Being late for a meeting – its a problem that has gotten the best of all of us. Some more often than others. And when you ARE late, depending on where you’re going, who you’re meeting with and other circumstances there may be a need for delicate tact in dealing with your situation. But the Palm Pre doesn’t care!

Since the Palm Pre knows where you are, at what time and has your calendar, it does you a favor by instantly sending an email announcing you’re late arrival. And while that might be great for the person at the other end waiting for you, is there really a need to focus on your lateness when a phone call citing multiple “the dog ate my homework” excuses would more appropriately apply?

Here is Palm’s main financier (Roger McNamee) explaining:

When you’re late it — remember, this thing has GPS; it has a clock; and it has your calendar. So it not only knows where you are, it knows where you’re supposed to be and when….so when it realizes you’re going to be late, it says, ‘Hey, not only are you going to be late, but I can take care of it for you. I’ll send an email to your assistant or to the people in the meeting, which would you prefer? And oh, by the way, here’s the map.

This, in my opinion, is a classic example of technology attempting to replace human interaction in a way that oversteps its own boundaries/needs. Sometimes you just can’t beat good old person to person excuse making.

And the thing that makes this entire post seem like a whiney, idiotic rant is that you can probably turn the feature off… not to mention customize it. Duh.

[Via Gizmodo]