Melodeo and their unique nuTsie music app (well, technically it’s HP’s music app now) look to soon be officially making their way to Palm devices, at least if the "Internal beta version of nuTsie for webOS platform" that seems to have accidentally found its way onto the public webOS web app feed is any indication.

This is good news for webOS music lovers (which we assume is everyone) as the iTunes-centric app allows for cloud based music syncing and streaming as well as, or arguably better, than any smartphone music app to date. We reported earlier on HP’s purchase of Melodeo and what that meant for the future of cloud based music streaming on webOS devices (and all smartphone platforms for that matter).  Now it appears that the promise of iTunes syncing among all kinds of other music goodness is well on its way to webOS. 

Although you can download the app now, screen shots are about all we have to go on at this point, as the beta requires a registration code to activate. The pay for download model appears to be in keeping with both the Blackberry and Android versions of the nuTsie app, both of which have been available for $19.95 and $9.95 respectively.  We’ll keep you posted as more information is made available.

Download nuTsie v3 (again, not working yet); Thanks abegee!

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We’ve asked you about your favorite apps and your favorite tweaks in previous editions of our ongoing PC Brain Trust series, and the topic this time is music.

There are a number of approaches to listening to music on our webOS devices.  We can sync our music manually by dragging and dropping files from folder to folder, we can use old versions of iTunes or programs like The Missing Sync to automatically sync music to our devices, or we can use cloud based solutions like DropBox and streaming solutions like GrooveShark to pipe music in without going through the hassle of syncing.  

With the myriad of options available, we have to ask:  how do you choose to listen to music on your phone?  Do you stream exclusively, preferring the variety associated with the huge libraries of music companies like Pandora and GrooveShark have access to?  Do you you prefer the fidelity and control offered by having high bitrate MP3’s and WAV files hosted locally on your device?  Or do you pursue an approach that mixes the two?

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HP has just spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million to snap up Melodeo, according to TechCrunch. Melodeo offers a service to stream your music from the cloud – much like Grooveshark.

You can check them out now on their nuTsie service (get the joke there?). You can give nuTsie access to see your iTunes library and they will automatically make all the songs on their servers that match your library available for mobile streaming. TechCrunch claims that the next version will allow you to actually upload your songs to the cloud for streaming anywhere. Remember when HP said they loved the cloud and hinted that it was an integral part of their webOS strategy? Not fooling around.

Palm may have had to give up on direct iTunes sync, but it looks like HP is planning on doing them one better by purchasing a service that will let you get your entire iTunes (or whatever) library into the cloud and streamed to your webOS device. Sounds like a good trade to us – we can’t wait to see what comes of this buyout.

Source: TechCrunch

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DoubleTwist, one of the more popular non-iTunes media syncing solutions for webOS, has received a significant upgrade bringing the ability to search for and automatically sync audio and video podcasts utilizing the "largest integrated pocast search engine in the world".  DoubleTwist already has Amazon MP3 integration, and the ability to take care of all of your podcast catching and syncing needs brings this program closer to being one of the most robust in this category.

Sure, the excellent drPodder podcatching app finally hit the Catalog this week and should satisfy the podcast consuming habits of most, but there’s something to be said about being able to manage and sync all of your media from one program.

The update is Windows-only for now, but Mac support should be coming soon.

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Feeling like you’re spending too much time on PreCentral? We assure you that you’re not. But if you feel like you should be spending more time elsewhere on the internet, we thought you’d be glad to know that PreCentral is elsewhere on the internet as well. Be it on the old standby Twitter or our new Facebook fan page (or in the really old standby of RSS), PreCentral is everywhere that you want to be. Check it all out after the break…

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There’s been some confusion as of late about how Flash will be coming to webOS and to which devices. It all pretty much stems from Jon Rubinstein’s announcement at CES about the very same thing, where he said that Flash would be available to “all Pre phones.” Note the lack of “Pixi” in that statement. Does this mean that Flash won’t be coming to the Pixi at all?

