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Back in the days of webOS 1.x, it was possible through the magic of homebrew to alter the webOS app launcher in any number of ways. There were dozens of patches to change the spacing between apps, the size of app icons, the number of rows and columns and whether or not your apps had names and how big those names were… And then webOS 2.0 came out. It brought a fancy new natively-coded app launcher that while faster and smoother and more reliable was also impossible to patch without replacing the entire package. The beauty of the 1.x launcher was that it was coded in HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript like the rest of webOS. It was just another app as far as the phone was concerned, just one that you used to launch all other apps. It was easy to write up a patch to change a few lines of that code and suddenly have four columns and five rows of apps instead of the traditional three by four webOS view. The uncustomizable launcher carried on into webOS 3.0 to an even greater degree. Unless they go through a not-as-easy-as-patching process, TouchPad owners can't even change the names of their launcher tabs, let alone create new pages or change the spacing of app icons. It's utterly preposterous that we're stuck with nonsensically named tabs like "Apps", "Downloads", and "Favorites". Shouldn't the favorites tab be the first one? And aren't all of the launcher pages populated by apps, not just the first? And am I supposed to leave every app I've downloaded under the Downloads tab, or is it acceptable practice to move them somewhere else, like "Favorites"? It might take more code to make adding, removing, moving, and renaming launcher pages a possibility, but the TouchPad launcher scheme was unacceptable when the tablet launched, and it's even more so today more than a year after the TouchPad was announced. So here's what needs to happen (feel free to roll all of this into Open webOS). The launcher needs to have customizable pages. As with webOS 2.x, the page names must be renamable and the pages themselves reorderable. This is a bare minimum. If we can't do that, just dump the whole tabs scrolling launcher pages concept and put us into the paginated world of iOS and Android (hint: that's not what we want). The next step is to enable customization of spacing and icon size. Some people want big icons that are well-spaced, others prefer a tightly-packed layout that fits as many icons on a page as possible. For most the TouchPad's icon spacing works fine, but on webOS smartphones like the bigger-screened Pre3 it's silly to be stuck to just three icons across on a page. Have your own thoughts on this or any other webOS Wish List entry? You do, we get it. That's why we have the comments, it's your place to say how right - or how wrong - we are. And we have little doubt you have your own ideas as to what ought be on the webOS wish list, and so we've created a forum thread just for that - and an awesome discussion it has proven to be. View the full article

We don't get to review many accessories these days, for reasons that are fairly obvious: nobody makes or sells webOS devices, so why would anybody make accessories for those devices? It's a hard life for the accessory-wanting HP TouchPad, HP Veer, or HP Pre3 owner. But just because they aren't available doesn't mean accessories don't exist. For example, there's the Touchstone bluetooth audio dock, a never sold and never announced successor to the original Touchstone that incorporated Bluetooth audio streaming into the charging mix. At least a few have landed out in the wild, but they're exceedingly rare. You know, like the HP TouchPad Go. We've managed to get our hands on one such example of the HP Touchstone 2 Audio Dock, and it's partly what we expected, and partly not. read more View the full article

While your webOS profile will forever remember all the of the apps that you have ever purchased and allow you to re-download any of those apps for free, there is no way to actually see that list of all your purchased apps aside from reviewing all the individual emailed receipts that you received. While we would prefer a section in the App Catalog to display this information, we will have to settle for a homebrew solution from the great WebOS Internals' using the app Impostah (available for download in Preware or webOS Quick Install). Open up Impostah Tap on "App Catalog" Select "Show Purchased Apps" You will get a view of all the apps you have purchased on your profile, although it will be the App ID, not the app name. If you are unable to figure out what app it is, you can always navigate to: https://developer.palm.com/appredirect/?packageid=[App ID] (replacing "[App ID]" with the actually App ID) to load up the app description webpage Unfortunately, this page will not show if the app is installed or not, but you can export the list by swiping down from the top-left to bring down the Application dropdown menu and choosing "Email" to send yourself a email with a listing of all the apps for you to then compare against what is installed on your device If you notice that an app is in the list but is missing on your device and you can not find it in the App Catalog, this may be because the app is not listed as compatible with your device. If this is the case, can try using the homebrew App Tuckerbox to access the app in Preware, but be aware that there may be compatibility issues and the app may not work correctly (or it may work fine and the developer just never marked it for use on your device). View the full article

