Tag Archives: Palm Pre

[Pre] WebOS 1.3.5.2 Released in Europe

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Telefonica (O2/MoviStar) has approved Palm’s latest update. We expect they found some bugs that are on the american 1.3.5.1.  The update will be installed automatically over the air. The 15 MB update brings Tethering via Bluetooth and 3D graphics acceleration to European Palm Pre’s, thus allowing us eventually to play Doom, Quake and Need For Speed.

The update features:

  • installation of apps to the media partition, thus allowing to use up to 7GB for applications
  • simultaneous installation of apps from the AppCatalog
  • Downloads can be paused and resumed
  • speed improvements
  • improved support for prepaid SIMs
  • improved battery runtime
  • support for animated GIFs

We are still waiting for a full changelog from Palm for this update.

Warning

Before updating: don’t forget to use the “Emergency Patch Recovery” (EPR) tool, if you installed patches via PreWare. The EPR tool can be found in PreWare under Available Packages -> Linux Applications -> All -> Emergency Patch Recovery

[e-Biz] The Slate Tablets Are Coming

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Tablet PCs seem to be the next big thing. After Apple’s smartphone revolution with their iPhone, it seems the next big market revolution might be the Tablet PCs.

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft introduced one of the Tablet PCs – a prototype of the HP Slate – last week on the CES 2010. In his presentation the HP Slate is of course running Windows 7, what else, but there are rumors it might also be shipped with Google’s Android. We suppose Amazon’s Steve Bezos will not really like it, because Steve Ballmer showed the HP Slate running the PC Kindle application.

Dell seems also be ready to enter the Touch PCs’ market with the Dell Slate. Gizmodo.de got photos of a prototype of Dell’s Slate. Dell’s Slate has a 5-inch screen, most likely an OLED, a SIM slot and a 5 megapixel camera.

If Apple was a typical tech company they would also have showed something to the public on the CES, but Apple isn’t. Anyway there are enuff rumors floating around about Apple’s Touch-Mac – rumored to be named Apple iSlate. According to Reuters Apple might be launching the iSlate in Q2/2010. It is expected to have a 10 or 11-inch display and a aluminium case. TheStreet.com reports that Apple’s Slate will be shipped with a P A Semi CPU, instead of Intel based Atom CPUs. This could be also the reason, why Atom CPU has been removed from Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s latest update 10.6.2. It is widely expected that Apple will announce the iSlate on Januar 27th, 2010.

Kara Swisher of AllThingsD interviewed Mr. Podfather Prefather Jon Rubinstein of Palm at the CES. Although he seems to have been highly involved in the development of Apple’s iPhone back in the days when he was Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, he said he never used an iPhone. Well… All in all he wasn’t telling too much, but when Kara asked him, if Palm will do a Tablet aswell, Rubinstein answered: “(..) we designed webOS to scale and it could be used in different form factors.”

[e-Biz] Palm’s Presentation on the CES 2010

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I. Summary

Quite a bunch of news for the Palm community has been presented by Palm’s CEO John Podfather Prefather Rubinstein. Find the whole video presentation at the end of the summary.

II. WebOS Update 1.4

WebOS 1.4 will be released in February, 2010 (in the US at least, we Europeans are still waiting for 1.3.5). WebOS 1.4 will feature:

  • Video Recording
  • Adobe Flash 10.1
  • better Battery Life and
  • improved performance

III. WebOS Plug In Development Kit

For developing native 3D games Palm secretely extended their development tools with a plug in kit, that allows to write code in C or C++.

IV. Native 3D Games

Moreover Palm showed they are in the know what their customers will like and how to explore more markets besides the Linux community. As of today some 3D games have been released to the U.S. American AppCatalog:

  • Need for Speed Undercover
  • The Sims 3
  • Monopoly
  • Asphalt 5: Elite Racing
  • Let’s Golf!
  • Glyder 2, and
  • X-Plane

IV. Palm Pre Plus coming to Verizon

A special version of the Palm Pre is coming to Verizon Wireless, only 7 months after the initial release of the Palm Pre to the Spring network. Verizon’s Palm Pre Plus is coming with 16GB Ram, a reworked slider mechanics and a tethering plan. Verizon is said to have one of the best 3G coverage in North America. We suspect the Palm Pre Plus to be SIM locked.

V. The whole video presentation on the CES 2010

Enjoy Mr. Podfather Prefather John Rubinstein…

[Pre] webOS 1.3.5, webOS 1.3.5.1 and the CES 2010

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European customers are still waiting for webOS 1.3.5 update. The European carrier Telefonica (o2 and MoviStar)  seems not to have approved it yet.

Meanwhile it seems versions 1.3.5 had issues. According to PreCentral.net, Palm Pre customers on Sprint (USA) and Bell (Canada) are able to update to version 1.3.5.1 since Januar 5th, 2010. Version 1.3.5 has been released in the US and Canada on December 29th, 2009.

Issues with homebrew apps on 1.3.5 and 1.3.5.1

It is known, that webOS 1.3.5 breaks homebrew installer PreWare. Known workaround is using WebOS Quick Install to remove and then reinstall PreWare. It should be working well again.

There are also issues with homebrew apps that don’t contain  an appinfo.json file. Apps not properly prepared would not be getting moved from /var to /media/cryptofs/apps. Package Manager Service 0.9.24.3 has fixes for this problem.

And the latest 1.3.5.1 also breaks myTether. This seems not resolved yet.

Amazing news

In the meantime people from the WebOS Internal forums have discovered, that webOS 1.3.5 includes Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL). SDL allows hardware accelerated graphics and sound and is available on different platforms for free and open source. Via homebrew installer PreWare a playable alpha version of Doom using SDL has already been released.

Europeans still waiting

Although Palm is said to be unveiling something big on the CES 2010 tomorrow, we don’t expect Telefonica to approve 1.3.5 until then for Europe.

It is rumored, on the CES Verizon Wireless will be officially named the new partner for a device called Palm Pre Plus (Palm Pre 3).

Links

» PreCentral: webOS 1.3.5.1 Available for OTA Download…
» PreCentral: webOS 1.3.5.1 goes live for Pre users on Bell…
» PreCentral Forums: Status of Preware and 1.3.5…
» PreCentral Forums: Preware + mytether unavailable after 1.3.5.1…
» WebOS Internals Wiki: Doom on Palm Pre…
» Wikipedia: Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL)…
» WebOS Blog: Was kommt zur CES 2010 von Palm? (Google translated link)…
» PhoneArea: Verizon to get Palm Pre Plus…

Video

[misc] Web Empfang von MMS mit Alice / Hansenet

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Wir alle kennen die Situation. Ein Freund sendet uns eine MMS und wir erhalten eine SMS stattdessen, obgleich unser Telefon MMS fähig ist. Warum eigentlich?

Nun das ist sehr einfach: sofern man selbst keine MMS bislang versendet hat, geht der Provider davon aus, dass man kein MMS fähiges Mobiltelefon besitzt. Das ist einerseits ein guter Ansatz, andererseits jedoch auch eine nette Art, 60 Millionen deutschen Mobilfunkkunden zu zwingen, zumindest eine einzige MMS zu versenden – nämlich damit sie imstande sind, MMS zu empfangen.

60 Millionen MMS x 0,29€ pro MMS, bei jedem Wechsel des Mobiltelefons… Hmmm, nette Summe für die Portokasse der lieben Telefonkonzerne, aber lassen wir das lieber. Heute ist ja dritter Advent.

Blöd wird es nur, wenn einzelne Provider, die die Netze anderer verwenden, die SMS Benachrichtigungsoption für eingegangene MMS’ nur unzureichende implementieren. So isses beispielsweise bei dem deutschen Anbieter Alice / Hansenet. Hier erhält man folgende Nachricht:

Sie haben eine MMS von +491231234567 erhalten. Sie können diese im Web unter lesen. Ihr PIN lautet aB3D5F.

Tja. Äh wo soll ich die abrufen? Genau, nirgendwo. Der Link ist irgendwie nicht in der SMS enthalten. Einige Tests zeigen, dass in allen SMS Benachrichtigungen über eine vorliegende MMS, die von Alice derzeit versendet werden, die Webadresse fehlt. Macht ja nichts, wenn wenigstens Google etwas Hilfreiches zu Tage fördern würde … Hmm… Google hilft leider nicht… Also Gehirn anstrengen.

Alice ist im Mobilfunkbereich Reseller von O2 Produkten. Also mal bei o2 schauen, wo man die MMS online abrufen kann… Hmm… Google vermeldet (nicht ganz auf Anhieb): http://o2online.de/goto/o2mms

Und tadadada… Alles wunderbar. Meine MMS kann ich nun hervorragend bei O2 im Web abrufen. Oder sollte ich vielleicht doch mal die MMS senden, damit mein Provider merkt, dass ich MMS direkt auf dem Mobiltelefon empfangen kann?

