Courtesy Palm

Version information

• Version: webOS 1.1.0
• Release date: 23 July 2009
• Configuration: Sprint 1.7

New applications

• NFL Mobile Live from Sprint – Watch or listen to live NFL games right on your phone.Feature changes to existing applications

Calendar

• For Calendar accounts you create on your phone, the default reminder intervals are 15 minutes for timed events and one day for all-day events. A few notes:
  • This change applies only if software version 1.1 was on your phone when you bought it, or if you did a partial or full erase on your phone and signed in to your Palm profile again after updating to version 1.1. If you simply update your phone to software version 1.1, the default reminder intervals in Calendar do not change.
  • This change applies only to Calendar events you create on your phone, not to events that are synchronized to your phone from an online account.

Camera

• The Photos application opens more quickly when launched from the camera.

Clock

• Enhanced support for time zones in Clock.
• When you set an alarm in Clock, an alarm icon appears in the notification area at the bottom of the screen. Tap the icon to display alarm details. Alarm details include the following:
  • If the alarm is set for the current day, the alarm time appears.
  • If the alarm is set for tomorrow, the alarm time and “Tomorrow” appear.
  • If the alarm is set for any day other than today or tomorrow, the day of the alarm appears.

Contacts

• Friends added and deleted in Facebook on the web are now correctly added and deleted in the Facebook account in Contacts on the phone.
• As soon as you create or makes changes to a Google contact on the phone, the phone begins a sync to reflect those changes in Google on the web.

Email

• When you set up an Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) email account, you can enter the mail server name as an IP address.
• Support for self-signed certificates with multiple common names has been added.
• When you reply to an email in HTML format using an EAS account, the formatting of the sender’s original message is now retained in the reply.
• Palm’s EAS implementation now supports several Exchange ActiveSync Policies, including the following:
  • PIN/Password Required. IT administrators can ensure a password is assigned to the phone. Administrators can also specify the minimum length of the password.
  • Inactivity timeout. IT administrators can ensure that an inactive phone goes into a locked state after a certain time period. You cannot set a higher timeout interval for your phone, but you can set a shorter interval.
  • Remote Wipe. IT Administrators can remotely erase all data on a phone from their Exchange console. IT administrators can also have the device wipe itself if an incorrect password is entered more than a specified number of times.

Messaging

• You can enter emoticons in new text, multimedia, and instant messages. Emoticons also display in incoming messages.
• If you set the phone to use a 24-hour time format, the message times shown in a conversation appear in 24-hour time.
• If you go into an IM account’s preferences, all the options are available even if you are signed in to the account. You can tap Remove Account to delete the account, enter a new password to update the password, or tap Sign In to sign in with your updated password. Previously, you needed to sign out of the account before you could use these preferences.
• When you delete an IM account, a message now appears asking you to confirm that you want to delete the account.

Phone

• When multiple missed call notifications are displayed on the dashboard, the time of the most recent missed call is shown.
• When you slide the ringer switch off, a bell icon with a slash is displayed. Previously, the icon was a speaker with a slash.
• In Phone Preferences, the Show Contact Matches preference is now turned on by default. When typing on the keyboard in the phone app, the phone automatically displays both the numbers being entered and any contact matches for the characters entered.

System

• Improved functionality of person reminders. A person reminder is a notification that you create in a contact entry. The notification appears when you have a call or exchange an email, text, multimedia, or IM message with a contact.
• Resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (8.2.1).
• When you enter a search term in Card view or the Launcher to perform a universal search, if you select the Wikipedia web search option, results are shown in the Wikipedia Mobile site instead of the Desktop site.

Web

• You can now use symbols from the symbols table (Sym Sym key icon + key) when you enter text into a web page dialog box.
• If you have a page open at a certain zoom level, leave the page, and use the onscreen Back Web Back button button or the back gesture to return to the page, the zoom level is restored right away.
• A new gesture is now available that works the same as the onscreen Forward Web Forward button button. To move forward through open web pages, make a short swipe left to right in the gesture area.
• When using the Wikipedia drop-down search feature in the address bar, results are shown in the Wikipedia Mobile site instead of the Desktop site.
• When you tap a link, the link appears highlighted to indicate it has been activated, even if it takes a moment for the linked page to open.

