The diligent ppl from PreCentral.net report, what this automn will come from Palm:
Read all of the news in detail at PreCentral.net…
It seems Palm has eventually understood that Germany might be an important market for their Pre. The Pre is the most sold smartphone on the carrier O2 Germany. O2 Germany yesterday started to distribute webOS 1.4. The update we’ve all been waiting for desperately.
Free commercial Games for german customers
Sadly Electronic Arts’ free download offer for:
is for german customers only. Sorry guys from whereever you are.
New features
WebOS comes with some minor ;-) feature additions:
Find a lot more about the Pre’s latest update in this article on Golem.de (click here for autotranslated version).
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:
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
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
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…
Selected developers who recently downloaded the Palm Mojo SDK now received mail that Palm has some open positions for their Early Access Program.
Developers need to apply with their app. If being accepted they will be provided an assigned Palm account manager for technical and review questions.
As early birds devs will get the developer registration almost for free – only a $5 fee will be required for PayPal verification.
Palm seems to be in the final preparations with their Developer Program and App Catalog. They explicitly write they want developers to help with “final scalability testing”.
Palm will officially open the doors for the Developer Program in december. So if you’re a developer the Early Access Program seems to be the last chance to get into the developer program early and rebated.
As of now the only factory unlocked Palm Pre’s are being sold here in Germany. German Palm Pre’s are of course being sold with a germany QWERTZ keyboard. Anyway some international customers prefer the international QWERTY keyboard.
Now rumors in spanish forums have surfaced that the spanish GSM based Palm Pre sold by and locked to the MoviStar carrier have been unlocked. As of now we have no confirmation, if that is true or a hoax.
There have been rumors in the last weeks which carrier which offer the Palm Pre in European countries. As of today we know the rumors were true. In Germany, Great Britain, Ireland O2 will be the exclusive distributor of Palm’s new flagship, in Spain the iPhone competitor will be offered by Movistar.
As of now other European carriers seem to be in negotiations with Palm for exclusive distribution. There are no information yet about subscription prices. According to the O2’s german Preregistration site introduction to the german market is planned for october 2009.
Apple’s policy to upgrade devices once a year seems also to apply to the iPhone. A new iPhone – 3rd generation – is expected to be released at the end of june/beginning of july.
Rumors are circulating about the following features:
Will the 3rd gen iPhone be the same success story like the 1st and the 2nd generation? Let’s see.
We are very curious on the battle against the Palm Pre, that has been designed by the former Apple Manager and iPod architect Jon Rubinstein.
By the way: iPhoneBuzz.com has already released a comprehensive comparison between iPhone OS 3.0 beta and the Palm Pre. And StuffTV.com yet allows themselves to summarize the Linux based Palm Pre will be superiour to the iPhone. See here: