webOS 1.4 coming in February with built-in Flash, video, etc

Yes it is, if only if it makes dedicated music apps redundant. All of last.fm, tunesBag, imeem etc. accessible without waiting for them to release an app. (I am of course assuming that streaming audio using Flash works as intended). And in general for breaking down another barrier for what part of the web was seamlessly accessible in your hands.

flash in beta in app catalog

Well, I'm sure Apple will throw some seriously cool punches this year.

Right now, it's still Palm that's catching up, but the tables could turn completely with the next generation of hardware.

talking about "the turtle and the rabbit race" Arrogance is iphone's worst enemy!!I hope they keep it up.

Just try answering email while uploading videos and surfing PreCentral on the Nexus One. Go Palm!

@jrey86 Not being biased (as much as possible) for you... but the most exciting thing about the Pre is the growth of the platform. Yes, the Nexus One with Google gives you a huge app store in place, but it doesn't have the excitement that the WebOS community has going. I've had the G1 and Hero, but have never had as much fun with a phone as I have had with the Pre. This fun mostly comes from being a part of the excitement of days like this. Yes, I miss some of the toys of Android phones, but after using WebOS I find it a huge step backwards when I use a co-worker's Android-based phone (or iPhone). WebOS is truly THAT good. I've owned phones all the major US carriers and have had almost all of the 'top' smartphones. This is the only one that I would have a hard time giving up!

With no bias...I'm loving my switch from Verizon to Sprint and using the Pre. When I wanted to replace my old phone with Verizon, they nickel and dimed me and forced me to "make do" with a Centro with a dead backlight, or pay out of the pocket for a new one. Sprint didn't ask questions, just overnighted me a replacement Pre. The Sprint plan is much cheaper each month, too. I can't stand Google's data mining and targeted advertising on my desktop...I'd like at least one platform where I can be free of that, and I get that with Palm.

I'm also concerned, as a smartphone developer, about Google's design in regards to the app limitations and memory usage. I don't see a lot of value in voice recognition for filling out fields...normally I have a hard enough time finding a quiet place to just make a phone call. Not to mention...when I upgraded from my Treo years ago, I decided I didn't want a device that was bigger than that. The Nexus may be thinner, but it's still too long for me. I'd rather have the biggest screen usable on as small a device as possible with top of the line smartphone features. And you're going to be typing a lot, it's a smartphone. You'll thank me when you realize how much better and faster it is to type on a real keyboard than a virtual keyboard. It's generally at least twice as fast or more. The Nexus just seems to have a few nice hardware improvements that Palm will most likely mirror in their next phone...but the stuff they added to the OS feels kind of like throwaway "wow" stuff...but ultimately doesn't add that much value.

Are you anti-sprint for some reason? Their plans are a lot cheaper and really the "old" pre is just fine unless you plan to use it as a media player. I'll admit right off the bat though that Sprint's coverage can be lacking. For example, I previously had a treo, and when I lived in Pittsburgh I would be unable to get a signal in the cathedral of learning (big stone skyscraper thing) with sprint but got a perfect signal when I roamed on Verizon. Thus I had to set my phone on roam only (which you can do on the pre w/patches) while at school and remember to switch it back when I left as sprint can get bitchy and cut you off if you use more than 1/2 your data/minutes on verizon's network (they lose money so it makes sense).

Currently I have to do the same thing at the University of Wisconsin's medical campus. If I leave my phone on normal "automatic" mode it keeps switching from sprint to roaming(verizon) when I am in the buildings and kills the battery. On Verizon's network I get 3 bars, so, if sprint did not have the roaming deal with verizon, I'd definitely switch companies.

If you do get bad coverage in your home just get an Airave. It rocks. The only caveat though is if you fileshare/bittorrent make sure you limit your upstream bandwidth. Otherwise you'll be able to hear calls, but your callers won't be able to hear you.

@jrey86

The way I look at it is to compare the OS's, just about everyone agrees that WebOS is the best OS out there. In my experience with HTC, they always put crappy video apps on their devices, in the demos I've seen of the Nexus One, the video app looked good, it remains to be seen if the video recording on the Nexus One will work the same in the real world. I currently have the Homebrew "Precorder" app on my Pre, the frame rate is fantastic, so myself and others who have the ability to record on their Pre, know Palms new video recording app will be top notch.

