When did smartphones become superphones?  To be precise, the term superphone was unofficially coined only this year with the launch of Google’s Nexus One back in January of 2010.  While one can argue whether or not a term like superphone vs. smartphone is warranted, what isn’t up for debate is that 2010 saw the release of a succession of groundbreaking devices sporting amazing hardware.  While the term began with the Nexus One it continued into the year with other well known “superphones” like the EVO 4G, iPhone 4, Galaxy S line and Droid X, to name only a few.  Palm and HP webOS devices, as we know all too well, were not only left behind but were literally left totally out of the mix during the year of the superphone.  Though various form factors and features made for a less than definitive case for what exactly constituted a superphone, one thing all of these devices had in common was this, a 1GHz CPU.

By this standard alone did Palm finally enter into the superphone arena with the late 2010 release of the Pre 2?  Obviously yes, as the Pre 2 does in fact feature a 1GHz processor in the Texas Instruments OMAP 3630. So should it have a shot to be considered in the same class as those other phones? Read on.

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Welcome to Round Table, which is in fact not a table at all. Round Table is a continuing series on PreCentral where we pose a question to the staff and they provide their thoughts and insights. The question could be something simple like “what’s your favorite webOS app?” or something a bit more complicated, like “where does Palm go from here?” Or maybe we’ll just end up chatting about our favorite movies, you never know. This time around we’re dispensing thoughts on something that has puzzled and eluded us for months: the Palm C40.

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Remember that Need For Speed video from last month? There was a lot of consternation about whether or not it was legit, and the different App Catalog screenshots that PreCentral forum member Casperstar provided only threw fuel on the fire. It was different, from the layout to the background. But after the landing of webOS 1.3.5 we fired up the App Catalog and suddenly Casperstar was vindicated. The new App Catalog is an exact duplicate of the App Catalog that Casperstar showed us.

Combined with the base files for adding in GPU support that the WebOS Internals Twitter feed pointed us towards, we’re going to jump off the fence and say we’re almost entirely certain that the Need For Speed video is legit. So now we really want to see what Rubinstein is going to trot out on the stage at CES… 

In other words: serious OpenGL graphics, games, and apps are a real possibility. In case you missed it the first time around, the contentious video is after the break

Thanks to krische for the heads up!

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Our Palm Pre phones just lit up with the news: webOS 1.3.5 is now available for download. The update weighs in at just 13 MB, but that 13 MB brings a slew of bug fixes as well as the fixing of much-maligned app limit. We’re downloading it now, we’ll let you know what we find in a bit.

As a reminder to all patchers and themers: Be sure to remove all patches and themes before installing any webOS update. We don’t want you to end up with a wonky install. You do not have to uninstall Preware or any other homebrew apps – just the patches and and themes.

UPDATE [8:38]: Palm’s servers seem to be being hit pretty hard, it’s going slow here. In the meantime, Palm has posted the for both the Palm Pre and the Palm Pixi, and we’ve got it for you after the break.

Highlights:

• App limit fixed.
• App Catalog downloads continue even after leaving the app’s page.
• App purchases have been expanded to US territories (sorry Europe, Canada, etc).
• Switching between days in Calendar is now faster.
• Sprint Navigation can be launched from a Contact.
• Palm Profile app restores happen in the background, letting the user get to the phone faster.
• Future webOS updates can be downloaded over 2G wireless (1xRTT).
• Notifications now work in landscape mode (which has strangely lost the rounded corners).

UPDATE [9:06]: Cool, there’s now a progress meter on the install screen spinner doohicky. It’s slow going, but at least we can see that it’s going now.

Also, the install has added one more step in the form of ‘unpacking.’ Instead of downloading the entire OS over again, webOS updates now come in the form of binary deltas, which essentially boils down to downloading only the new code, which then must be ‘unpacked’

Additionally, the code genies over at WebOS Internals have dug into the update package and found some interesting stuff, notably opengles.ipk and opengles-omap3.ipk, which are part of the groundwork for enabling the GPU. Good times, coming right up!

UPDATE [9:27]: Preware appears to be broken in webOS 1.3.5. It’s throwing up an ‘OnFeeds Error’ and not even getting to load the feeds. Let’s hope this is a server-side fix.

UPDATE [9:45]: rem_kujawa notes that you can use WebOS Quick Install (make sure you have version 2.96) to remove both Preware and its Package Manager, reinstall, and you should be good to go.

