treo. Whatever device you usually sync it to will have no idea of the change until you physically connect a wire and sync it. Until then, the new data lives only on the original device it was added to.

As far as syncing with your local computer at home, I think the ultimate solution is to make it part of the cloud itself rather than a direct sync via cable/bluetooth. I'm certain a 3rd party app will be developed that will continuously sync with your computer at home via the phone's network connection (3G/WiFi) just as it does Facebook, Google, etc.

[bclinger]

The difference is though not a trivial one - security.

[Protagonist]

I, and apparently much of the free world, had no Google services all morning and early afternoon, including calendar and email. see Reports point to widespread Google outages | Digital Media - CNET News

Just another reason why Cloud Sync CANNOT be exclusive and local usb cable sync should be directly supported by the the Pre and WebOS.

? I got a bunch of mail through my gmail this morning. 531am, 543am, 703am, 746am, 1146am etc...

[eekinsman]

Well I for one have never read or herd the local cache described as:
1. ALL pims
2. ALL pim records.
This is kinda of important to me.

[hypocaffeinemia]

Well I for one have never read or herd the local cache described as:
1. ALL pims
2. ALL pim records.
This is kinda of important to me.

What do you think happens to your contacts, calendars, et al. while in airplane mode or in a big building without service?

Where do you think the data is stored?

[chadrickb]

If gmail/the could goes down, all the cables and local syncing in the world wont get new messages on to the pre. Your computer won't be able to access gmail either.

[wynand32]

Well I for one have never read or herd the local cache described as:
1. ALL pims
2. ALL pim records.
This is kinda of important to me.

I'm pretty sure that all PIM data will be backed up using the Palm cloud tool (can't remember the name of it off-hand), and so presumably it's all cached. Can't imagine that the tool will go out and touch all cloud sources and then back it up.

What I'm not 100% sure about is email, although I'm pretty sure that's cached as well. Palm is well aware of the fact that there are times when the cloud's not available, and so they would have to be complete idiots to engineer the system so that, during those times, something like email isn't available. Maybe things like attachments aren't cached, but I'm fine with that--I wouldn't want them taking up local space in any event.

[Kevin C]

I don't use exchange, but continue to hear the "security" fears about the cloud. Security-wise, what is the difference in syncing your info with the cloud and exchange?