Palm webOS owners have something to look forward to, despite having some rather quiet happenings of late, as Facebook beta for webOS has been updated to version 1.3.1. Although there are no new notable features accompanying its release, Palm states that there are “some bug fixes and performance improvements” that are found with it. Overall, you can just expect to see a more responsive experience when using the app. On other webOS news, the official version of the Facebook app for webOS has also been moved up to version 1.3 – which essentially brings forth worthy features such as landscape viewing, filtered news feeds, and many more items. So if you’re more in line to sticking true with official app releases as opposed to checking out beta ones, then head on over to the App Catalog and catch yourself the latest download of the Facebook app.
via PreCentral

The addictive game Angry Birds is now available for the Palm Pre and Pre Plus. Available in the Palm App Catalog for $2, your Pre must have the latest version of webOS, 1.4.5, under the hood. According to a press release issued by Palm, Angry Birds will be made available for Pixi owners later. The game’s creator, Rovio, had asked the webOS community if they wanted the game for their platform and the response was extremely positive.

For those Rip Van Winkle types who are not familiar with the multi-level game, using a slingshot you launch birds-each with a different power-toward a number of green pigs protected by wood or stone housing. Spurred on by the massive success of the game on the iPhone and iPod, the developers want to put the game on other platforms. While the game is among the top selling apps in over 60 countries, so far Android users have been shut out.
source: Palm

The latest version of webOS, that was released by Sprint for its Palm phones, seems to have unlocked some gaming capabilities on the Palm Pixi munchkin. Since webOS 1.4.5 brings OpenGL support to the handset, it is now able to run 3D games for mobile. Need for Speed: Undercover was installed on it to test the 3D prowess of the Palm Pixi, and it behaved quite well, with playable framerate, but slow loading times. If you are a Pixi user and have gaming pedigree, that is certainly great news.

While some are just receiving their mobile gaming capabilities, others are running Rage at 60fps. That is precisely what John Carmack from id Software (hint: DooM 1, 2 and 3; Quake 1, 2, 3 and 4) demoed with an iPhone 4 in his hands at QuakeCon 2010. Carmack was using id’s Tech 5 graphics engine, and, scaled for the iPhone, the “megatexture” experience of Rage looked amazingly smooth. He even went as far as to say that the demo is able to “kill anything done on the Xbox or PlayStation 2… “. Certainly an impressive feat, if we forget that the whole action is shown on a 3.5” screen, a big part of which is to be occupied by your thumbs.
source: Engadget and Gizmodo

On August 3rd, Palm’s job board posted an open position for ‘Director – Sprint Retail Sales’. The posting references “the implementation of products/services based on the VP–Sales – Sprint’s direction”, as well as “product launch activities”. These points suggest that Palm will continue its close relationship with Sprint, and, what is more important for us, may soon launch new products!

Back in late April of this year, HP announced the purchase of Palm, Inc. for $1.2 billion. The promising partnership combines HP’s large international infrastructure and resources with Palm’s proven webOS operating system. Perhaps the HP-Palm power-couple, with the help of Sprint’s growing 4G network, can stand against the Android OS’ burgeoning market share. Time will tell.
source: Palm Job Board via PreCentral

HP placed themselves in the spotlight recently, but unfortunately for them, it didn’t involve anything related to their wonderful and eclectic mix of consumers products. The abrupt resignation of ex-CEO Mark Hurd might’ve given the company some face time in the media, however, things might shift once again after news surfaced regarding a webOS powered tablet. There was an all-hands employee meeting held yesterday when Personal Systems Group VP, Todd Bradley, mentioned some interesting news surrounding a new project that’s commencing and is being referred to internally as “Hurricane.” This project is reported to be the all too knowing webOS powered tablet which will bypass the busy holiday season and make its launch some time in Q1 2011 – which we’d imagine would provide them ample time getting this fine tuned and ready for the competition. Since they’re going to miss out on the important holiday season, the bar will naturally be set a bit higher since they’re already in the process of completing webOS 2.0 – which is something that’ll hopefully breathe in some new life to the once fledgling platform.
source: Engadget via Unwired View

Regardless or not we’ll end up seeing some kind of new hardware from Palm this year, it’s not stopping developers from fine tuning and enhancing apps created for the platform. It’s evident in the most recent release of the Facebook app for webOS version 1.2.30 beta which continues to emulate the desktop experience on a mobile level. Although this isn’t a groundbreaking update, it does add some new features such as the support for selectable news feeds, toggling feed comments on/off, and the ability to clear multiple notifications at the same time. In addition, you’ll find the customary amount of enhancements and bug fixes to better the overall experience. Since it’s not yet available to download through the App Catalog, you can basically just click the source link to get yourself a copy of the update.
source: Palm via Palm’s Facebook