As for "7.2 speeds", I guarantee that you will not even see have that speed on T-mobile!

Well, you are ALMOST correct. If you review the CES announcements, they made it quite clear that Flash will NOT be available for the Pixi.

:shrug: I never used it on my WinMo device. Voice is not that important.

would you like some cheese with your whine...nobody cares about voice dailing when it compares to all these new additions to webos...I've had voice crap features on a bunch of my previous phones and barely if ever used them mainly because of the hassle it is to have em pulling up the wrong data...get a Android if you care so much about voice dailing ingrate! And for the record webOS is evolving faster than any current mobile phone OS available right now if Palm keeps rolling out updates for webOS at this rate the next wave of Palm hardware will be hard for any competitor to handle! That's my 2 cents

I've had smartphones for about 6 years now, and I can't recall once really using voice dialing. With the Pre, I find it a lot easier to just open the phone, type in a name in universal search, and make the call. That said, it wouldn't take all that much to implement, I'd bet, to voice activate the universal search and add in commands like "dial" or "lookup". I wouldn't be surprised if that feature showed up suddenly in some release where Palm had extra time on their hands and wanted to squeeze a feature in that they could advertise.

With a "real" keyboard, I don't see myself needing voicedial (I refuse to be a headset wearing borg). It is super easy to set up quickdial hotkey's. With 26 of them, calling my frequently called numbers is a piece of cake (hold down "p" to call my parents, "k" to call the wife (her first initial), "j" to call joe, etc.).

Plus palm always likes to leave niche features like these to developers. I would expect an app that does voicedialing within a year.

I agree; I really miss voice dialing which I had on both my Blackberry Curve and Motorola Q. I also would like to see voice recognition so that Palm can have an app like dragon dictation for the iphone. However, I am not holding my breath for either of these two developments.

Dont install flash.

The games are up on the catalog now... except i can't see them because Canada doesn't have paid apps :(

4 comes after 3 :-)

I thought I was the only one thinking that!

Integer versions (1.0 to 2.0) are huge. Tenths are not so huge (1.3 to 1.4). Hundredths (1.3.1 to 1.3.5) and thousandths (1.3.5 to 1.3.5.1) are generally bug fixes and minor bug fixes, respectively. But jumping to .5 is usually a bigger milestone.

Hmmm... Since I know Palm knows this, I wonder what they have planned for 1.5????

Wow, I got excited just typing that last sentence!!! (Maybe I need a life!)

I am so glad that they won't be getting it.At least,Adobe have the guts to stand up against apple.The controlling freak company!
@:Iancarr27

I think there's some telling text on the Palm developer site right now... it talks about the new PDK, the thing that gives you native capabilities... in one paragraph they say they are working to give all applications, meaning those built with web technologies, the same sort of performance boost.

That to mean means that (a) they are working to build a JavaScript wrapper around the native capabilities so you get things like GPU and audio and such up in the JavaScript world, and more importantly it means (b) since most of webOS is built this way, THAT is when I'd expect to see significant performance improvements across the board.

I'd also guess this isn't TOO far off... thinking like later the first half of this year... I'm not anticipating an SDK bump that provides these sorts of new APIs and that huge chunks of the overall UI will take advantage of those (it might be as simple as using that stuff under the covers and not actually having to modify any existing code, depends on how they do things).

That's my guess, but it's nothing more... but, I think that text, which you can go read for yourself right now, pretty strongly hints at something like that in the not-too-distant future.

Oh that's good news!! I thought I was the only one =) lol

If it lasts longer than four hours then please seek medical attention.

Yes, it's wrong. (And me too!)

Right there with you.

"Smartphones are sexy."

Now I understand why they say that!

LOL

GAHHHH... Im banging on the door and the App Cat wont open the door! Its so flooded! Its like when someone wraps a gift... but instead of wrapping paper they use duct tape!

$4.99: Sudoku
$5.99: Let's Golf, Oregon Trail
$6.99: Monopoly, Asphalt 5, Scrabble, Tetris
$9.99: Sims 3, X-Plane 9

Awesome comment. You should tweet that with the #palmpre hashtag!

