Weighing in at a hefty 1,500+ pages and over 1,000 annotated screenshots, Made Simple Learning has brought a comprehensive and exhaustive how-to guide book to the App Catalog for only $4.99. Made Simple for webOS is a resource for learning how to use your webOS phone and also covers use of third-party applications and all kinds of tips and tricks. Made Simple also boasts ease of use — they claim that in just two taps, a person can move virtually anywhere in the book for useful information. If you want to become a little more familiar with your webOS device or aspire to webOS guru, you may want to give Made Simple for webOS a try.

source: precentral

Currently being offered at Best Buy stores and online for $149.99, the Palm Pre is going to have a special price on Black Friday of $79.99 as part of its Doorbuster specials, starting online on Thursday and beginning at the store at 5am Friday and ending Saturday. According to PR News, each store will have only 5 handsets in stock. Of course, the offer requires your signature on a two year contract. The price will match the current everyday cost of the Palm Pre at Amazon, which just last week-as we reported-cut the price of the webOS device to $79.99 with the activation fee waived and with free FedEx shipping.
source: PhonesReview via PRNews

Google has announced a new mobile-optimized version of their news site. The new and improved Google News site is now available for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre users. Additionally, Google News for mobile is now available in 29 languages and 70 editions. According to the official Google Mobile Blog:

This new version provides the same richness and personalization on your phone as Google News provides on desktop. Our new homepage displays more stories, sources, and images while keeping a familiar look and feel. Also, you can now reach your favorite sections, discover new ones, find articles and play videos in fewer clicks. If you are an existing Google News reader on desktop, you will find that all of your personalizations are honored in this mobile version too.

Check out the mobile-optimized Google News at http://news.google.com.

source: Google Mobile Blog

It’s quite possible that the reason for Jon Rubinstein’s tirade against the Motorola DROID the other day stems from the fact that as Motorola’s Android handset is picking up momentum, the device that Rubinstein had bet the farm on, the Palm Pre, continues the slide from iPhone challenger to bargain priced smartphone. Amazon has chopped the price of the first webOS device to $79.99 with a 2 year contract, and the $36 activation fee has been waived. Just the other day, the online retailer had cut the price of the Palm Pixi down to $24.99 on contract and with free activation to boot. Had someone told you in the spring that these devices would be available at these prices in the fall, you would have had them committed.
source: Amazon via Engadget

As we all wait with bated breath for the App Catalog to emerge victorious from it’s beta status, we must get by on a limited number of developers and the steady trickle of new apps and app updates. Once again, here is a list of new apps and app updates to be had in Palm’s App Catalog. Just head over on your Pre or Pixi to the App Catalog and give them a try.

New apps: Arlen Ness ($0.99) by Djit – wallpaper gallery of designer-extraordinaire Arlen Ness motorcycles; Stopwatch (Free) by Red Fenix – measuring time in milliseconds with lap counts and email archiving.

Updated Apps: Blocks Lite (Free), Chess for webOS (Free), CL USB Sync (Free), Diet Control ($2.99), Esperanto – English Dictionary ($14.99), Knot Guide ($3.99), Pack ‘n’ Track ($7.99), photoWALL (Free), Radio Hibiki ($1.89), Snake (Free), TealShopper ($4.95), and twoCalcFree (Free).

source: precentral

Leave it to an enterprising precentral forum member, DrewPre, to create backup functionality where Palm and the “cloud” fall a little short. The webOS platform ingeniously remains always-connected to the cloud and stores your critical data in several locations, adding valuable convenience and peace of mind should you lose or accidentally destroy your device. This feature makes it very easy to quickly recover all of your data in the event you must replace your device.

As good as this feature is, it does have a few blind spots. For instance, call logs and SMS conversations are forever lost if you replace your phone, but with DrewPre’s backup utility, all of your data (call logs, contacts, tasks, memos, and SMS conversations) and web browser information (bookmarks, history, cookies) is bundled with your apps and patches into a zip package on your phone’s USB drive partition. Just copy it from there to your desktop and you have a way to replace all of this important data should you need to replace or reset your webOS device.