HP’s executive VP, Todd Bradley, admits that his company would like to be Microsoft’s biggest customer. But when it comes to mobile operating systems, there is no reason for Hewlett Packard to use Windows Phone 7. After all, HP did pick up a pretty good mobile OS when it purchased Palm and gained control of webOS which it plans on using for all of its smartphone needs. Developed by Palm and introduced in January 2009, webOS at the time it was introduced, seemed like a revolutionary OS with its use of cards to represent applications that could be turned off by simply flicking the card off of the screen. But the first device to use webOS, the Palm Pre, was done in by hype, too few apps, and a poor job of marketing. HP plans on improving the hardware to help spread the use of the software. In an interview, Bradley said, “Our intent is to focus those resources and really make webOS the best OS it can be.”

HP isn’t completely tossing out Windows Phone 7. The HP Slate is a tablet that originally was designed for Windows Phone 7. After the Palm acquisition, it was changed to a webOS device before switching back to Windows as a business oriented product. HP could end up making two different versions of the tablet, using Windows for the business-centric version and webOS for a model designed for the general public.

Before the Palm purchase, HP was excited about teaming with Microsoft. HP Senior VP Steve Manser had said, “We are simply very excited to be entering a new era in our Smartphone business together with Microsoft, especially as the market continues to grow and evolve. HP is working even closer with Microsoft to develop signature phones on the Windows Phone 7 Series that offer an entirely new consumer experience.” It’s funny how your thoughts can change after spending $1.2 billion, which is how much Palm cost HP to buy. Actually, when you get right down to it, HP spent all that money for webOS as there really was nothing more to Palm except for some inventory of phones, and of course, the brain power of employees.
source: PCMag

While Germany’s O2 is the only carrier to officially offer the webOS 1.4.5 upgrade to its customers, and AT&T owners will probably be the last to receive it, a self-proclaimed “Sprint employee” tells the PreCentral forum that webOS 1.4.5.1 will be available from Sprint on July 7th after most European carriers will have already made 1.4.5 available to customers. On the Palm site, it does let us know what changes to expect from this download, mostly some repairs to minor problems. On the browser, for example, if you enter text on certain web pages, the screen focus now will remain on the text being entered. The upgrade will also correct a rare problem that prevented some podcasts from downloading correctly and addresses several security issues with the software. The forum writing “Sprint employee” also dropped a few more items that the upgrade will bring to Sprint users such as fixing the e-mail so that the Sprint branded e-mail default signature is correctly branded. There will be some improvement to battery life and videos will be able to get sent via multimedia messaging. Sprint TV will have a couple of changes with an upgrade to version 3.5.4 and parental controls will be enhanced. Meanwhile, Palm has made the webOS 1.4.5 SDK available to all developers including the just out of beta PDK. The upgrade will allow 3D gaming PDK apps to be supported by the Palm Pixi.
source: PreCentralForums, Phonescoop

Palm is really trying to curry favor with app developers. As we reported, despite the recent 50% off sale at the Palm App Catalog, the developers are getting paid a full 100% of what they would normally earn on the sale of their apps. Now, Palm is getting rid of the $50 submission fee that every developer had to pay to submit an app for the catalog. Not only will the fee no longer be charged , but the company is returning the $50 that was already paid for each app. With the grand total of 2,684 apps in the catalog, that means that the manufacturer will be cutting checks totaling $134,200. Actually, the refunds will be processed through each developers PayPal account. Now the big question for the code writers-are you sufficiently motivated enough to start writing some more apps for Palm?
source: PalmDeveloperCenterBlog

The webOS mobile operating system is known for its multitasking and ease of use virtues. How about some raw power behind it? While HP is twiddling its thumbs with shareholder approvals of its Palm acquisition, some insane things are being done to one humble Palm Pre. The TI OMAP3430 processor inside that particular handset has been pushed beyond limits to juice out a full 1GHz clock speed out of it. This equals the best smartphones currently on the market, and is even more amazing when you consider the default speed is “just” 600MHz.

The brains behind the “F105 Thunderchief” project (they might as well have called it “Thunderchef”), have cooked the webOS kernel to unleash the above mentioned speeds, and they have also been kind enough to record a video of how the interface behaves at those speeds. So far, the biggest drawback to toasting your chip we can see is that the bump in raw power really seems to take a heavy toll on the battery quicker than you can say “I told you so”.
source: Engadget