YouTube

• After you enter search text, you can tap the Search Search icon icon to perform a search. You still have the option of pressing Enter Enter key to perform the search.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Sadly, my suspicions were confirmed — there is no way for developers to tap into OpenGL ES using the webOS SDK, despite the fact that the hardware supports it. So that’s a major blow. Then I took a look at the accelerometer capabilities. The accelerometer is desirable for games that use tilt control of course, but is also key to apps based on the equations of motion, like my gMeter (vehicle performance) and greenMeter (eco driving) apps.

Needless to say, Mr. Hunter also had issues with the accelerometer, asserting that Pre devotes too little computing power (4MHz) to tilt-detection functions—according to him, at least 20MHz is required.

Craig may very well have voiced out a common mindset among developers: while there’s still a chance to make it big on the iPhone platform, “the iTunes store is horribly crowded and it’s really challenging to get a toehold with new apps.”

The ultimate point was that while the webOS SDK has potential—if you’re into more “basic” technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript—Palm needs to provide more direct access to the hardware of the phone, if it wants to attract the attention of hardcore and “artiste” developers like Craig.

Hunter’s short essay was featured on Engadget this morning, so it’s reasonable to assume Palm knows about Craig’s issues. Maybe that’s why Palm is now looking for a game engineer, who will be responsible for establishing a better framework for game development.

Looks like a PC reality applies to mobile platforms as well: if your platform can support potentially great gaming experiences, you’re pretty much set.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

So it comes as no surprise that the latest iTunes update basically “disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre.” Palm’s reaction to this isn’t clear yet, but here are some possibilities:

Palm Sues Apple. Given Apple’s dominance of the portable music industry, could Palm’s lawyers argue that Apple is being anti-competitive?

Someone hacks iTunes to restore Pre compatibility. Or simply comes out with a program that fools any version of iTunes into accepting non-iPods for syncing. You know it’s going to happen, especially if the Pre was able to re-motivate the Palm faithful.

Apple Sues Palm. So the iTunes+iPod ecosystem is a closed, proprietary setup. Which Palm tried to violate. There should be a legal liability or two somewhere there, and Apple could imply industrial espionage at the very least, especially since a former Apple executive was responsible for the Pre’s creation.

What do you think will happen? Feel free to comment below, especially if your possibility wasn’t listed above.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Courtesy Palm

I can see why: the (hopefully) inevitable debut of the Palm Pre on GSM networks will vastly increase the potential market, allowing use of the smartphone in many more countries throughout the world, in the hands so much more people. Especially since the Pre is easily jailbroken.

At the very least, we’ll finally see just how popular Palm’s last-stand play becomes. No details yet on specs (will they be similar to the CDMA version’s or even surpass it?) nor pricing in the UK. Stay tuned for updates!

Thanks Electronista!

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Courtesy High Caffeine Content

Ah, but given how iPhones continue to chug along smoothly despite the breadth of its undeground software ecosystem, such complaints would be dubious at best. In any case, here’s what led Steven Troughton-Smith to claim ownership of “the first jailbroken Pre in existence.”:

On Tuesday, I decided to be adventurous. I was able to buy a Palm Pre from a local Sprint Wireless store without activation or a contract (apparently I hear it’s very hard to do? $602 including tax), so I instantly ran off back to my hotel room to see if I could A) hack the activation out of the OS, and B) get it working so I can develop apps for it and run them on device.

Well, success I gave up Tuesday eve because I couldn’t get the device into restore mode no matter what I did, but on Wednesday morning I figured it out: you have to hold the volume-up button while the device is off before plugging it into USB, and from there you can use Palm’s firmware flashers to do whatever you like with it. As the device can run unsigned firmware (!!!) I was easily able to hack out the activation check, and get up and running and enable the root shell.

He continues.

But man, for a hacker, the Pre is incredible. As mentioned, it runs unsigned firmware and has a root shell over USB when in developer mode (you can use the Konami cheat code to enable dev mode, too); you can do whatever the hell you like to the OS! The entire UI and all the apps are written in javascript, which in essence means the source code is available for you to modify at will, without recompiling anything. Even better, you can write C/C++ native Linux apps for it that draw directly to the framebuffer, as the recent Doom port shows. The specs are impressive, it’s a ~600MHz ARM Cortex A8 with 256MB RAM with accelerometer, GPS, WiFi & Bluetooth, or, put another way, almost the exact same specs as the iPhone 3G S (bar the compass, afaik).