Yep, and the way Palm dealt with european users in the past I doubt we will see an update to 1.4 before the end of march. :(
If they really want to attack Apple and their AppStore, Palm still has a long way to go.

This bums me out as well, but I think this has more to do with O2 policies then Palm. They have to approve the update and seem to be very slow with this. O2 should get moving! Bell's got their update out.
Since they already stated EU paid apps for March, I don't expect the 1.4 update before that either...

On the upside, by the time we get the updates, most bugs have been ironed out and Preware is up to date!

I'll pee myself when they add expandable memory! Until then I'll just suffer with an irritable bladder and keep hopping from one leg to another :)

Dear Canteenboy,

We would like to have you unload some money from your bank, but we do not have an app catalog. But we are sure that Palm will take that money.

Sincerly,

Sprint

agreed! but I'll humbled myself and please tell me what is OMG?!!!thank you.
oh,my great grandfather!lol'
@Predator-1

What is that?

I own 3 touchstones -- was there a feature removed recently?

I don't think you should own a Pre, we are early adopters, when you bought the phone you should have looked at the specs, the fact that Palm is bringing these updates this fast is amazing. You should explore other phones in my opinion.

@daforrda: it took iphone 3g 2 years to implement simple copy and paste,bluetooth and still no mms.The iphone 3Gs 3 years to get video recording( do they have flash in the camera yet or zoom?)and still no Multi-tasking.So,go figure?

Agreed... I read the reviews on Asphalt5 and am going to wait for NFS to show.

Im buying Asphalt 5 now.... when is Need for Speed coming?? I'll play both.. we have 3D GAMES Now! Didn't know I'd see this big of an improvement soon! YES! WebOS FT-MF-W!!!

Get ready to be labeled a "whiner". Someone else already was. I agree, voice dialing should be easy enough to implement. Seems odd that it hasn't been a feature included in WebOS.

i would rather have voice texting instead.

Maybe you should be focusing on the road and not on who you are going to chat with for your 3 hour trek through dense traffic.

understand that that was years earlier...this is now, and most if not all of the droid phones and the iphone are coming with all of these features out of the box...i understand that webos has some better capabilities but they are never going to be seen if they dont get these things updated faster...things like video and voice dialing are all standard on regular phones, not just smartphones...they rushed the phone out a little early to try to capitalize on some of the hype...the phone was not ready. imagine if they had launched the phone with all of this on it? do you think there would have been near as many complaints about the hardware (which i personally have no problems with, i am careful with my phone, but i dont baby it by any means...and i have dropped it from 6 foot and had no cracks, dings or scratches, no wobbling in the slider no rickets...i think it is like any product, some are going to be better than others...some people just nit pick more than others)

like another poster said, i am not going to give palm a pat on the back for soemthing the phone should have been equiped with to begin with. this is stuff they told us it could do to begin with yet they made everyone wait 7 months to do it, well make it 8 and the people outside of the US are still waiting for a lot of it and a lot more

People on here complain that apple gets by because of the diehard apple people...but i think palm has some of that reputation as well...and that is fine, but we cant have it both ways.

by the way, i was not complaining about getting this stuff, only that they should have already released it...i love the phone, and have been happy and will continue to be happy with it, they are just moving slow, small or not!

until now,they still haven't evolved into anything beside a extra"S" and 100,000 apps.
@Iancarr27.

This is an entirely new OS, and has been in consumer hands for about 6 months... I'd say they're doing pretty well

Geez, dude! Kicked any kittens lately? Harsh much?

I suspect that the development life cycle for phones has changed. No longer do you wait to release. You release as early as possible, and then fix later. Consider that iPhone came out with lots of missing functionality, most notably installed applications - something that is required to be called a smartphone. Also android on the G1 would best be described as a developer phone.

I wonder if Palm intentionally released WebOS early following the same pattern as iPhone & android. The clear advantage of doing this is to get revenue from early adopters to finance further development.

My only complaint is NFS isn't in the app catalog and it has been several minutes after they announced its existence.

you can start with a catch phrase like game, i'd spend a couple bucks on that.

I can't watch the video from my current location. Does it look like the pre+ has a LED center button (like the pixi) or did it lose the center button altogether. If the latter, did the pixi+ lose the led center button, too?