We were a little concerned that Jon Rubinstein’s promise that Palm would ship webOS 2.0 this year would be fulfilled not by sending out the update to current devices but instead by shipping the Palm Pre 2 on SFR. Thankfully, that concern looks to be allayed – at least in the UK. A tipster sent in the above internal screenshot pegging December 6th as the planned rollout date for webOS 2.0 for the Pre, Pre Plus, and Pixi Plus on O2 UK. 

Lately, European carriers have seemed to be a little more aggressive in pushing out webOS updates than they US brethren, so we can’t assume that we’ll see the update hit these shores in the same period. But hope springs eternal. 

Thanks AnonGuru!

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Palm’s webOS 1.4.5 update hasn’t exactly had the smoothest of rollouts – arriving in Europe and Canada on July 14th, Sprint on August 11th, and the Verizon Pixi Plus on August 31st - not to mention that pesky bug that breaks some games. Meanwhile, Verizon Pre Plus and AT&T users are standing by, unable to get their Angry Birds on.

Well, Shad emailed us (and others) to let us know that somebody from Verizon corporate is telling him the update should hit in about two weeks. We’ve heard plenty of empty promises from mid and high-level carrier employees before, though. However rwinger in our forums points out that Verizon’s very own OTA Update Information page for the Palm Pre Plus sports screenshots showing 1.4.5.

We can’t have much longer to wait now, can we? This rollout stands in stark contrast to previous webOS updates that managed to hit multiple carriers in multiple countries in fairly short order. The delayed rollout on Verizon and AT&T also seems to be putting a damper on the PDK Hot Apps $1 million giveaway – if folks can’t install the apps, it makes it quite a bit harder to generate buzz for the latest and greatest – only 20 days left in that contest.

Update: Shad points us to this PDF on Verizon’s support site that indicates updates for 1.4.5:

webOS 1.4.5 Build 171 update includes numerous enhancements. [...]

+ Better Mobile Hotspot connectivity
- Your Palm Pre Plus can easily connect through the Mobile Hotspot application even when using Windows Vista® 64-bit with Windows LiveTM OneCare.

+ Better Web functionality
- Preview all ringtones on the Verizon Mobile Web 3.0 site.

+ Overall improved battery performance

Thanks, Shad and cantaffordit!

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Update 3: PreCentral members are starting to report that the download is working now. Unfortunately, we don’t have any information on when this update will arrive for Verizon or AT&T customers - Palm tweets that they haven’t announced a date for those carriers yet.

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Quite a bit later later than what we saw predicted in our forums and much later than most of the rest of the planet received it, the actual release of webOS 1.4.5.1 is finally arriving right now for a bevy of PreCentral users on the Sprint network. Go on and get it, but if you’re a patcher be sure to uninstall themes and custom kernels (standard Uberkernal folks should be ok) and check the list of patches that don’t play nice with updates. Hit up your update app to get the update, folks.

We’re still waiting on an official changelog from Palm, but in the meantime we know that Pixi users should be able to install PDK gaming apps and all users have some changes to PDK that will hopefully mean a big increase in the number of PDK apps from ‘indie’ developers in the near future – like ExZeus.

Also, if you are experiencing a crashed 3D game or other PDK app, head here for the details on the 1.4.5 PDK bug.

Otherwise, the expected changes are minor bugfixes, as we saw earlier today

• Web podcasts download correctly
• Correct entry of text on Web
• Sprint branded default email signature corrected
• Power use and battery optimization
• Send video via multimedia messaging from Video application
• Video trim feature now works to send in a message
• SprintTV upgrade to V 3.5.4 and enhanced parental controls

Thanks to everybody who sent this in! Here’s the official thread for talking about the 1.4.5 update process, which should be helpful since at the moment it’s not quite working.

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Update: Palm tweets that "we are aware of the problems downloading 1.4.5 for sprint customers. It’s being investigated."

Update 2: While we wait for the update to, erm, work, we’ll note that the Pre’s update size is 8mb while the Pixi’s is 38mb. Makes sense, as the Pixi is getting the PDK support that the Pre already had. Thanks @jpartain89!

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Now that we have official confirmation that webOS 2.0 is due later this year, it’s time to ask: what do you want to see in it? Obviously we know (trust us, we know) that the biggest need out there right now is new hardware and we’d like to think that some of the features of webOS 2.0 will be driven by whatever hardware Palm has on the roadmap – ex if we have a slate coming, we know that a virtual keyboard is going to need to be in the works.

webOS 2.0 will presumably work on existing hardware, though, so let’s focus on features that would make sense on the Pre and Pixi. Join us after the break to see what we know is coming, what we think might be, and since it’s a lazy August Tuesday, a little pie-in-the-sky stuff too, in order of how likely we think it might be. 

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While the prediction in our forums hasn’t panned out, webOS 1.4.5 is still really real and now on its second carrier – O2 UK is getting it now a couple of weeks after O2 Germany made the cut. Go hit the update app if you’re on that network, but first check the list of patches that don’t play nice with updates.

One last note, turns out that while the main gist of webOS 1.4.5 is to expand the number PDK gaming apps (and to bring them to the Pixi), there is a bug where some games aren’t able to correctly run or save their data due to what boils down to a permissions issue – details here on Palm’s developer forums. If you’re having an issue with the game (and aren’t a hacker), the best fix is to do a full webOS doctor (once the 1.4.5 doctor becomes available, natch).

Update: we’re hearing it’s hit other carriers in Europe and should be on Bell in Canada as well. Chime in on the comments how it’s working for you!

Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, and other carriers standing by patiently.

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

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Here’s some of the latest talk in the forums:

•  After having some issues with the Pre’s hardware, mclldavidson has as question for all of you Pixi owners out there:  how reliable is the svelte little phone?
• Speaking of the Pixi, natrixgli wants your input on if they should go with the iPhone 4 or the Pixi Plus on Verizon.
• Tired of seeing the "Application Updates Available" message in the updates app when there actually aren’t any?  Demetry14 has a solution.  
• If you’re like me, you’ve probably dropped your phone or have otherwise caused a scratch or two on the screen.  Mike20PR is looking for methods on fixing them.

We look forward to seeing you in the forums!  Not already a member?  Join us!

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With the sad news that we are going to be looking at several different versions of webOS out there for the near future, we had started to give up hope that Canada would join Europe in getting paid apps in a timely fashion, as previously rumored.

Likely we’ll have to wait until this evening to find out for sure, but Cocolabaloune points us to Palm’s Knowledge Base article for webOS updates for Bell Canada. New since yesterday: they list webOS 1.4.1 and they have the release date down as 1 April 2010. If it pans out, Palm is just one day late – but we figure Canadian users will be happy to be a dollar short. Because they’ll be buying apps. See what we did there?

Thanks, Cocolabaloune!

Update: webOS 1.4.1 has landed for Palm Pre users in Canada on the Bell network, as Tyler tells us. Go get it, Canadians! As a reminder, here’s what’s new in webOS 1.4.1. There’s plenty to discuss with 1.4.1.x, so we’ve set up a few forum threads:

• Use the Anticipation Thread until webOS 1.4.1 is released for your carrier
• webOS 1.4.1 Discussion - for general "I got it!" and other discussion
• webOS 1.4.1 New Features & Changes 
• webOS 1.4.1 Issues 
• webOS 1.4.1 Patch Discussion

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Palm has released the SDK for webOS 1.4.1 and it contains some bad news:

Due to new carrier launches and varying carrier timetables, multiple 1.4.X releases will be active concurrently on consumer devices

That’s to be expected in this modern age, but shed a tear for those halcyon days of every single webOS device on every single carrier running the same OS. 

Reading between the lines, you can pretty much expect that Verizon, Bell, and Telcel customers don’t have a clear ETA for getting the bugfixes in webOS 1.4.1.1. Our anonymous source confirms that "Verizon is on a slower 1.4.X release schedule," suggesting that we are definitely looking at "several more weeks" of 1.4.0.

For you developers, here’s the straight story on webOS 1.4.1 (which O2 received) and webOS 1.4.1.1 (which landed on Sprint). From the SDK:

As of webOS 1.4.1.1, apps will have 60 seconds to perform background operations in "headless" mode (with no stages open). In webOS 1.4.1, the limit remains 15 seconds, as it was in 1.4.0. 

In plain English, that essentially means that the issue some developers have faced with apps multitasking in the background is all set up with the new behavior on Sprint devices but not yet on other carriers. 

There are plenty of other changes that developers will want to take a look at in the SDK release notes (hooray for improved garbage collection and JSON parsing!). Non-developers might be more interested in reading the plain release notes for webOS 1.4.1

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After watching O2 customers have all the fun earlier this hour, it looks like Sprint customers can now update their webOS devices to 1.4.1.1. You can check out the webOS 1.4.1 changelog here - it’s mainly bugfixes, but some of those bugs have been annoying quite a few webOS users.

We’re not sure what the extra ‘.1′ means or when Verizon will get some update action, but we’ll let you know when we find out. Update: a couple anonymous tipsters have let us know that Verizon will be waiting for "several more weeks" for the webOS 1.4.x update.

Homebrewers, remember: simple patches should be fine, but if you’re overclocking you must uninstall before updating.

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

We’ve set up a few forum threads for 1.4.1.x discussion:

• Use the Anticipation Thread until webOS 1.4.1 is released for your carrier
• webOS 1.4.1 Discussion - for general "I got it!" and other discussion
• webOS 1.4.1 New Features & Changes 
• webOS 1.4.1 Issues 
• webOS 1.4.1 Patch Discussion

 Update: ...and we have official release notes for the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi on Sprint, but they’re no different from what you’ve seen here earlier today.

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 webOS 1.4.1 is landing on devices in Europe as we type this – O2 devices in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, and Spain are all seeing the update pushed out right now. 

Palm has posted the changelog for webOS 1.4.1 – for O2 Germany, Spain, and the UK. 

• You can now purchase paid applications outside the US
• Bluetooth Audio now works with BMWs
• Pinch to zoom is back in the document viewer
• Shutter delay on the camera has been tweaked
• The volume slider bug appears to have been fixed
• The bug where YouTube links on outgoing emails weren’t working has been fixed
• The forward gesture is back in the browser

In all, not a lot of huge updates or fixes. Anybody seeing anything not listed here? Talk about it in our webOS 1.4.1 new features thread. Full changelog after the break.

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