Please click on the link above to head on over and check it out. I’m confident you will be happy with what you find there.

webOS 1.3.1 Released

On Saturday, Palm pushed out the latest revision of webOS to Sprint and Bell customers.  This release, version 1.3.1, brings a number of refinements to webOS.  You can read the release notes for Sprint and Bell to get a fuller view of the update.  Tops on many people’s list was the ability to forward text messages and IM’s.  Palm also added support for connecting Yahoo! information into Palm Synergy, giving you access to your Yahoo! accounts.  As usual, a number of the refinements weren’t listed in the official documentation.  Find out more about the behind-the-scenes updates from PreCentral and PreThinking.

Shortly after the release of the OS, Palm also released an update to the Mojo SDK.  This new version of the SDK brings some new functionality to developers, including the ability to quickly launch the emulator in Pre or Pixi mode.  Browse to the release notes if you’re interested in finding out more or go watch this video by Torey and Justin of webOS School (note: registration is required to view video).  Note: Developers must upgrade to the latest version of the SDK in order to install apps to a device running webOS 1.3.1 using palm-install.

Pixi Arrives

Right on schedule the Pixi made it appearance on Sunday.  As with the Pre, the Pixi was launched as a Sprint exclusive.  There are more reviews and discussions about the Pixi available now that it is widely available.  Perhaps most interesting is that the Pixi is available for $24.99 from Amazon.com to new subscribers.  Combining an extremely low price with Sprint’s inexpensive plans is a real win for those looking to upgrade to a smartphone.

Roundup

Last week we forgot to note that the Pre is heading south-of-the-border to Telcel in Mexico.  A hearty ‘¡Hola!’ to our new webOS neighbors, who will be able to pick up the Pre on November 27th.  As we mentioned above, there were a number of articles about Palm in the wake of the Pixi launch.  The New York Times ran an interesting article about Palm.  Analysts also further upgraded the stock, following last week’s interview and rumors of a takeover bid from Nokia (an unlikely event).  Mark/Space released a media syncing utility called GoGadget.  It promises to provide document and media syncing to those who don’t need full contact sync.  Also, if you missed our interview with Chuq Von Rospach or the review of Zombie Invasion, go take a look.  As always, check out our twitter feed and comment below!

Palm Announces Pixi Release Date

Monday, October 26th, just as the Sprint Open Developer Conference was going to get started, Palm announced that their next webOS smart phone, the Pixi, will hit Sprint on November 15th.  For those unfamiliar with the Pixi, it is planned as a replacement for Palm’s Centro smart phone.  It features a ‘candy-bar’ configuration with an exposed keyboard.  It differs from the Pre in that it has a slightly shorter display (with fewer colors), it lacks WiFi and reportedly has less RAM.  As you can see from the image, it’s a thin and stylish device.  However, with the Pre hitting $100 and the Pixi announced at the same price, it’s not a sure thing which phone people will opt for.  For those who dislike the slider in the Pre, though, it will be attractive.  There are some complaints that the Pixi is also a Sprint exclusive.

Australians and Asia Must Wait

Those who were waiting for the Pre and Pixi to appear on the shores of Australia were saddened to learn that Palm will not be targeting that region soon.  According to the e-mail:

At this moment in time, we do not yet have any plans to launch the Palm Pre or any of our new WebOS products in Asia Pacific. Our focus right now is to establish a strong presence in North America and Europe. However, we do not discount the possibility of offering this new range of products at a later date.

Sad news indeed for all those in the affected countries.  What we’ve heard, though, is that many are turning to on-line shops that are selling unlocked German versions of the Pre to get their webOS fix.

iTunes Moves to Block

The latest update to Apple’s media player iTunes has once again turned off syncing with webOS devices.  While many expected that to happen sooner or later I think we were all hoping Apple would give up.  I suspect the folks at Palm haven’t played all their cards on this one yet, though, so perhaps we’ll see a new solution with the forthcoming release of the OS.  In the meantime, there are lots of syncing options other than iTunes, so don’t be shy about investigating them.  Also, don’t forget you can buy tunes from other sources, too.

webOS 1.3.1 Released to Developers

According to many reports webOS 1.3.1 was delivered to developers for testing.  Palm has taken the step of providing developers with an early release in order to ensure a smooth transition.  Given that a few apps were caught flat-footed when 1.2.0 was released we think that’s a good idea.  Not only does Palm’s pool of testers increase but developers can act early to prevent users from having broken apps on release day.   There’s been no news on when the new OS will appear on the Updates app but many are speculating on some time around November 15th — the day the Pixi is released.