After revealing my exploit of the device, I was invited to a small Palm meetup nearby where I got to chat with the actual WebOS engineers, thoroughly validating my efforts

Aw man, I hope Smith’s little chat with the WebOS people won’t push Palm to close the “holes”. Palm should want anyone running their own software on the phone, damn it! Especially since it’s taking a while for the App Catalog to get off the ground.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Courtesy BillShrink

Here’s that table in real-text form:

Post from: The Gadget Blog

phoneWreck did just that, taking a brand-new Palm Pre apart to analyze the components and how the electronics relate to each other. Want to know how the Baseband Processor links to the Dual-Band RF Transceiver? Want to read technobabble that puts Star Trek’s Data to shame? Look below! (click on the image to see the full-size version)

Palm Pre component flowchart courtesy of phoneWreck

And here’s a picture that is more familiar to our eye-candy-friendly sort of comprehension:

Palm Pre components laid out courtesy phoneWreck

The full mind-boggling details, suitable for consumption by electronics experts, is available via phoneWreck.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Everything Pre last May 19: “Shortly after the announcement of a June 6th release date for the Palm Pre, Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse indicated the company did not plan to spend much on advertising and expects supply shortages to develop. “We won’t be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time,” said Hesse.”

Palm Pre Sold Out Courtesy of The Raw Feed

PC World last May 23: “Well, now it’s time for the bad news, because Best Buy is rumored to have only 4250 units in stock for the Pre’s June 6 launch, according to BGR.

That’s a big problem since Best Buy will sell the Pre at almost 1000 of its Best Buy Mobile counters and specialty stores nationwide, leaving an average of just four devices per store. What Best Buy will likely do in this case is, just like Apple did during the early days of the iPhone 3G, direct larger quantities of Pre devices to higher population areas. That means if you live in a smaller city or rural area, you may be waiting a long time after launch day before seeing the Palm Pre on store shelves near you.”

Tech Trader Daily last May 26: “A little over a week before the introduction of Palm’s (PALM) “Pre” smartphone, Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar re-emphasized today that Palm and its Hong Kong-based manufacturer Foxconn International are having problems producing high volumes of the Pre.

Kumar had been quoted a few weeks back saying the companies were experiencing various hardware and software problems. Sprint (S), which will supply service to the phone, has acknowledged there will be limited supplies of the Pre when it goes on sale June 6, and Best Buy (BBY) has said it will have limited supplies in stock. Kumar says that after checking with a source of his at Foxconn, he believes the supply of units at the introduction will be below even a reduced estimate of 150,000 units.”

And the kicker from Silicon Alley Insider (yesterday): “Palm’s (PALM) new Pre smartphone sold out over the weekend after going on sale Saturday. That’s mostly because of supply constraints: While a few Sprint Nextel (S) stores got hundreds of Pres to sell, most stores got less than 50 phones, and some even got less then 10.

Still, analysts estimate that Sprint and Palm sold 35,000 to 60,000 Pres over the weekend [a pretty wide range, don't you think?]. That’s very little compared to the 1 million iPhone 3Gs that Apple shipped in its first weekend last summer, but it’s not terrible. As expected, some 80% to 90% of early buyers were already Sprint customers, RBC’s Mike Abramsky estimates. He also pegs about 60% of early buyers as prior Palm owners.”

Ah well, I can only hope the negativity is proven unwarranted, as I rub my non-functional Palm Vx reassuringly, whispering hope to it. In any case, the launch shortage could actually help Palm, by making the Pre a more valuable commodity that only few currently have access to.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

David Pogue, leaked by the Financial Chronicle, at The New York Times:

So do the Pre’s perks (beautiful hardware and software, compact size, keyboard, swappable battery, flash, multitasking, calendar consolidation) outweigh its weak spots (battery life, slow program opening, ringer volume, Sprint network)? Oh, yes indeedy. Especially when you consider that last weak spot might be going away. Verizon Wireless has announced that it will carry the Pre ”in the next six months or so.”

Steven Levy, at Wired:

It’s a huge win … The Pre emphatically shows that Palm has not reached the stage of suffixes. And multitasking rules!

Walt Mossberg, at the Wall Street Journal:

The Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard. It is thoughtfully designed, works well and could give the iPhone and BlackBerry strong competition — but only if it fixes its app store and can attract third-party developers.