When I started this site in November 2009 I never expected the amazing ride it would turn into. What started out as a simple app review site grew into the second largest webOS fan site on the planet with over 300,000 visitors a month, a live podcast, two trips to CES, a lot of contests and more fun than one group of guys should be allowed to have. It is with great sorrow then to say that it is time for webOSroundup to sign off. It has been obvious for a little while now that WOR has not been able to keep up with the stories and news like we used to and rather than just languish and put up an occasional story from time to time we wanted to go out on our own terms and say thank you to each and every one of our fans…so in standard WOR fashion, we are going to do it with one final podcast. Next Tuesday (April 10th) at 9pm(Eastern) all of the WOR miscreants from the past and present will be around to talk about the wonderful ride running this site has been. We will be doing it live so we want everyone who can join us to do so. On tap to join us is: Dan Ramirez, myself, Jesse Mendoza, Ryan St. Andrie, and (hopefully) Roy Sutton. It should be a grand time where we can reminiscent about all the antics, webOS as a platform, and some behind the scenes stuff that you probably wouldn’t otherwise hear. Also, if you have questions, we will answer those as well. We hope you can join us and add your webOS and WOR stories into the mix as well. If you have any questions or stories, feel free to email me at [email protected] and we will do our best to get to each and every one of them. View the full article

An 800x480 screen, 1.4GHz Qualcomm processor, 512MB of RAM, 16GB of storage, an underappreciated but not fully matured operating system with a unique look and feel, and a physical design unlike anything else on the market. Name that phone. Is it the announced-15-months-ago-but-never-released HP Pre3, or the brand new Nokia Lumia 900 running Windows Phone on AT&T? Well, it's both. Nokia's latest Windows Phone 7 salvo is hitting AT&T with the force of, well, Nokia and Microsoft, and unlike the Pre3, you can actually buy it in stores. Our friend Daniel Rubino over at WPCentral just reviewed the latest Windows Phone flagship device, and here's what he found plenty to love: For $99 on contract, the Lumia 900 is one of the nicest Windows Phone on the market today and for the foreseeing future all at a great price. It has solid hardware including super-fast 4G LTE and the latest version of Windows Phone Mango ensuring a great experience for new users and veterans looking for an upgrade. Plus the device oozes with Nokia’s quality craftsmanship making it a device many will want to talk about. With all the hype around this phone, this could be the next “it” device for the summer. That $99 price point is really the super interesting part. Nokia and Microsoft are pushing this hard, and with that subsidy it's clear that AT&T is planning to push it hard too. AT&T says that the marketing drive for the Lumia 900 will be their biggest ever, eclipsing even their efforts for the iPhone. It's an interesting show to see the difference that a committed (and perhaps desperate) companies like Nokia and Microsoft can make when they through their full weight behind a product. Not that we're making any allusions to the fate of webOS under HP or anything… Read: WPCentral's Nokia Lumia 900 review read more View the full article

We know a lot of you aren't interested in Android, let alone considering installing it on your precious TouchPad. That's fine, this guide isn't for you. There are plenty of TouchPad owners who are and they have plenty of legitimate reasons to do so. Be it to get apps like Netflix on their tablet, to see what all the fuss is about widgets, or merely for the novelty factor of installing a second operating system on a TouchPad, there are reasons to do it. This guide will go over how to install the CyanogenMod 9 Android build on the HP TouchPad. CyanogenMod is a third-party open source distribution of the Android Open Source Project, with CyanogenMod 9 (CM9) based off of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). It offers all of the core features of Android, though it does not come with the Google services integration that has come to be associated with the majority of commercial smartphone and tablet distributions of Android. The CM9 install is done alongside webOS. Once all is said and done you'll have the option when booting to launch into webOS or Android. It might seem daunting, but in reality it's not that complicated. Still interested? Alright, here's what you need... read more View the full article

