Palm Pre WebOS 1.3.1 Update Out

The Palm Pre and it's cousin the Pixi seems to have fallen off the face of the tech blogosphere. Hardly anyone that's on the top of the tech lists seems to be focusing more on Android, with iPhone 3GS as a distant second. However, today seems to be the day that Palm's smartphone climbs back to some sort of relevance as a new update for the WebOS has appeared: the WebOS 1.3.1

According to Engadget, here's what they got after they downloaded the update:

Update: Downloaded, applied and rebooted. iTunes still isn't spotting our Pre as a device to sync with, and at least for the moment there's no great speed increases to speak of, but we have noticed a few more key tweaks that owners are sure to like -- setting a specific ringtone for text messages is exactly what we've been looking for.

• Yahoo! now appears as a Calendar/Contacts/instant messaging synchronization account.
• You can forward a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Forward.
• A new option is available for restarting the phone: press and hold power > Power > Restart. The prior restart method (Device Info > Reset Options > Restart) is still available.
• Widescreen videos (including YouTube) now display in widescreen mode on the phone by default, instead of being cropped.
• If you tap to play a YouTube video embedded on a web page, the YouTube application launches and the video plays in the app.
• You can select a unique ringtone for new message alerts: Open Messaging > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Sound > Ringtone.
• While listening to a song with album art displayed, you can tap the screen below the art to display a playback slider. Dragging the slider jumps forward or backward in the song.

Whether this will affect how most people see the Palm Pre or not, those who already have bought one would definitely be happier this time around.

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Verizon Won't Be Getting the Pre After All

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It wasn't the first time I was wrong on something, but Verizon's move on not continuing with the Palm Pre surprised a heck of a lot of tech bloggers as well!

It was previously reported that according to Verizon's COO, they would be getting the Pre soon, however according to this article, it seems that they won't be carrying Palm's Pre nor Pixi in its roster at all. This beguiles the imagination as they're getting beat by Sprint with its exclusive iPhone 3GS contracts.

Questions arise:

• Did Verizon think that Palm's App Store would go against its own store? Probably yes. Unfortunately, Palm's already got some apps going and Verizon isn't that well known for really attracting developers.
• Was it because of the falling sales? Probably unlikely as Palm has just released a cheaper (yet WIFI-less) version of the Pre called the Pixi. They're hoping that it will attract more customers in eventually buying a Pre.
• Are they secretly hoping for the iPhone 3GS to come their way? Unlikely as Mobile Crunch just crushed that idea:

It’s a fun thought, but I’d say no way. AT&T has barely been able to cope with the strain of a network full of iPhones, and Verizon would probably break. It’s also an expensive move, and Verizon’s always been about selling medium-sized services to cheap phones. That may have to change, but they’ll ramp up before they go all out.

• Are they preparing to go Android? This is the most likely scenario as the mobile phone OS has been developing at a quick pace to beat Palm's WebOS and even Apple's iPhone OS.

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Palm WebOS 1.2 Leaked!

The Palm Pre, as we mentioned a few weeks ago, is actively updating their WebOS in response to customer feedback. Isn't it a treat that they accidentally leaked out their upcoming WebOS 1.2 update to Palm Pre users?

The 1.2 version of Palm Pre's webOS was accidentally leaked via Palm itself, inadvertently showing off future features like an improved copy/paste, email searching and saving images from the browser.

Here's a compilation of the updates based on the leak:

Updated w/ summary of 1.2 so-far discovered features

• Find-as-you-type search support in Email
• App Catalog updated to support purchasing apps
• Web browser enhanced
  * auto zooms to forms
  * download in browser enabled (including opening pdfs)
  * better rendering of mobile pages
  * Orange+click context menu on links
  * save images
• "Real" copy and paste
  * shift tap to select areas of textPalm
  * Select All option in Edit menu
• Sort by Priority or Date Due in Tasks
• Other minor tweaks and changes

Whether Palm intended this to be leaked or not, it still bodes well for its users. Go Palm!

Source for Gizmodo Quote

Source for WebOS 1.2 details

Palm Pre Onscreen Keyboard Hack!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The Palm Pre's been out of the media radar for the last few days and with good reason: Apple's been getting a lot of interest because of the negative publicity it's been getting because of the Google App issue. So for Pre fans out there, this is for you.

The Palm Pre's onboard keyboard's been getting a lot of flack because it's making the mobile phone thicker than it's supposed to be. However, Palm's got a great homebrew community that can almost do anything they want with the WebOS.

Eric Gaudet and the WebOS Internals crew have done awesome work on the Virtual Keyboard for the Palm Pre and also provided instructions on how to install it in our forums (which have already made the rounds). The folks from WebOS internals and preware.org wanted to make things a little easier. They have an app installer called Preware that is able, as of last night, to safely install (and remove) patches. The first patch they've made available is the keyboard.

Here's a taste of it below:



As you can see it's still in it's early stages of development, but if you can't wait for the final version or if you want to test and help the devs out, the instructions on how to do it is here.

