• You can delete your entire messaging thread by swiping off a full conversation from the main top page of the Messaging App, but you can also delete individual messages from within a conversation.
• As discussed on a prior tip, you do have the ability to send a single text message to multiple recipients at once. If you individually delete one of those messages from within a conversation, it will actually delete it in all of the conversation threads for each recipient. However, if you delete the message as part of an entire conversation, no other threads will be affected and that message will remain in those conversations until you delete it!
• And don't forget that while you must press "Delete" to confirm after you swipe it off the screen, if you have multiple items to delete you do not need to confirm each deletion. Just swipe off the next item and the prior action will automatically be confirmed.

1. Click on the Contact Name banner on the top of the screen to load up the Contact record for the resource, and then click on appropriate method of communications (phone, email, SMS, IM).  Note that this action also works from within the Email application
2. Click on the button in the top-right corner (depending on your method of messaging, it may say TEXT, AIM, GOOGLE, etc), and then click on the Phone Icon () next to the number that you want to dial

Thanks to Thomas Coe for the tip suggestion

Sure, it may not be on the usual list of Facebook app features that most platforms seem to follow, but for the webOS, something like Facebook Chat just seems to fit the mold, especially with synergy in the Messaging app.

Up until now, the only way to get Facebook Chat was via the messaging plugin, which may be a bit too much so someone only wanting Facebook Chat.

Well now, Facebook chat can be added with a single small patch! Robvanvliet in the forums discovered the neat little method of getting this to work and I released it in patch form.

Basically, apply the patch the go into the Messaging app. In there, add a new account with the username in the format <username>@chat.facebook.com with your password being your facebook password.  So take note, you'll need to enable/set a Facebook username on your Facebook account if you haven't yet.

This patch works by altering the hosts file on your device to make your device think "chat.facebook.com" is "talk.google.com". Thanks to Facebook's chat service now using jabber (the same that GTalk uses) just adding a GTalk account in the Messaging app gets full Facebook Chat working!  Oh, and don't worry, regular GTalk accounts will still work fine; there doesn't seem to be any negative side effects of the patch.

Between the Facebook app and this Facebook Chat patch, webOS certainly has developed into possibly the most full-featured Facebook mobile OS out there!  While I'm not a Facebook fanatic myself, it certainly wouldn't surprise me if this attracts some new webOS users. Good new all 'round.

Both Verizon and AT&T have recently dropped the price of their unlimited voice plans from $100 to $70 a month. While we (we being the tech media) generally assumed that the price cuts were an attempt to lure more customers. We tend to forget a few days after their conference calls that the #1 and #2 US cellular networks are having no trouble picking up and retaining new customers, even with their rates considerably higher than #3 Sprint and #4 T-Mobile (T-Mobile is at least still gaining subscribers, unlike Sprint). So why the price cuts?

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File this one under "strange and surreal." We've just confirmed with one of our readers that ever since webOS 1.2, he's had Yahoo Messenger up and functioning on his Pre. This lucky soul has a totally stock, non-patched Pre. He emailed us to ask why nobody was talking about this feature and we told him "Because you're the only one who has it!"

Well, not the only one. There are a couple of reports in this thread of Yahoo Messenger magically appearing in some way, shape or form. There's also this excellent patch from the webos-internals team for adding ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo to your Messaging app. We also know that Yahoo is coming to Synergy sometime this year -- it was demo'd on the Pixi.

So, Pre Nation - does anybody else have a Pre that has been mysteriously graced with Yahoo IM?

Thanks to iMando for the mystery!

Something missing from Palm's CES presentation of the Palm Pre: jaunty claims that they've patented their innovations up the wazoo.  Maybe it's because they have a massive cache of smartphone patents in their portfolio already and didn't want to toot their horn.  Maybe they were just being coy.  Maybe, though, they were just waiting for their various patent applications to get approved before they brought it up.

One such feature: the webOS's excellent combined messaging client, which gives you IM and SMS in a single, threaded view so you can focus on your conversation with a person instead of trying to remember which app is the best way to get in touch with somebody and which app you last used.  It's really a clever idea and as you might have guessed, Palm's applied for the patent.  You can read through the (mis-titled?) application yourself, but beware you're in store for language like

Various embodiments for providing enhanced mobile messaging services are described. In one or more embodiments, a mobile computing device may send and receive messages of different types. The wireless computing device may comprise a threading engine to determine a sender of a received message and/or a recipient of a sent message. The threading engine may be arranged to correlate received messages of different message types with a particular sender and sent messages of different types with a particular recipient. The wireless device may display a messaging thread comprising correlated messages of different message types in a messaging user interface supported by a messaging application. The different message types correlated within the message thread are not limited to a message type associated with the messaging application. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Bottom line is that Palm appears to have developed a "Threading Engine" that sits behind the databases that drive the IM, SMS apps and might also include email and telephone as well.  We're fairly sure that at the 1.0 release, the webOS won't be threading missed calls and email into their combined messaging app, but this patent clearly shows they've been thinking about it and it may be a feature we can expect in the future.  

A couple more images from the patent (which goes to Palm but was filed on behalf of the inventors, one of whom was the just-mentioned software engineer Sachin Kansal) after the break.  If you look closely, the patent application also describes a single unified message listing screen that will show you all your messages, no matter what kind they are, in a single list.