Steve Jobs put an end to the Newton project, in part because he hated the concept of using a stylus. The original Palm Pilot was a runaway hit -- in part because of the use of the stylus and its handwriting recognition. Now, Palm is dead and Apple is ginormous and Samsung is trying to bring the stylus back with the Galaxy Note line... So, who was right? Just as the iPad is reaching the stratosphere in usage, the stylus is making a comeback. We ran a quick poll and the initial results were intriguing enough we wanted to get a better sense of just what was going on across all platforms and all of our mobile communities. So here's a short survey. Does the stylus inhibit or amplify your touch screen experience? Let us know! Take the Survey! View the full article

Steve Jobs put an end to the Newton project, largely because he hated the concept of using a stylus. The original Palm Pilot was a runaway hit - largely because of the use of the stylus and its handwriting recognition. Now, Palm is dead and Apple is ginormous, so, who was right? Well...maybe they both were. Just as the iPad is reaching the stratosphere in usage, the stylus is making a comeback. So, we want to know what you think. Does the stylus inhibit or amplify your touch screen experience? Let us know by taking the short survey below. Take the Survey! View the full article

Perhaps one of the coolest features webOS users have enjoyed since webOS 2.1 has been Exhibition mode. There is something inherently awesome about having your device do something useful during charging/idle time. When we set our Pre smartphones and TouchPads onto a Touchstone charger we have "at a glance information" of everything from news to weather to Twitter getting fed actively and passively to our glancing eyes. The rest of the world, meanwhile, has little to no relationship with their devices while they are charging. Their iPhones and Lumias and Droids just sit there and charge. That is about to change for our Exhibition-less fellow smartphone users, all thanks to one of our favorite webOS developers: Inglorious Apps. Anyone familiar with Inglorious Apps' flagship TouchPad app Glimpse should recognize Dock immediately. Dock is basically just a repackaged version of Glimpse's Exhibition widgets, built for smartphones. The Enyo-based app allows you to view streaming stock market data, RSS feeds, your Google Reader headlines, Twitter and Facebook streams, the latest news, a clock, or the weather while your iPhone or Android device is idle. Unfortunately, thanks to the design of Android and iOS there is no way to have Dock automatically load when you plug in your smartphone to charge, so you'd have to get into the habit of manually opening it up upon plug-in (some Android devices may support opening Dock as part of a "dock mode" or "car mode", but there's no universal Android way to do it that we're aware of). Even though Dock is a repurposing of bits from an Enyo app, it's the first Enyo app we've seen launch for non-webOS devices before webOS. Sure, you can buy Glimpse for your TouchPad and get these very same Exhibition widgets, but you can't do that on your webOS smartphone. Either way it is nice to see more Enyo goodness on other platforms and is a good indication of things to come with open webOS. This neat little app is currently available in the Google Play store for $1.43 and is currently routing its way through the iOS App Store approval process (hopefully to not meet the same fate as Inglorious Apps' Glimpse port Panes for iPad). Don't have an iPhone or Android device but still want some Dock up on your Pre or Veer? Inglorious Apps may not have yet created a version of Dock for webOS phones, but says that if there is a big enough demand they'd be more than happy to submit it to the webOS App Catalog. The comments away for your display of "I want!" Also, you can check out an iPhone emulator video of Dock in action after the break. read more View the full article

Sam has left the building... View the full article

This tip is only for devices running webOS 3.x The order of the email accounts listed in the email app is determined by the order that you add them to the app. While you have been able to reorder those email accounts since the original days of webOS and only needed to add a slight tweak to get it to work on webOS 2.x, this will not work in webOS 3.x on the TouchPad since Enyo does not currently support the ability to press-and-hold to rearrange lists. As a result, the only way to reorder your email accounts is to remove them and re-add them in the proper order. To accomplish this Take a look at the left-most sliding pane in the Email app, that shows the current order of your accounts and figure out the order that you want them to be listed. From any screen within the Email App, swipe-down in the top-left corner of the screen to bring up the Email Menu, and select “Preferences and Accounts” Under the “ACCOUNTS” listing, you will see each of your Email Accounts. Tap on any account that you need to remove and then re-add to the bottom of your account listing Scroll to the bottom of that specific Account Settings page and choose "Remove Account". You will then need to confirm the removal This will bring you back to the Preferences and Accounts page. Once you are done deleting your email accounts, leave the Email app and open up the Accounts app As long as you just removed the Email account from the Email app, you can then just find that account again in the Accounts app, select it, toggle "email" to ON and then press the Back button to start a sync of the account . You don't need to reinput your login credentials since you never completely deleted it from your Synergy accounts Keep adding accounts until you have them in the order that you would like Once completed, you unfortunately may need to go back to the Email account and set any preferences that you had previously setup for that account prior to the removal Here's hoping that Enyo will one day support press-and-hold to rearrange lists and this workaround will no longer be necessary. View the full article

