Web browsing on a webOS device is usually a great experience, but one complaint we often hear is about the lack of keyboard shortcuts for things such as paging up and down. While there are no built-in keyboard shortcuts for the browser, webOS did add the ability to use the gesture area to scroll up and down a full page, but only while in landscape mode. So, to take advantage of this feature, make sure you are browsing in landscape mode and then just perform a Forward Swipe to scroll down one page or a Back Swipe to scroll up one page. Note that if you have Advanced Gestures enabled, the Full Swipe will still perform a quick switch between your open cards without first going into card view.
Everything Palm Pre, We Feed You!
advanced gestures, back swipe, browser, forward swipe, gesture, tip a day, web
August 18th 2010 | Posted by Adam Marks
browser, email, photos, tip a day, web, zoom, zoom in, zoom out
July 30th 2010 | Posted by Adam Marks
Pinch-to-zoom is a good way to zoom in and out throughout webOS, but you can also perform a double-tap to quickly zoom in on large blocks of text within an email, website or document. Simply double-tap on the text you want to read and you will find that the device automatically zooms in so that text fits the screen width. If you want to quickly zoom out, just double-tap again. You can also double-tap on a Photo to zoom in to a specific spot.
—-> 
- Note that you should wait for the email, website or photo to completely load, or else the zoom level may reset once it finishes loading.
- Unlike Android, webOS doesn’t ‘reflow” the text to fit the screen width (which we prefer anyway). If text is still too small when you zoom in, try turning your phone sideways for landscape mode.
browser, photos, tip a day
July 16th 2010 | Posted by Adam Marks
To save a picture from within a website, just press-and-hold the Option (Orange or Silver) Key and click on the picture, then select "Copy to Photos". Although the Photo will be saved to the root USB directory (/media/internals if viewing from Internalz or via Command Line), note that it will show up under "Miscellaneous" from within the Photos App.
Thanks to not-yet-pre for suggesting this tip
browser, forward swipe, gesture, tip a day
June 29th 2010 | Posted by Adam Marks
The forward swipe is the exact opposite of the Back Swipe: a half-swipe from left-to-right in the gesture area. Like the Back Swipe, it can be done on either side of the gesture area, just make sure that you don’t cross over that center line. There are currently only a few limited uses of the Forward Swipe, the most common being the equivalent of the “forward button” in the browser. However, some 3rd party developers have created unique uses for the “forward swipe”, such as the app TweetMe, which maps the forward swipe as the "ultimate back swipe" to bring you back all the way to your main Twitter timeline, no matter how many levels in to the app you are.
Acid3 Test, Internet Explorer, Maemo, Mobile Safari, Opera Mini, WebKit, acid3, android, browser, firefox, javascript, news, web browser, webOS, webOS 1.4, webos 1.3.1
February 28th 2010 | Posted by Derek Kessler
There is this test call the Acid3 Test, and it is designed to test a web browser’s compliance with web standards, with an emphasis placed on Document Object Model and JavaScript. For an operating system based on web standards, you might think that webOS would have been scoring fairly highly with the test from day one. Not so, it would seem. In the early days of webOS, the browser scored a pitiful 1/100. With the update to webOS 1.3.1, the browser scored a 73/100 – better, but still not great.
Now, with webOS 1.4 out and about, the browser’s standards compliance has taken another step forward, scoring a 92/100. Obviously, that’s a great step forward as far as the browser is concerned, and we have been receiving reports of better performance and rendering on all manner of sites as a result. The score also vaults the webOS browser (seriously, it needs a name) to the upper tier of mobile browser compliance, topped only by Mobile Safari (100/100), Opera Mini (98/100), Firefox on Maemo (94/100), and Android’s browser (93/100). Of note, Safari and Android are both powered by the same WebKit core that hums underneath the webOS browser (and webOS as an OS), so full standards compliance is a possibility. At the very least, the score is worlds better than before and far ahead of Internet Explorer (Mobile: 5/100, Desktop: 32/100). For 99.999999% of users a score of 92/100 is going to be more than good enough for their browsing experience.
jack87 in our forums also notes that several sites (like costco.com) that previously failed out on webOS are now working. How about you, seeing better rendering now that you’re all 1.4′d up?
EDIT: Anchors (links that lead to a specific point on a page, e.g. comments) work now too! This blogger = happy camper.