Roundup

Those were the major stories.  Some other webOS related musings:  There’s been much speculation about the as-yet unused GPU in the Pre (and Pixi).  Two interesting tidbits turned up:  First, Palm has hired one of AMD’s core engineering managers Matthew Tippet, a person responsible for Linux graphics drivers.  Second, Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith mentioned the GPU at two recent conferences, suggesting that enabling the GPU will speed up webOS.  Some suspect the speedup will occur with webOS 1.3.1.  We suspect that with Matthew just starting at Palm it may be a while before that GPU gets full use.  For those keeping track, the app catalog now has 320 apps.  And while fully 1/3 are tip calculators, it’s still impressive!  Sound off below with your favorite app picks, news stories or just a simple hello.  Also, check out our Twitter feed for up-to-the minute stories.

Error: file:///var/usr/palm/applications/com.dynaptic.matchem/index.html
Error: service request: com.palm.audio is not running.

This error message got me to wondering the other night so I started poking around using Novaterm.  In the /etc directory are two directories:  event.d and event.dis.  For those not familiar with it, event.d is a directory used by the Upstart init daemon.  Inside event.dis are several files related to audio.  I tried copying the files from event.dis to event.d that were related with media, rebooted the virtual machine and then loaded up a game with sounds.

The good news is that it worked!  It seems .wav files play just fine.  However, .mp3 files would not play.  I used an .mp3 file as the background music of my game so that didn’t work.

Here’s a simple command you can copy and paste that should get you what you need:

mv /etc/event.dis/audiod /etc/event.d
mv /etc/event.dis/mediaserver /etc/event.d
mv /etc/event.dis/pulseaudio /etc/event.d
mv /etc/event.dis/systemsoundsloader /etc/event.d

Hopefully this will be helpful to those you needing to test sound on the emulator!

Update: The latest version of the SDK now pops up an error when you try to use sound on the emulator:  “Audio is not defined”

Also, to access the emulator’s shell under Windows you can use: novacom -t open tty://

The morning began with a very long session on Google’s Android.  It included sections on the Android Market, targeting multiple screen sizes and densities (pixels per inch) and speeding up Android applications.  One thing that struck me in all this is the difference in app development styles between webOS and Android.  There’s no doubt that Android provides some very powerful tools for application development.  However, the HTML/CSS/JavaScript approach that Palm has chosen neatly sidesteps many of the pitfalls discussed.  That said, there are likely some good ideas in Android for Palm to look at, particularly as it comes to immersive applications that need very specific pixel placement.

I chose the attend the Cisco breakout event titled Business Transformation:  Sprint / Cisco Mobility & Unified Communications Solutions.  I can assure you it wasn’t how the title rolls off the tongue that attracted me.  This session was of interest to me because my ‘day job’ involves using Cisco equipment to develop bar code and RFID solutions for business.  Cisco and Sprint have a very strong relationship, with Sprint having (if I understood correctly) 100% of its infrastructure based on Cisco equipment.  They have worked together to provide seamless solutions for telephony.  Their system allows customers to be able to transfer calls between desk phones and mobile phones, allows for DID to cell phones and allows for cell phones to display the caller ID of the main business number.  Cisco has a developer program available, though be prepared to open your wallet:  $3,500 for the basic badged level.  Clearly, if you’re not making Cisco a major part of your business you will not be joining this program.  Even for my business, I cannot justify the cost.  However, for those who do join the program, there are a number of benefits, including technical, marketing and sales support.  I did not win the Fliq HD video camera they gave away.

Going on concurrently was a session titled App Stores and Sprint.  In it Sprint made it clear that they were not going to be standing in the way of the app distribution models of the major smart phones, once again setting themselves apart from competitors.

Following lunch was Palm’s keynote speech, delivered by Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith.  If you were expecting any announcements about future direction I am sorry to disappoint.  However, what they did do was paint a very compelling picture about the future of the Web and, by extension, mobile devices.  They both stressed that as the Web has evolved the browser’s interface has become less important than the content and that the browser’s internals have improved.  As things continue to evolve the Web will get more interaction with the users’ data and will have more power to process and display it.  What excites Ben and Dion is how Palm has embraced this future by enabling all these technologies on webOS.  As Ben said:  “The Web has already won.”