The folks at webOS Nation have reported that Sam Greenblatt has left his post as webOS CTO and will no longer be in charge of webOS. After reaching out to HP they also received confirmation with the following comment: “Sam Greenblatt is moving from webOS to a new role at HP and will continue to assist the team during the transition. The Open webOS project is on schedule and HP remains committed to the roadmap announced in January.” Currently, there is no indication as to who may be next to take the reins of webOS. For the time being, Greenblatt will remain with HP simply in a different capacity. Sources have told webOS Nation that some developers within HP may have had issues surrounding the current pace of the open webOS roadmap. Going as far as possible head-butting going on stemming as far back as when Greenblatt originally came on to manage webOS. We are hopeful that this is simply yet another stepping stone in the long trail of stones that have faced webOS and that HP chooses the right person to head webOS as the next CTO. We are hoping they are able to continue making progressing and sticking with the promise to remain on track. Source: webOS Nation View the full article

Today saw yet another release along the Open webOS roadmap, with Novacom and Novacomd finding their way onto GitHub. The two pieces comprise a generic communication toolset used to communicate between a host (your computer) and embedded device (your webOS device) over USB. It's what allows the webOS SDK and programs like WebOS Quick Install to access the device over a USB connection without having to put the device into USB Mode. Plus there's the fact that USB mode doesn't allow access to the file system. Novacom has been distributed as part of the webOS SDK and webOS Doctors since what seems like the beginning of time, and was released as a separate downloadable executable a while back as well. The separate release, while not open source, enabled WebOS Quick Install to get by without downloading the entire webOS Doctor just to be able to extract Novacom to install a single app or patch. There are two parts to the release, Novacom and Novacomd. The latter is the service that runs on both the host and the target device, while Novacom is the command line user interface that provides a human-accessible way to access that service. With both now out in open source, the webOS developer community (and the developer community at large) is free to enhance, fix, and repurpose the two as they see fit. The release of Novacom nearly closes out the Open webOS release commitments for March, with just LevelDB and MojoDB/DB8 left for the month. Major releases for March have included the Nyx hardware abstraction layer and the Linux Standard Kernel 3.3, both of which will go a long way towards opening up Open webOS to installation on a wide range of devices. There's still a lot to go on the roadmap, but despite what feels like near constant drama, Open webOS is still making progress. Update: HP has also released to open source the DB8 database abstraction layer. It's aparently "a work in progress and not currently buildable," though that is expected to soon change. DB8 first step in incorporating LevelDB databases into Open webOS. View the full article

We've been hearing rumblings of tension within the leadership of HP's Open webOS unit, and today we've learned that webOS CTO Sam Greenblatt is transitioning away from his leadership position within webOS. We contacted HP and they confirmed that Greenblatt will no longer be in charge of webOS, though they offered no hints as to who might be taking the lead: "Sam Greenblatt is moving from webOS to a new role at HP and will continue to assist the team during the transition. The Open webOS project is on schedule and HP remains committed to the roadmap announced in January." Sources indicate to us that developers within HP were frustrated by the pace of the roadmap (whether they wanted it to go faster or slower, we're not certain), and that there has been considerable head-butting since Greenblatt took the lead of webOS just a few short months ago. For what it's worth, HP has delivered on Enyo 2.0, QtWebKit, the Linux Standard Kernel, and the Nyx hardware abstraction layer. Before coming to webOS, Greenblatt had been "VP of Strategic Program, Strategy & Corporate Development", a job title that tells us pretty much nothing, but still sounds like something that would mesh well with leading a group like webOS. Additionally, at least according to his LinkedIn profile, Greenblatt also currently holds the CTO of Enterprise Global Distribution position at HP, so he'll still have something to do once the transition to whoever is new is complete. Of course, the last webOS leader that transitioned to another position within HP eventually transitioned to a hammock in Mexico. HP Chief Strategy Office Bill Veghte is still in place, guiding the webOS effort from above, as are the remnants of the Open webOS staff after the most recent round of dismissals. Drama like this is never good for any group, and it's especially not good right now after all of the hits webOS has taken in the past five months. We're hopeful HP will pick a new leader for the webOS CTO position that will be keep Open webOS on track and drama at a minimum. View the full article

