Palm Pre Tip of the Day: Use Time Zones as You See Fit
The Google Calendar display problem I experienced on my Palm Pre gave me fits, but I found a fix that worked well: I had palm.com remotely wipe and rebuild my Pre from my Palm Profile, which restored my calendar events.
Once my calendar events were back displaying in the Pre Calendar app, I was confronted with them displaying in the wrong time zone. I found a simple fix to this that might be useful for others.
It is more accurate to state that the time zones were actually being displayed as they should, just two hours off from where I wanted them to display. I created the calendar items back home in the Central Time zone, and now I am on the west cost in Pacific Time. The events were being shifted two hours to reflect that I have moved, and the Pre has no way to tell that I actually used Pacific time when I created the events back in Central time. Travelers know how big a problem it always creates when time zones come into play.
The Palm Pre handles time zones in a specific way that makes it easy to cause calendar events to display however you intended when you created them. All you have to do is open the Date and Time app and you see two settings. One is a toggle to turn “Network time zone” on and off, which prevents the Pre from getting the new time zone from the network when you move. Turning this off did not make my calendar events display back in my home zone, however.
I did find that when I turned the network time zone setting off, I could then tap in the box on the bottom of the screen, which opened a time zone drop box. I was able to manually input the Central time zone there, and all of my calendar events immediately displayed as I wanted them to. This is a simple way for travelers to set the time zone, and it is a nice touch for Palm to include.
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I’m glad you worked this out–before I start traveling. It does look like a nice feature on the Pre.
I was an early Pre adopter. I returned it after 29 days. Ireally wanted it to work for me, but it is NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME: Poor batt life, almost no apps, slow OS, no PDF support from browser, poor touch response, horrible slide mechanism, sharp edges, cramped keyboard, unacceptable visibility with Polarized sunglasses, etc.
Am now using iPhone 3GS – none of above issues exist. Good luck Palm, but I can’t use an inferior, I need good now.
I never understood why anyone would want to make an appointment for 1:00 on the way to the airport and have that move to 3:00 automatically when you get off a plane. Yet the Pre will do exactly that to “help” you manage your time. Maybe I’m just odd, but when I am planning to fly across the country to meet someone for lunch at noon I enter that appointment for lunch at noon, not lunch at 10:00 in my time zone.
Your recommendation to turn off the automatic time zone adjustment seems to be the only way to keep the calendar correct when traveling. Unfortunately, your alarm will wake you up at the wrong time in the morning so you’ll still miss your meeting.
When you change the time zone manually the clock displayed on your Pre will reflect that manual time zone. The new problem then is that you have to remember to make the time zone adjustment whenever you look at the time on the phone, or set your alarm.
I don’t understand why they don’t provide an option in the calendar application to set the time zone separately from the phone/network clock. Or an option to ignore the clock/network time zone in the calendar app.
I just got my Pre so if I’m missing the way to really fix this problem please let me know.
As I understand what he wrote and what’s in the picture, there are two separate switches, one for the time displayed, one for the zone it thinks it’s in. If he’s put it back on Central, and set it, the alarms, schedules, etc., should all pretend that when he set his alarm for 6:30 a.m. in Houston, he meant for it to go off at 6:30 a.m. in New York or L.A. or wherever he is.
This is what would happen to all your Outlook settings if when you got to New York, you reset the zone, instead of just the time. The time would appear correct, but all your Outlook appointments would appear an hour later, as per Central time. Instead, you change the time on your computer, and leave the zone. That’s all he’s done is allowed the time to reset, but not the zone.
bluespapa,
I was playing around with this last night before I fell asleep, so maybe I was seeing things. What happens on my Pre is this:
1) changing the time zone manually (or letting the phone adjust time zone automatically) also changes the time of all my appointments in the calendar, which is bad.
2) forcing the time zone to remain at my home location keeps my calendar correct, but it makes the time display on my phone incorrect, which is bad.
I can’t find a way to get both the calendar and time display to be correct unless I’m at home. Is there an option I’m missing?
I won’t be able to test this until I actually leave my time zone, but it looks like if you leave “Network Time” on, it should show the local time, but turn “Network Time Zone” off, and set it manually, it should NOT affect the time showing, and SHOULD show your appointments at the times you originally set them.
So if “Network Time” is on, Pre should show local time (Say you flew to L.A.).
The 12:00 o’clock lunch appointment that you set while in Houston (Central Time) should still appear as 12:00, AND your clock should show the local L.A. time.
If you turn “Network Time” off, and turn “Network Time Zone” off, and manually set it to Central time, you shouldn’t snow up to your 12:00 lunch appointment until your Pre shows 1:00.
If you turn “Network Time” on (now you are showing local time on the clock), and “Network Time Zone” on, your Pre should show the local time (Pacific) and your appointment as at 11:00, since it thinks you meant 12:00 Central.
So you want to show local time (“Network Time” on) and the appointments you entered while you were in Houston to show in Central Time (“Network Time Zone” off). Alarms should be at the time you set, that is, the time the Pre shows because you’ve locked the time zone to home.
I know, clear as mud, but looks like a great feature, really, since you enter your appointments, arrival and departure times in your own time zone, but they mean the local time zone.
It’s a tip of the day, not a work around.
Thanks for the tip. The manual time zone option is a nice touch.
And even nicer touch would be if the calendar application supported multiple time zones.
If you need to know the time zone, or the time in other place around the world, use http://worldtimeengine.com
I’m an airline pilot and, thus, travel all over the place often. This has been a real issue with me ever since I got the phone. I’m pretty pissed they even associate a time zone with the calendar. I have tried what you suggested to solve this issue (Network Time-On, Network Time Zone-OFF) and the clock no longer updates when changing time zones. I’ll try doing the opposite (Network Time-Off, Network Time Zone-ON) and see what happens. I’ll let you know.
DD
OK. I just flew to from the Mountain time zone, to Pacific, and then back. I did a couple of tests with the following results:
From Mountain to Pacific — Phone was set to Mountain Time Zone before departure. I made an appointment from 11:00am to noon. Upon arrival in Pacific Time Zone, the schedule read correctly, but the phone was 1 hour ahead (still on mountain time). My settings for this test were Network Time –ON, Network Time Zone–OFF.
I tried the test again on the way back to the mountain time zone. This time I switched the settings around (Network time–OFF, Network Time Zone–ON). I reset the phone’s time zone to Pacific (to match where I was), then scheduled another fake meeting from 2pm to 3pm. The results were the same. Schedule looked good (no shifting), but the time on the phone was now lagging behind by 1 hour (stuck on Pacific Time Zone).
As an airline piot, I find this issue to be very frustrating. I change timezones a couple of times a day. I wish Palm didn’t make the calendar responsive to time zone changes. Is there a fix I’m not seeing? My old palm treo didn’t have this problem. Nor do my friends iPhones. I need to be able to input appointments into my calendar while I’m on the road, no matter where I’m at, without having to do time zone calculations in my head first.