Palm, Palm Pre, Sprint, archive, browser, tv
October 1st 2009 | Posted by Juventino Quinones
Most of us like watching movies, and the Sprint TV, although helpful, does not cut it for those who want more. But according to the New York Times, we Pre owners are about to get a chance to rent movies right on our handsets.
According to NYTimes, mSpot, a five-year-old mobile entertainment company based in Palo [...]
How To, browser, email, landscape mode, menu, tips, tricks
July 2nd 2009 | Posted by Dieter Bohn
You can still bring up the menu on the Palm Pre while in landscape mode. You may have noticed that when you put the Palm Pre into landscape mode in the browser or in email (after applying the Palm Pre Landscape mode email trick), the menubar on the top of the Pre disappears. Good news: it’s still there, you just can’t see it.
Rdaex in our forums was amongst several PreCentral.net members to discover the trick. Just hit one of the volume buttons and the Pre will not only show the volume indicator at right, but at left the menubar will re-appear and you can tap the Menu to bring it up.
Apps Reviews, Palm Pre, Smackdowns, browser, iPhone 3G S, smackdown
June 19th 2009 | Posted by Dieter Bohn
We’re going to kick off the Palm Pre vs. iPhone 3G S excitement with a simple browser smackdown. The short version: the iPhone 3G S is faster in our video above, but the Pre is close and actually is edging out the iPhone after the just-applied 1.03 webOS update. The part you actually should pay attention to is "time to content," i.e. how long it takes to load up the stuff you actually want to read as opposed to the javascripty-bits. Bottom line: speed-wise there’s a hair’s-breadth between the two browsers, it’s so close that you really ought not be making your purchase decision based on it — or bragging about it either way.
Feature-wise, we give the edge to the iPhone 3G S — they are on version 3.0 while the Pre is just getting started at 1.02 / 1.03. The ability to pop up a link in a new browser window is quite nice — not to mention Autofill. I myself prefer the Pre’s Card metaphor to the in-app tabs of Safari, but that ’s a matter of taste.
Stay tuned for more as we pit these devices against each other!
[cross-posted at The iPhone Blog, where you’ll find a raft of iPhone 3G S coverage!
Update: As noted in the comments and in a raft of emails, you can open links in a new card on the Pre with Opt + Space + Tap. It works, but Palm, really, Opt + Tap isn’t really doing anything here. Just saying. Thanks everybody!
App Catalog, Boy Genius Report, Centro, Palm, Palm Pre, Review, Treo Pro, battery, browser, facebook, iPhone, news, palm profile, pre, screen, synergy, webOS
May 29th 2009 | Posted by Derek Kessler
Yeah, we’re jealous. There’s no use hiding it. Boy Genius Report broke just yesterday that they had a Palm Pre and now they’ve come out with the review: they like it.
Unfortunately, it looks as if the ROM on the device isn’t complete — the music app wasn’t working for them, among other things.
Still, overall the story here is a good one, BGR concludes:
“The OS is great. There’s no ifs ands or buts; it’s really refreshing to see something that’s brand new with a UI unlike anything else out there. [...] their hardware has always been second rate at best and it doesn’t seem to be changing now. Couple that with the nation’s underdog carrier at a $299 price-point (before rebate), and we’re not sure how many people are going to be lined up overnight, yet we’re pretty confident once people are able to play a real unit themselves, there will be more than a lot of happy Palm Pre customers.”
On top of all that, we learned that the screen is awesome, second only to the iPhone (which has the advantage of a glass overlay). The keyboard, not so awesome. Neither is the build or material quality of the phone itself. The feeling is described as “a little cheap” and apparently the slider mechanism occasionally would catch on itself when closing.
More or less, Boy Genius Report likes their (not quite fully baked) Palm Pre. It’s not a perfect device – no single phone is, but it is a worthy contender in the increasingly crowded smartphone market. And you can have your own in just over a week!
Thanks to everybody that sent this in!
Google Docs, Google Reader, Palm, Palm Pre, Safari, WebKit, browser, iPhone, news, pre
May 28th 2009 | Posted by Derek Kessler
The big question (one of them) surrounding the Palm Pre is just how good is the browser? We know it’s based off the same open-source WebKit engine as the iPhone’s Safari browser, but the robustness of its features has been up in the air for, well, five months now. Thanks to Darth Pooh in our forums and his magical Pre access, we can note that the Pre’s browser is fairly robust, as it can handle both Google Docs (spreadsheet) and Reader, as seen above. They are the iPhone versions of the sites, but that’s not a bad thing by any measure.