As a website, on of our favorite advancements in web technology has been the adoption of server-stored CSS fonts. Here on webOS Nation, for example, we make liberal use of the ITC Lubalin Graph font family, designed by Herb Lubalin in 1973. It's a beautiful geometric font with slab serifs that works well at a variety of weights. It's no-nonsense, yet quirky at the same time. But if you're the type that only visits webOS Nation on your webOS device, that's something you'd never know, as the current implementation of WebKit in all versions of webOS lacks support for fonts that aren't basic web fonts. If the browser doesn't recognize the font, you get Prelude, which while a beautiful font in its own right, doesn't do justice to the choices made by a growing crowd of design conscious websites. For an operating system that's built around web technologies, it's almost silly that webOS doesn't support something as simple as rendering text in a font stored on a server. Have your own thoughts on this or any other webOS Wish List entry? You do, we get it. That's why we have the comments, it's your place to say how right - or how wrong - we are. And we have little doubt you have your own ideas as to what ought be on the webOS wish list, and so we've created a forum thread just for that - and an awesome discussion it has proven to be. View the full article

Even if you've only been casually following the news this week, you've likely heard the big story. No, it's not that the Supreme Court is debating the constitutionality Obama's healthcare plan, nor is it that the Pope went to Cuba or that Syrian President Assad seems to have accepted a peace plan put forth by Kofi Annan. It's not even the Hunger Games movie, American Idol, or a Jet Blue pilot suffering from a mental break at 40,000 feet. No, the big story this week is five hundred million dollars - the estimated jackpot for the Mega Millions lottery drawing on Friday. It's the largest jackpot in lottery history, hitting half a billion dollars for the first time (and if by some insane happenstance nobody wins it this week, it'll go even higher). It's also approaching half the price of what HP paid for Palm, and likely right around (or higher) what HP was getting offered for webOS when they were trying to sell it. HP's since gone open source with webOS, but there's still a big hurdle to be overcome: hardware. Needless to say, buckets of hardware ain't cheap. Palm and HP spent billions of dollars building software and hardware with limited success. Now there's the chance HP to could make webOS hardware again, but the success or failure of Open webOS will depend on more than just HP. Other manufacturers have to get involved. The question is - who would want to make that hundreds of millions of dollars investment? We already tackled the numerous obstacles that have to be overcome with making a smartphone or tablet, but in the end it all boils down to the Benjamins. Half a billion dollars could go a long way, wouldn't you say? Now, we're not encouraging anybody to go out and buy a few dozen Mega Millions tickets and commit your hypothetical winnings towards starting a company to make webOS devices. It's your money, and your hypothetical winnings, you can spend it how you wish. After taxes the winner of the lottery can probably expect to take home something closer to $300 million, which is still a good chunk of change. With only minimal software development to pay for, that whole chunk of change could be dedicated to personnel recruitment, supplier contracts, hardware development, and all the other things that need to happen to make a smartphone or tablet. Heck, if you're willing to plunk down a few hundred million (after saving some for yourself and that super sweet Gulfstream G650 you've had your eye on), you might find that others are willing to chip in a few million as well. So, just for fun, we have to ask: What would you do with half a billion dollars? View the full article

Ah… you can feel it in the air. The crystal white snow has melted, no icicles dripping on the fragile limbs of trees and your breath no longer condenses in the air before your eyes. Yes, springtime is finally here (at least on the upper half of the globe), and with that we urge you to pack a picnic, put on your shorts, and grab your webOS devices to have some fun. To help you out, we've rounded up four webOS apps for smartphones and tablets that will put some spring time bounce in your step and maybe help you with that plant-killing black thumb of yours. read more View the full article

