Palm surprised quite a few people by releasing webOS 1.2.1 early this morning.  There had been rumors that 1.2.1 was due out soon and that it would fix iTunes sync but there wasn’t any reason to suspect it would appear today.  What did not appear that was expected to appear was a new batch of applications in the App Catalog.  Palm had been releasing new apps every week on Thursday or Friday.  Paid apps were expected to appear this week (and still may appear today for all we know).

iTunes Again

This new version of webOS re-enables syncing with iTunes and adds the ability to sync photo albums.  We’ve covered before the cat-and-mouse game that Palm is playing with Apple.  This time, it appears that Palm has decided to more fully mimic an Apple iPod.  On the upside, this update provides more iTunes sync capabilities.  On the downside, it will likely be only a matter of time before Apple block the Pre (and Pixi) again.  The question is whether this is ultimately good for users of the Palm Pre.  This on-again, off-again sync has lead some to consider other syncing options.

Exchange Fixes

The other major part of this release fixed issues with Exchange server syncing introduced with 1.2.0.  This will be welcome news to those who are using the Pre in a corporate environment.

Timing

For those of you who’ve been paying attention you may have noticed that webOS 1.2.0 was released only five days ago.  Why update so soon?  Certainly the Exchange issues were serious and needed quick addressing.  But is that sufficient?  We’re not entirely convinced.  It was originally rumored that 1.2.0 would be released around the time of the iTunes 9.0 announcement but it was pushed off.  The rumor at the time was that it was delayed to include the above iTunes sync fix.  What seems to have happened is that Palm had initially decided to skip 1.2.0 entirely in favor of the version with the iTunes fix.  Delays in releasing or approving 1.2.1 were pushing it beyond the expected release of paid applications so Palm decided to go ahead and release 1.2.0 in hopes of meeting its deadline.  With the Exchange issue, Palm was forced to refocus on 1.2.1.  Of course, this is all just speculation.  It might only have been the Exchange issue that necessitated the quick release schedule.  It’s even possible that Palm plans to do more smaller releases, though we doubt this.

Version Notes

Here are the version release notes from Palm’s knowledgebase:

Version information

• Version: webOS 1.2.1
• Release date: 2 October 2009

New applications

NONE

Feature changes to existing applications

Email

• Resolved an issue where after installing the 1.2.0 webOS update some customers running Exchange 2007 could no longer synchronize with their Exchange account for Email, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks.

System

• Resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (9.0.1).
• Media sync now synchronizes photo albums, maintaining the album structure in the Photos app.
• Media sync now allows for synchronizing photos without requiring the full-resolution originals. This provides faster display of high-quality full-screen images and enables users to store more photos on the phone.

Web

• Resolved an issue where if a user tried to play streaming music or video, the media stream might drop out or have a long delay before starting.

Security

This release implements several security fixes, including the following:

• Addresses a security issue encountered by webkit developers. This issue did not impact end users.

Individuals interested in contacting Palm to report suspected security issues can find more information at palm.com/security .