Flash 10.1 will not come built into webOS 1.4. The new version of webOS will come with support for the Flash plug-in, which will be available for free from the App Catalog. Additionally, it’s going to be Adobe’s call as to when the Flash plug-in makes its way to the App Catalog.

Of course, we all are looking forward to full video recording and editing on the Pre and Pixi. Palm has also promised battery and speed enhancements, but those sorts of things tend to incremental, so don’t expect the world there.

On top of the above, we also have this posting in Sprint’s forums via QuarlesLT in our own forums detailing just a little bit more about webOS 1.4:

Get even more out of your Palm Pre and Pixi, Palm webOS 1.4 update is on the horizon.
I wanted to let everyone know that we’re planning to have an update to your Palm Pre and Palm Pixi later this quarter. We’ll be updating to Palm webOS 1.4. A few of the key updates include:

• Video Capture functionality with editing capability
• Adobe Flash Player 10 (Palm Pre only)
  
• Full Phonebook transfer capabilities
  
• Calendar Enhancements
  
• Messaging Enhancements
  

These are just a few of the high-lights with much more detail to come. I’m sure there will be a lot of questions around timing and details of the update and I won’t be able to share any more than what is listed above but we wanted to let our Community know it was coming.

So 1.4 is looking like the .5 update over 1.3.5.1 that is really is: some nice enhancements here and there, but it we don’t expect revolutionary changes. 

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A few months ago we were laughing at/with Palm investor Roger McNamee after his All Things D interview with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. And this year at CES, Palm saw fit to send just CEO Jon Rubinstein into the gauntlet, and even in the face of what some may call some rather nonsensical and unnecessarily combative and prying questioning from Swisher alone, he held up well. Sure, Swisher wanted to know what’s coming next, but Rubinstein would have nothing of it and refused to divulge any new details. That said, there were still some interesting things to take away from the interview, like Rubinstein’s admission of having never used an iPhone.

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Obviously we’re going to be the types to tell you that the Palm Pre is one of – if not the – best smartphones of 2009. This is PreCentral, after all. But we’re not alone in out praise of the first webOS phone, as it has landed on several of those year-end “best of” lists that every website is obligated to put out. Since we only have two phones to choose from, our best webOS smartphones of 2009 list would be awfully short, so instead we’re going to give you an overview of how the Pre has landed on best of lists elsewhere on the web. We’ve got the round-up, waiting for you after the break.

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Windows users can finally get in on the integrated Amazon MP3 that doubleTwist users on Macs have been enjoying for what seems like ages. The latest update to the media sync software brings it to version 2.6 on PC (Mac users get a feature-similar 1.0b14), and in addition to the expected bug fixes and Amazon MP3 integration also adds supports for the unannounced Google Nexus One. Seeing as it’s just an Android phone, adding support for one more Android device couldn’t have been a tall order for doubleTwist. doubleTwist added support for the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi soon after they launched.

With Amazon MP3’s music store integration doubleTwist can serve as a full-fledged iTunes sync and store replacement. Its playback controls are a bit lacking, but we have little doubt that ramping doubleTwist up to complete iTunes/Windows Media Player replacement is very much on doubleTwist’s radar.

[via: Gizmodo]

Thanks to gksspot555 for the tip!

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While user guides for the iPhone may be getting in trouble because they have the word “iPhone” in their titles, we’re seeing no such issues with the Palm webOS App Catalog. Landing recently in the App Catalog is Made Simple Learning’s first on-device guide for webOS phones: Made Simple for webOS.

The interactive cross-referenced guide stretches for some 1500 pages and covers just about every facet of out-of-the-box life with the Palm Pre. Made Simple for webOS features easy navigation that is claimed to get you to any point in the book with just two taps – and that’s something that we simply couldn’t dispute.

Not only does Made Simple for webOS cover how to use the phone itself, it also examines third party applications like Pandora and sync solutions like iTunes and doubleTwist. The guide also covers numerous tips and tricks, such as how to copy and paste text, work with Card view, and more. All of these tips, tricks, and how-to’s are accompanied by more than one thousand annotated screenshots.

Made Simple for webOS is available for download now in the App Catalog for $4.99.

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