This tip is only for those using a TouchPad and the official HP TouchPad Wireless Keyboard While you can use just about any Bluetooth keyboard with your TouchPad, there are a lot of benefits of using the official HP TouchPad Wireless Keyboard that was released alongside the tablet. In addition to some unique webOS keys on the device that will improve your webOS experience, the process of actually pairing the device is incredibly easy and will take only a matter of seconds to complete. To pair your keyboard with your TouchPad: Ensure that your Bluetooth keyboard is turned off before you start (with the keyboard laying face down, the power button on the back should be pushed to the left) This is important since the keyboard will only try to pair to a device for 1 minute after it's turned on Swipe down from the top-right corner of the TouchPad's screen to bring up the Device menu and choose Bluetooth, then Bluetooth Preferences If Bluetooth is not already turned on, toggle the ON/OFF switch to turn it on Press the "+ Add Device" and then select "Keyboard" from the "TYPE" dropdown list Turn your Bluetooth keyboard on (with the keyboard laying face down, the power button on the back should be pushed to the right) The TouchPad should search for the device and find it within a few seconds Tap "HP TouchPad Wireless Keyboard" under the FOUND DEVICES section and you are done Congrats, your keyboard has now been paired to the TouchPad for you to use. Note that after a short period of inactivity, the keyboard will power down and disconnect from the TouchPad. However, you just need to tap any key on the keyboard and it should automatically reconnect, as long as the TouchPad's Bluetooth is turned on View the full article

At long last, webOS finally has an app that can identify songs via audio fingerprint. That app is the oh-so-aptly-named Song ID from SSGLabs (their first webOS app). $5.00 brings the basics of a Shazam- or Midomi-like service to webOS. And by basics, we mean you open the app, hit the big green Listen button, and wait while it gets a sample, sends it up to the servers of an unnamed audio fingerprinting service, and spits back a result consisting of the track name and album info. We've been playing with Song ID for a little while now, testing it out on Derek's weirdly varied music library. The majority of the tunes Song ID was subjected to it was able to easily identify, be it Frank Sinatra, Tenacious D, the Vince Guaraldi Trio, John Williams' Jurassic Park soundtrack, or the funky offbeat tunes from Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. More obscure stuff, like the Dallas Wind Symphony under the direction of Frederick Fennell or the intense ambient tones of The Dark Knight Soundtrack spat back negative results. Song ID also had some problems with Weird Al Yankovic, but that's more a testament to Weird Al's weird abilities than anything else. Over Wi-Fi Song ID usually returned a match in five-to-ten seconds, while working over 3G took up to 30 seconds. Song ID is pretty basic in that it gives you just the results, no links to a music store to buy the album or YouTube to watch some videos. There's also no way to cancel an identification attempt without just closing the app, which was annoying the handful of times Song ID froze up on "Searching…" It's not Shazam, it's not fancy, and at $5.00 it's certainly not cheap as far as mobile apps go. But with Song ID webOS users finally get something they've been longing for for so many years. View the full article

We all know that choice is good. Choice gives us freedom. We celebrate our ability to make the choices we want, such as Pepsi or Coke. Mac or PC. If you've ever felt the need for choice in your Touchpad mapping options then WebOSM by Maël Lavault may be the app you've been waiting for. WebOSM utilizes the OpenStreetMap database, offering the user a choice between it and the built-ine Maps application that uses Microsoft's Bing maps. Lavault goes a step beyond that, offering up webOSM through the webOS Nation Homebrew Gallery for free or from the App Catalog for what amounts to a $0.99 donation. OpenStreetMap is the community-built free and open source road maps database that powers WebOSM. Anybody can make edits to OpenStreetMap, in essence it's like the Wikipedia of road maps. Using OpenStreetMap comes with some advantages and disadvantages. OpenStreetMap tends to be more detailed on the micro level than Bing or Google, often having extended paths and driveways for apartment complexes and university campuses, and has denoted many more local landmarks such as churches and schools. It also sometimes lacks some political boundaries and topographic data, as well as detailed aerial imagery (or roadmaps overlain on the available satellite imagery). Thanks to the crowd-sourced details in OpenStreetMap, urban areas are often highly detailed, while rural stretches might be as lacking in side roads and goat paths as they are people in real life. read more View the full article