[iPhone] Multi-Tasking With Multifl0w

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Multifl0w is an attempt to bring multi-tasking capabilities known from our latest toy – the Palm Pre – to the iPhone. Sadly this nice (and overdue) feature is only available to iPhone customers having jailbroken their devices.

It does not feature the Palm Pre’s multitasking gestures nor the ‘swipe up to exit’ functionality, but it seems to be a first good step into bringing the iPhone to the technological presence.

There is a free trial available via Cydia and Rockyourphone. It costs about 5US$.

Check this video and the Multifl0w website for further details:

via: TechRadar.com

[Pre] Re-Enable Full App Catalog in Europe

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The European Update 1.3.1

On Monday European Palm Pre users were just happy to eventually have the 1.3.1 update that has already been provided to U.S. customers two weeks earlier.

Sadly the smiling in our faces didn’t last long. European customers rapidly found out that their App Catalog had been crippled. PreCentral explains why this technically happened, but they cannot explain the marketing logic behind this move.

Luckily there is a strong European community of developers, that Palm should be listening to more carefully, since many of us are iPhone switchers.

The workaround for Europeans

A guy going by the nick Dleira from Switzerland found a way to re-enable many more (all?) applications for European Palm Pre friends aswell. It has been confirmed to be working, but anyway: do this at your own risk. We did not test it yet. This workaround requires root access to your Pre.

Link

» PreCentral Forums: Re-Enable App Catalog in Europe by Dleira…

[Pre] WebOS Update 1.3.1 Released in Europe

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As of today European GSM Palm Pre customers on the Telefonica networks (O2 Germany, O2 UK, Movistar Spain) can download and install WebOS Update 1.3.1.

After downloading the 134MBytes update it will be validate for about some five minutes. Have your battery loaded, installation will take another 10 minutes.

Now, go and get it. It has eventually some nice improvements in performance.

It also brings back support for iTunes synchronization. Albeit for iTunes 9.01 only. Current version is iTunes 9.02. So the golden rule seems to be better don’t update iTunes too early if you’re having a Palm Pre.

» Palm.com: Features of Update 1.3.1…

[Pre] Update 1.3.1 for GSM to be Released Nov 23, 2009 ?

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According to a posting to the german Nexave forums the european Palm Pre 1.3.1 update (for GSM phones) will be released on monday November 23, 2009. The update does not seem to include activation of the GPU.

We recommend to remove custom installed homebrew patches.

Features:

  • Synergy: – Calendar and Contacts synchronization with Yahoo!
  • LinkedIn contacts synchronization
  • Synchronizes Google Contacts “My Contacts” (not all)
  • Manual edit of Internet settings (APN, user name, password, etc.)
  • Option to disable all data connections
  • Bluetooth support to send / receive vCards
  • Backup and restore:
  • No backup of passwords for increased security
  • Disabling of backup service works
  • Backup Browser Favorites
  • iTunes support from version 9.x
  • Available space is immediately updated and displayed when in USB mass storage mode data is added or removed
  • Manual e-mail retrieval works
  • SMS / MMS forwarding, and marking of all communications
  • Highlight / copy of selected areas of SMS and IM messages
  • Browser: File download in browser
  • Highlight / copy of text in the browser
  • Support for Self-Signed Certificates
  • System volume was optimized
  • Optimization of the audible during an incoming call when another call is active
  • AppCatalog: Recommendation for Apps can be forwared via email or SMS
  • Facebook Application
  • Country-Specific Application Offers
  • Initial Registration: password input is now a part of the recovery (because passwords will no longer be backed up) and now entering a security question and answer in the account creation is mandatory. SIM card PIN is requested during the registration process.

via Nexave.de Forums…

[iPhone] The Thing With Adobe Flash

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Yesterday we’ve shown you a screenshot of the Adobe Flash download page, when you’re browsing it from a Palm Pre. Now we made this test with an iPhone. Sadly the result is what we’ve expected. Adobe and Apple are obviously in ugly negotiations.

Visiting the http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ from an iPhone you can see this:

Flash Player not available for your device

Apple restricts the use of technologies required by products like Flash Player. Until Apple eliminates these restrictions, Adobe cannot provide Flash Player for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

flash-on-iphone