Learn more about DrewPre’s efforts over here. Hopefully it will be polished and available to the masses sometime soon!

source: precentral

It’s time once again to list all the new and updated apps that have been added to Palm’s App Catalog. More than half of the new apps come from JM Productions, and as far as we’re concerned, the more apps the better, so keep them coming! Without further ado, here are the apps:

New apps: jBalls by Cohosoft ($0.99), Compass by JM Productions ($1.99), JM Solitaire by JM Productions ($2.99), Calql8 Dates by caql8.com ($2.99), Amazon Deals by JM Productions (Free), JM Stopwatch by JM Productions ($1.99), JogStats Trial by Rusty Apps (Free), and Tire Size Calculator by Spyder Speak (Free).

Updated apps: Calql8 Tips, Express Stocks, Sports Calendar (Free version), Go To Tools Lite, Bible Dictionary, Golf Caddie Trial, gChords Free, JogStats, Beerology 101, Twee, Go To Tool, PicHunt (Pets), Wobble Words, dkStopwatch, Top Stocks Lite, My Mall Shopping, Mind Master, The Surprise, PicHunt (Vintage Cars), BAC Calcuator, and PicHunt (Space Explorer).

Give these new apps a new home on your Pre or Pixi and let us know what you think!

source: preThinking

You may have heard of a rather obscure social networking app called Facebook? Palm webOS handset owners have waited patiently for Facebook to be available in the App Catalog, and finally it arrived a couple days ago. If you want to start networking with your Facebook friends from your webOS device, just download the app (free!) from the App Catalog. It’s important for you to know that you must first update to webOS 1.3.1 before downloading the Facebook app. Let us know how it works for you!

source: everythingpre

With the introduction of webOS version 1.31 right out of the box for the Palm Pixi, and as an OTA firmware upgrade for the Palm Pre, Palm has tweaked a few things here and there with Yahoo Synergy topping the list. That means you can sync your contacts, calendar and e-mail between Yahoo and webOS 1.31 along with your Yahoo IM buddies list. Tapping on a text message or an IM now brings up a menu that gives you options to copy, forward or delete a single message. Pressing your finger down on the fast forward or rewind button on the music player allows for a scrubber to appear. The scrubber can be dragged to the exact part of the song or podcast you are accessing. Web sites now have placeholders for flash content instead of empty space. Perhaps this is to remind everyone that flash is supposed to be added to the Pre in the first half of next year. If the missing flash content is a YouTube video, a preview image is shown to alert you that you can click on the image to watch the video from inside the phone’s YouTube app. Palm has told precentral that webOS 1.31 also contains the “underpinnings” to download the Facebook App from the online store. In other words, webOS 1.31 is the minimum build required to run the current Facebook app for the Pre or the Pixi. Speaking of the app store, the store now filters apps so that if using the Pixi, only apps that can be used for that handset can be seen by the user, and vice versa.

While not available now as it is “grayed out”, future versions of webOS will allow you to select which apps will handle phone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses. Holding the door open for at least the idea of an alternative to the Opera browser in the future, eventually webOS users will be able to select which app will hold your web links.. On the Pixi, it looks like 1.31 brings some Bluetooth fixes with it. The new build doesn’t increase speed and the ability to use the Facebook app is the only application related change. For Pre owners moving up to 1.31 either with the OTA upgrade or by buying a Pixi, the move from 1.21 to 1.31 will probably be noticeable although it won’t give you everything you want including iTunes syncing.
source: precentral

Without all of the excitement and fanfare seen when the Palm Pre launched this past summer, the Palm Pixi officially goes on sale at Sprint today. With the latest version of webOS under its’ hood. the difference between the two devices is really all about the hardware. The Pixi lacks a Wi-Fi radio, and has a downgraded camera at 2MP vs. the Pre’s 3MP shooter. The display, at 2.63 inches, is much smaller than the 3.1 inch screen found on the earlier model. But all of this cutting back has allowed Palm and Sprint to offer a webOS device at a lower price. The Pixi costs $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and your signature on a 2 year contract. Anyone looking to spread a little Pixi dust today?
source: Sprint