There are some things that we never expect to see happen. We're talking tortoise riding a unicorn type stuff here. That's the level of make-believe upon which we had stashed the thought of webOS 1.4.5 ever getting released for the Palm Pre on Telcel. Like the Sprint Pre, the Telcel webOS phone was all but abandoned as far as updates were concerned, but it was abandoned at webOS 1.4.1. Unlike Apple, which has managed to somehow wrest control of updates away from the carriers, Palm still had to depend on carrier testing before their updates could get released. Somewhere along the line the ball was dropped when it came to the version of webOS 1.4.5 intended to be released onto Telcel's Pre. We had written if off long before HP wrote off getting webOS 2.0 onto older devices. And this week, that's changed. webOS Nation reader Alberto wrote to let us know that his Palm Pre on Telcel had received and successfully installed an update to webOS 1.4.5. So, what do the remaining Telcel Pre users get for their nearly two-year wait for the 1.4.5 update? We're assuming it's the same set of changes as were included in webOS 1.4.5 from 1.4.1 back in June 2010, so we're talking about improved PDK support, browser text field focusing, fixed podcast downloads, and some security patches. Hope it was worth the wait. All things considered, that the Telcel Pre got the update at all is a miracle, though we're throughly perplexed as to why it took so long. We contacted HP for more info about the update - mostly to confirm it and make sure we weren't dealing with a randomly distributed test update or something of the like - and they were just as confused as we were. So we'll just enjoy the hilarity of it all - at least webOS phones aren't still being sold with outdated software like our Android compatriots have to deal with. Granted, they still have phones being sold at all, so they've got that over us. View the full article

There are two things that really make Gmail Gmail: threaded conversations and labels. For the uninitiated, Gmail's labels are the result of a rethink of folders, instead of filing a message away in one folder, you can attach multiple labels (tags) to an email and have it appear under each of those labels, while still hanging out in your inbox or archive or even the trash. While some might loath threaded emails, it's hard to hate on labels. Except that nobody seems to have been able to pull off a good implementation of Gmail labels in any mobile email client. Amusingly, Google even has separate apps for Android for regular email and Gmail, as if they couldn't figure out how to make emails that support folders and emails that support labels happily coexist. Nobody else seemed to have taken the plunge into full and proper Gmail support, to the point where we just started to assume that Google was holding back the secret sauce for themselves. It turns out we were wrong. Google's sauce isn't so secret and there is in fact a Gmail Labels API. It was just recently implemented on a new iPhone email client called Sparrow (which while looking like a very nice suffers from the fundamental flaw of not being able to run in the background - Apple's Palm OS-style multitasking bites again!). With webOS going all open source, why not stop treating Gmail like it's just some other mail service and give it the special treatment it deserves. For those that use Gmail as more than just another mail provider, labels are fundamental. The IMAP implementation of Gmail tries to mimic labels as folders, and it's just not good. It works, but it's not good. With an available API, splicing labels support into the webOS email app is actually a possibility. Of course, how that's displayed is another question - we'd argue for just adding a labels button to the row at the bottom of the message view and maybe putting small colored label tags in the list view. But that's it - the rest of the "treat it like folders" implementation would still work just fine. Yeah, we're Gmail junkies here. We've gotta have our labels, man! Have your own thoughts on this webOS Wish List entry? Of course you do - the comments await. Without a doubt you have your own ideas as to what ought be on the webOS wish list, and so we've created a forum thread just for that - and an awesome discussion it has proven to be. View the full article