Joshua Topolsky, at Engadget:

To put it simply, the Pre is a great phone, and we don’t feel any hesitation saying that. Is it a perfect phone? Hell no. Does its OS need work? Definitely. But are any of the detracting factors here big enough to not recommend it? Absolutely not. There’s no doubt that there’s room for improvement in webOS and its devices, but there’s also an astounding amount of things that Palm nails out of the gate.

Jason Chen, at Gizmodo:

The software is agile, smart and capable. The hardware, on the other hand, is a liability. If Palm can get someone else to design and build their hardware–someone who has hands and can feel what a phone is like when physically used, that phone might just be one of the best phones on the market.

Mark Spoonauer, at Laptop Mag:

We’ve seen many smart phones come and go since the original iPhone, and the $199 Palm Pre is the first device we’ve tested whose user interface not only matches up well to Apple’s offering, but also beats it in some areas. … Palm and Sprint have a hit on their hands with the Pre, and the webOS is a smart phone platform to be reckoned with.

Boy Genius Report:

The OS is great. There’s no ifs ands or buts; it’s really refreshing to see something that’s brand new with a UI unlike anything else out there. The only problem with this is, Palm’s never been a hardware company that anyone’s really cared about. … Couple that with the nation’s underdog carrier at a $299 price-point (before rebate), and we’re not sure how many people are going to be lined up overnight, yet we’re pretty confident once people are able to play a real unit themselves, there will be more than a lot of happy Palm Pre customers.

Bonnie Cha, at CNET:

Despite some missing features and performance issues that make it less than ideal for on-the-go professionals, the Palm Pre offers gadget lovers and consumers well-integrated features and unparalled multitasking capabilities. The hardware could be better, but more importantly, Palm has developed a solid OS that not only rivals the competition but also sets a new standard in the way smartphones handle tasks and manage information.

Ginny Miles, at PC World:

The long-awaited Palm Pre lives up to the hype with a responsive touchscreen and an engaging interface, but a few hardware design flaws keep it from being the perfect smartphone.

Stephen Wildstrom, at at BusinessWeek:

If the Palm Pre had appeared a year ago, it might have turned the smartphone market upside down. It would have beaten out Apple’s iPhone 3G and the iTunes App Store, Google’s Android, the BlackBerry Bold and Storm as well as BlackBerry App World, and possibly taken the spoils. But the field has grown so crowded with clever entries in the past 12 months that the Pre, ingenious as it is, seems evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Sinead Carew, at Reuters:

The long-awaited Pre has nice new touches, but Palm Inc has a lot of work to do if the device is to be a serious competitor to the iPhone.

Om Malik:

…it is a pretty good-looking device, but it feels a little plasticky and is lower in build quality than a BlackBerry. It is squat, has a nice screen, and is easy to grip. It is round in the right places. However, the slide-out keyboard seems flimsy and cluttered.

Peter Svensson, at the Associated Press:

Move over, iPhone. You’ve had two years on top of the smart phone world. Now there’s a touch-screen phone with better software: the Palm Pre. In a remarkable achievement, Palm Inc., a company that was something of a has-been, has come up with a phone operating system that is more powerful, elegant and user-friendly.

Ed Baig, at USA Today:

The first Palm Pre will certainly give the iPhone and other rivals a run for their money. To be sure, there are areas where it could improve: Bring on the apps. But Palm has delivered a device that will keep it in the game and give it a chance to star in it.

Would you get the Pre? I’m sure long-time Palm fans like myself would enjoy putting a Pre through its paces.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Walt Mossberg (Courtesy All Things Digital)

Unfortunately for Palm, Apple has both a new iPhone operating system and new iPhone hardware coming, likely available within a month, that could obviate many of these advantages.

Apple already has announced it’s adding MMS, universal search, and copy and paste. And, although Apple hasn’t announced any new hardware features, I expect to see an iPhone with up to 32 gigabytes of memory, video recording, a higher-resolution camera, a compass, and greater operating speed. Plus, there are persistent rumors that Apple will announce at least one iPhone at a drastically lower price than $199. [emphasis mine]

Weren’t MMS and copy & paste functionality available on even basic GSM phones way before the “Apple will release a phone!” grapevine existed? And guess what had universal search as early as the mid-90s? Why, Palm PDAs of course!

To be clear, Walt was just reporting on Apple’s publicized future plans. I’m more amused by the realization that it took for Apple this long to integrate what’s been around for years into its phone.

Post from: The Gadget Blog