UPDATE [11:12]: It seems that the app migration system Palm devised to move your stuff from the /var partition to the USB drive partition only moves App Catalog apps. All homebrew stuff has been left behind in /var. If you want to move homebrew apps to the new folder, you’re going to have to delete them and reinstall.

UPDATE [11:23]: It also seems that the migration utility doesn’t transfer some app data. For example, user data from Paratrooper was left behind and the game launches as if never played before with no saved scores or progress.

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Dear Santa,

I know you’re a busy guy and I really should have sent you this letter much earlier, but I know that if anybody could pull off the “Christmas miracle,” it’s you. I’ve tried my best to be a good blogger this year. I know sometimes I’ve aggravated my readers, but I said what I said because I thought it needed to be said. That’s being a good boy, right?

Anyway, I hope that you get this list before you take off from your North Pole base of operations. Below is a list of what I’d really really really like to see on Christmas morning. If it’s not there, I understand, but if it is I promise to be extra good next year. I’m not trying to be greedy, I just want you to know that there’s a lot of stuff that would make me happy. Snow, though one of those things, does not count in the gift tally.

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[ youtube link ]

Color us skeptical, but right now we have little reason not to believe PreCentral forum member Casperstar and the above video that he posted. Yes, that is a Palm Pre playing Electronic Arts’ Need For Speed Underground, and playing it well – like an iPhone. Obviously, something like this just isn’t possible given the current web tools-based Mojo SDK, it’s not even something that’s possible with the current GPU-disabled implementation of webOS.

While this could very well be a well-timed video, smoke, and mirrors show, we’re inclined to believe that it is the real deal, especially after corroboration by reliable inside-information forum member Modular. Casperstar claims that the video is of a friend’s Pre, a friend that works at Palm and is apparently willing to not only let it be videotaped, but even sent in two screen caps of the App Catalog on his device. The images show a view of a NFS-2G app and an apps list counting to 495 (!). While something like this would be easy to Photoshop together, there’s enough rough edges to the app view that give us a definite work-in-progress vibe. Then there’s that mention of requiring Nova 1.3.X – if you’ve been with the Palm community for a few years you may remember the rumblings of a Nova device or OS having been in development in Sunnyvale.

All that said, we’re hopeful that this is the real deal, and it shows that Palm has made more behind-the-scenes progress than this blogger expected. An update to webOS that enables the GPU and an update to the SDK that provides native access for apps like this would be a huge huge huge (yes, triple huge) coup for Palm and would quickly silence critics of the lack of quality apps. Is this something we’re likely to see soon? Boy, we hope so, but we wouldn’t count on it. As Casperstar said, this is internal testing material, not release candidate.

Oh, and this mystery version of webOS also has solved the app limit issue that plagues current Pre and Pixi owners.

As always, with something like this you should set aside a grain or two of salt. Palm obviously won’t confirm or deny this sort of stuff and we never see the game opened or closed. It would be easy enough to fake this with a combination of videos, patches, practice, a bit of Photoshop magic, patience, and a twisted sense of humor. Still… our fingers are most definitely crossed. We want to believe.

UPDATE: The MX Web has taken a close look at the App Catalog list image and believes this to be a hoax given a number of discrepancies between it and the App Catalog currently on devices. We’re not sure it’s enough to debunk this, given the other evidence that doesn’t quite match up but could easily be attributed to internal testing, but we as always remain skeptical.

Thanks to everybody that sent this in!

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Yesterday was all sorts of crazy as far as Palm news is concerned, so we’re still doing some catch-up. Example: Flash 10.1 was shown off live and in person on a Palm Pre at Adobe MAX, Adobe’s worldwide developer conference. The demo appears to have covered the same activities as that video that Adobe posted early yesterday, but the presentation itself included slides with a bit more detail on Flash 10.1, and our friend Buck was there with a camera snapping away.

According to the slides, Flash Player 10.1’s smartphone version comes with the multitouch and accelerometer support we’ve known about for some time, supports HTTP video streaming, has built-in content protection mechanisms, can work with peer-assisted networking, and has been optimized for memory and power consumption while taking advantage of hardware [GPU] acceleration. Of course, webOS needs to be ramped up to take advantage of that GPU first, but we’re talking a few months down the road still.

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