Every other week or so a new thread pops up in the webOS Nation Forums about the possibility of building our own webOS smartphones or tablets. It always seems to garner a bit of attention, especially when the poster comes in with a set of state-of-the-art (or beyond) specs for their phone that they may as well have lifted out of the latest and greatest Android handset. While this kind of thinking can be fun, I'm here today to dump a bucket of cold water all over it. Today's smartphones are incredibly complex devices. They're designed by teams that include dozens of electrical and computer engineers and have to be durable, stable, fast, thin, receptive, attractive, unique, and affordable. They're financed by huge companies with far reaching supplier, contractor, and partner relationships. They're created with the support of carriers and the interest of customers. While conceptually a smartphone is a computer, building a smartphone is nothing like building a desktop computer. Go down to your local computer parts store and tell me how many cell phone processors, radios, and motherboards you see on the shelves. That's right, none. And these are products that are produced by the tens of millions. Consider for a moment the parts that make up a smartphone, say… an HP Pre3. There's a processor and graphics chip, RAM, storage chip, accelerometer, compass, two cameras, radio chip (incorporating GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular), USB controller chip, Micro-USB port, LCD panel, capacitive touchscreen, battery, slider, keyboard, case, Touchstone coil, three switches (power, volume, and ringer), two speakers, two microphones, LED flash, multiple antennae, mirror, front glass, SIM slot, no fewer than screws, and numerous other components, plus AC adapters for the US, Europe, and Asia, USB cable, manuals, and packaging - all sourced from dozens of different suppliers, the vast majority of whom are located in China. Chances are, you are not located in China. read more View the full article

If you have a webOS phone or TouchPad with a Skype account added to it, you can adjust the settings on how calls can be received and how video calls are handled. There are actually 4 settings that can be adjusted for the device: Allow Skype Calls from anyone or just those people on your contact list Note that if this selection is grayed out on your webOS phone, you may not be able to change this setting Allow Skype video calls Auto-accept video calls or prompt you to accept it Show your Skype Contacts that video calling is enabled on your device In order to adjust these setting, you just need to: Go into your Phone app (on phones) or the Phone & Video Calls app (on the TouchPad) Swipe-down from the top left to bring down the Phone Application drop-down menu and choose Preferences & Accounts Find the ACCOUNTS section and tap on your Skype account Adjust the settings as necessary Swipe back (on phones) or press the "Done" button (on TouchPad) to return to the phone settings View the full article

HP CEO Meg Whitman's crusade to right the plundered ship Packard is poised to really shake things up at the Silicon Valley giant: according to a report today from AllThingsD, the Imaging and Printing Group is set to be merged into the Personal Systems Group. That'll put HP's still-profitable-but-not-as-much-as-before printers group under EVP Todd Bradley and his computers-and-tablets division. The move would address cost-cutting and simplification to an extreme degree, especially on the marketing front. If you stop and think about it, both the IPG and PSG largely target the same set of customers: businesses and consumers, often shopping for both printer and computer at the same time. There would also be significant cost savings from combining the redundant human resources and finance operations under each group, plus having one fewer division to manage up top. It also gives Bradley some more to do, perhaps as compensation for having been passed over for the CEO job twice in less than a year, despite his extensive executive experience (once even serving as the CEO of Palm). Ironically, this consolidation comes just seven months after former HP CEO Leo Apotheker announced plans to split the Personal Systems Group off as a separate company and refocus HP proper on enterprise services and printers. Just half a year later we've seen HP's printing division start to falter as businesses and consumers alike dramatically cut back on their printing (and thus purchases of high-margin ink cartridges). That said, the Personal Systems Group has faltered recently as well, though that can be chalked up to the damage done by the uncertainty of the spin-off and what that would mean for the future of whatever company(s) resulted. Amusingly, this also puts together two divisions that HP desperately wanted to work together right after their purchase of Palm. You'll recall that the Palm Global Business Unit was slotted in under the Personal Systems Group and Bradley, with the goal of making webOS smartphones and tablets, as well as getting the operating system onto desktop computers and printers - of which HP expected to sell several million. Even then when HP was trying (unsuccessfully) to sell webOS to the highest bidder, they were still running into the sticking point of webOS on printers. Fast forward to today and HP's now in the process of open sourcing webOS with little public thought being paid towards the webOS printer. Maybe in 2013. Update: HP has announced their plans to merge the Printing and Imaging Group into the Personal Systems Group, giving birth to the Printing and Personal Systems Group, headed by Todd Bradley. Press release is after the break. read more View the full article