Always remember that when you deal with this things, you'll always run the risk of bricking your phone permanently, so research into it first by checking out forums on this subject. If you feel you're ready,then take the plunge and follow the steps very carefully. Good luck!

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Palm's Lack of Good Games is Showing

Image by PatrickMoorhead via Flickr

Despite some security issues, the Palm Pre is a magnificent mobile phone. It's almost gone toe to toe with its main rival, Apple's iPhone 3GS. However, it does lack one feature that their rivals have: good games.

Should they be bothered with the lack of games in their phone? Both phones may not have been originally marketed for gamers, but let's admit it: a lot of gadget lovers are gamers as well! It may not beat the Nintendo DS nor the PSP, but if people get stuck in traffic or in a commuter train, some would wish for a game to whittle away their time rather than listen to some mp3s.

We're familiar with a lot of games for the iPhone 3GS, but none yet coming from Palm Pre. As far as we know only emulator hackers and homebrew heroes have tried using the Pre, but none yet coming from big time gaming companies or even from Palm itself.

It's nice to know that Palm Pre's really serious about putting games into their phones by posting a "webOS™ and Game Development" article on their site. However with the phone's WebOS, 3D games will surely be out of the picture. Instead, they are promoting "puzzles, word games, card and board games, innovative social games, and the list goes on – even simple arcade games." The question here, is how can they beat the iPhone's games with such?

Hopefully with Palm Central's list of Homebrew games for the Pre, it should urge the company and some developers out there to try using Palm's newest baby as a "somewhat" platform for gaming.

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The Palm Pre Gathers Your Data

Customer trust is something that a company works on. However, if it betrays that trust, the company will lose in the end.

This is the predicament where Palm is right now.

According to a Wired article, the Palm Pre sends your GPS location, what web apps you use, and how long you've been using it to Palm HQ everyday. This happens even after you turn off the GPS in your mobile phone. All this was discovered by Joey Hess, a programmer.

Hess says he stumbled on to the privacy problem while trying to find a fix for another issue. “I bought the Touchstone (wireless) charger and found that the screen stays on all the time when the phone is on it,” says Hess. “That was keeping me up at night so I started looking around to find a fix .”

Instead Hess, who works as an embedded systems developer, stumbled into the code that showed how the webOS collects data.

In response, Palm said the following:

“Palm takes privacy very seriously and offers users ways to turn data collecting services on and off,” says Palm in a statement. ”Our privacy policy is like many policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer’s information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience.”

In short, they're doing it so they can figure out how to service the Palm users better. However, it would have been better if Palm has been upfront in telling the user about it rather than the user discovering it running under his nose.

Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research, said the following about disclosing this deed:

“The question here is the level of granularity when it comes to seeking permission,” says Golvin. ” If the permission on part of the user is overarching, which seems to be the case with the Palm Pre, then it is a rather crude way of doing things.”

So far, Palm hasn't issued any further announcement on this issue. For the meantime, if you're a Palm Pre user, you can turn out the batteries of your device if you don't like the idea of them snooping on you or continue using it if you think it's ok.

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iPhone 3GS: SMS weakness and Android potential problem

The iPhone's image in the media, especially to most tech bloggers, have been dipping as of late. I guess when you reach the top of the mountain, there's nowhere else you can go to but down, butApple seems to be intent on remaining on the top despite these challenges. Just some of the challenges facing it right now can be read below.

iPhone 3GS SMS vulnerability still not patched?

Image via Wikipedia

There's an iPhone 3GS SMS vulnerability that can give a hacker total control over your iPhone and it was discovered by OS X Security Specialist Charlie Miller. He reported to Apple a month ago and was hoping for a patch--but it never came. Now he's going to unload on how to do it on a Black Hat conference this week.

We'd stop short of suggesting iPhone owners all turn off their handsets and take themselves firmly off the grid and into a completely disconnected underground bunker the moment the attack becomes public, but if it's as serious as Miller claims, it definitely bumps up the pressure on Apple to get a fix out on the double -- preferably before 3.1 drops.

What could push an OS X expert to reveal details on how to hack someone else's iPhone? We can only ascertain that this is this Charlie Miller's way of saying to Apple that they'd better patch it up soon. So far, there's been no patch coming from Apple and time's running out.

Pre vs. iPhone vs. Android?

We've been reporting on a lot on how the iPhone and the Pre has been edging each other out, but according to Matt Asay of CNET, there's another up and coming enemy coming up in the guide of Android.

Importantly, Android is growing in the area that defines the iPhone's success more than anything else: applications. BusinessWeek's Stephen Wildstrom says that "Android is now a contender" in large part due to its growing array of third-party applications:

The Android Market is surprisingly well-stocked, considering the relatively small number of Android phones in use....[W]ith support fromGoogle and from handset makers desperate to come up with something that can mount a serious challenge to the iPhone, Android could become a major player.

With a third player coming in the game, it just may make the fight between Apple and Pre more interesting. Will Android stand with one party or will it stand on its own? We'll see when the phones come rolling out of production.