After Palm’s keynote speech Jason Mackenzie of HTC took the stage.   HTC, for those who don’t know, is the largest manufacturer of Windows Mobile and Android phones.  Jason definitely was there to toot HTC’s horn and their marketing people did a good job.  He told us the HTC is launching a global ad campaign that started Thursday, so expect to see a lot from HTC.  If you’re interested in developing on the HTC check out:  http://developer.htc.com, just don’t expect to see much yet.

HTC demoed their HTC Sense add-on to Android.  One thing HTC Sense allows for is widgets to customize the Android desktop.  This sort of simple customization is something that Palm should look at adding to webOS.  A simple widget API with a packaging scheme to allow the user to customize the desktop would be nice.  I can see this working with the current card paradigm without too much difficulty.

I decided to skip out on the next breakout session as nothing appealed to me and the opportunity to talk with other webOS developers was a big draw.  The very last breakout session was Rick Boatright’s session titled: webOS and the Open Source Community.  This was one I was particularly looking forward to.  For those who don’t know, Rick is one of the more respected members of the webOS development community and plays a major role in webOS-Internals.  Rick talked about how quickly the webOS community gathered, saying it was the fastest he’s ever seen a community come together.  He talked about how webOS-Internals was one of the first open source communities for webOS and how they helped guide the adoption of a standard feed system built on the .ipk format that Palm uses.  One of the benefits of the standardized feed system is that apps, such as Preware, can be used to install apps that otherwise might not be able to appear in Palm’s App Catalog.  Preware can also be used to install system patches and themes, the most popular of which, he says, has been the on-screen keyboard patch.  Next, he discussed resources available to webOS developers, including webOS-Internals, our site here, our sister site webOS 101 and webOS School.

One of the themes of Rick’s talk was that open source is a way to give something to the community and get back much more than you put in.  He finished up by saying that Palm gets this.  His proof is that Palm has hired Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith, two open source luminaries.  He next said “Sprint gets this.”  His proof there was that Sprint asked him to attend the conference to speak specifically about open source.  He also added mention of all the open API’s that Sprint has provided.  His final words were:  “Developers should get this.”  Very wise words and well spoken.  If you are a developer and looking to participate in the knowledge sharing please join all of us in the webOS IRC chat, as outlined in Palm’s recent post.

Following the last session, several webOS developers gathered in the adjacent hotel and talked shop for a bit.  Then, it was time to hop into a taxi, train, plane and car to get home.  After an exhausting red-eye flight back from California I’m ready to tackle even more webOS development.

Here are my final thoughts on the conference:  I’m impressed with what Sprint has done.  I never thought of a network provider as having a role in development.  Sprint has done a remarkable job of trying to become more open and transparent.  I’m not sure that this has yet done anything that trickles down to the end-user, as evidenced by their customer loss lately.  Next, I’m really happy that Palm was one of the sponsors of this event.  That said, I think Palm could have taken better advantage of the opportunity to reach developers from the other platforms.  Allowing your coding session to be placed opposite the Android session where HTC gave out 400 or so free phones was clearly a bad move, especially since no phones were given out by Palm.  Add to that that Palm gave no forward-looking information from the conference.  They didn’t even announce the upcoming release of the Pixi, which was made public opening day.  Still, at the end of the day, for me, the biggest thing was that Palm made available their people.  This conference was a fantastic opportunity to meet developers, content providers, Sprint and the people behind the phones on Sprint’s network.  Most of all, it was an opportunity to meet other webOS developers I’ve only spoken to online.  To me, that was priceless.

Today’s new apps were:

• m:Vampire
• m:Mafia
• GolfPinFinder Demo
• Guitarist’s Reference
• YPMobile for Palm Pre
• Greeting Card Messages
• bWeather
• Snake
• Go To Tool Lite
• Tic Tac Toe for webOS
• FreeWeather
• Photo Fun – Spot The Missing Pieces
• Photo Fun – Spot The Difference
• TMaps – Philly

Updated Apps were:

• Evernote
• Word Ace
• P2Google Voice

Homebrew aficionados will recognize quite a few of the new applications.  We salute those who’ve graduated to the App Catalog.  Have a favorite among the apps updated today?  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Now that Palm have announced the Beta of the App Catalog, expect to see it showing up there soon!  See below for more screen shots.

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