Source for iPhone 3GS not patched vs. SMS vulnerability
Source for Android going against Apple's iPhone?

Palm vs. Apple is Inevitable

Palm's update of Pre's WebOS to 1.1 is pretty significant in a lot of ways. It shows that the company listens well to its customers and is actively patching and improving the OS. However, it also shows that the OS has a lot of holes to be fixed.

Palm updates WebOS to sync with iTunes again

Is it just us, or do we feel that there's an inevitable battle between Apple's iPhone 3GS and Palm's Pre? A few weeks ago, the Pre was able to use iTunes and was even registering as an iPod. We believe that the Apple people didn't like this as they upgraded their iTunes a few hours later after this news broke out. Palm reacted by putting out their latest update that circumvents Apple's iTune patch to block the Pre. And yes, even Palm's management people got in the act:

Oh, and one more thing: Palm webOS 1.1 re-enables Palm media sync. That’s right — you once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos from the current version of iTunes (8.2.1).

John Traynor

VP, Business Products

So far no response yet from the Apple side of the fight, but nonetheless someone's fuming like heck there now (like say the one who created the update to block the Pre in the first place perhaps?). With such statements coming from a Palm VP, it seems that the battle for mobile phone supremacy has begun between these two giants: and it's all because of WebOS 1.1.

Palm Pre's WebOS 1.1 update extras?

WebOS 1.1 had an official list of updates in their site, but did you know that there were even more improved under the OS hood because of this update?

• Changed sound for notifications - You still can’t change them yourself, but the new sound is much richer, if a little quieter
• Animated drop down menus - they look really slick and really change the experience. The Context menus also have some nice animation.
• Additional photo upload options - you can now upload a photo to either Facebook or Photobucket
• Lots of Photo app improvements. A more distinct bar between all photos and your albums in the photo app, plus they’re calling the Screenshot album “Screen Captures.” The preview thumbs also slide in from the right. Faster photo rendering. Overall the Photos app feels much more fully baked.
• Emailing Memos - The memo app now has a menu option to email a memo.
• A new font for the Browser - uses Palm’s system font and, truly, it looks fantastic.
• Disabled the key combo in browser to open in a new card. Boo-urns.
• Javascript interpreter Performance upgrades - this will speed up virtually everything and is great news
• Sporadic reports of speed improvements both in the browser and system-wide, but it’s always tough to know if these are real or just perceived
• Seems to have better Gmail handling - not failing when you tap on a notification for an email you’d already archived on the desktop
• A new icon for AIM
• More auto-complete / auto correct entries in the dictionary.
• With the slider open, the Center button now turns on the screen, where as before you had to hit a keyboard key or the power button.
• It’s a little finicky, but you can double-tap to start text selection in editable fields (note, however, that cursor placement in the Memos app is buggy)

Source for Palm Pre syncs with iTunes again
Source for Palm Pre WebOS 1.1 additional updates

Palm Pre: Easter Egg and possible PSX Emulator

The Palm Pre was just recently unveiled and so far it's been generating quite a lot of news. Whether it's bad (batteries die easily) or good (features galore!) smartphone and gadget addicts are flocking to the stores to get this one.

If you bought one, you're in luck as we'll be spilling some easter eggs and a possible program that'll make your smartphone a PSP competitor. If you haven't bought one yet, then hopefully the news below will convince you to try it out.

First off, there's confirmation that a PSX emulator has been installed in the Palm Pre. See the video below:

If you're familiar with the emulation scene (and let's be honest, you are reading Engadget), then you know the name ZodTTD -- the brain behind some of the best jailbroken emus for the iPhone, including variations on the PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, and most importantly... the TurboGrafx-16. Now the master-hacker has brought his goods to the Pre, cooking up a version of psx4all on the Palm device, with the aforementioned GBA and TG16 ports on the way! Interestingly, he reports that the performance on the Pre is actually better than that of the iPhone 3GS, and of course he's hacked access to the keyboard, allowing for (more) proper control of games.

It seems that this guy wants to put a PSX emulator everywhere!

Next up on the menu is an easter egg that, besides will make your Palm Pre even cooler, will make it even easier to use your smartphone.

Here's how: when in your mailbox listing view (i.e. the top of the email app), type in RocknRollHax. It helps if you hold down Shift+ the key for the capitalized letters instead of hitting them in sequence. As Gennadiy writes, type as follows:

Hold Shift + R
ockn
Hold Shift + R
oll
Hold Shift + H
ax

Do that, and suddenly you can rotate your Pre in either the message listing mode or while looking at a specific email and view it in Landscape mode. Very helpful for those HTML-coded messages. Note however that the menu disappears when in landscape mode (just like it does in the browser).

Yes, instead of making it easier for anyone to go to landscape mode, you HAVE to input the code. We don't know whether Palm thought of just adding this on the last moment or they intentionally buried it.

There you have it Palm Pre for a day. We wonder what else holds for this phone in the next few days. Never worry, as soon as something does happen, whether it be god or not, we will post it right away!

Source for Palm Pre Playstation Emulator
Source for Palm Pre Email Landscape Mode