A month ago when webOS 1.4.5 first hit we quickly learned that there was a problem under the hood: the now-sandboxed PDK apps lacked the permissions to properly write to the media/internal partition. What this meant was fairly simple: it suddenly became difficult for PDK apps to save data, meaning that all that time you put into working your way through N.O.V.A. was lost.

Thankfully, the fine folks at WebOS Internals know their way around webOS fairly well, so they patched up webOS 1.4.5 in short order and released the Emergency Fstab Fixer. Simply put, Fstab Fixer fixes the problem, enabling PDK apps to write with ease.

webOS 1.4.5 hit in Europe first, bringing the problem to light, and Palm delayed the roll-out to fix it, giving birth to webOS 1.4.5.1. Except 1.4.5.1 never came. The world was shocked and blown away (okay, exaggerating there) when this week webOS 1.4.5 was pushed for Sprint, with the bug still intact a month after it was discovered and fixed. Thankfully, Emergency Fstab Fixer is still works and is still available for your PDK fun. With PDK apps of clear importance to Palm’s long-term strategy, here’s hoping that a quick update is pushed in short order to render the patch a moot point.

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We’ve been waiting for what seems like has been ages here in the States for the latest version of webOS 1.4.5.1, complete with support for indie 3D titles, to come available.  We thought we’d see the update last month when a Sprint reseller got word that the update was going to hit on the 7th, but that time has come and gone without so much as a peep from Palm or Sprint regarding the update. So no promises this will pan out. At all.

However, a tipster from our forums, leprecub, has dropped word that Sprint’s 3rd party ISC Portal suggests that the update is imminent. It should bring the same change log that we first saw last month. Note that the release notes below are in line with what we hear from developers already running 1.4.5:

The new build # is 268.

Palm Pre Software Update to webOS 1.4.5.1
Specialists: All Customers: Palm Pre Users
Effective Date: 8/10/10
Details: A software update is available for the Palm Pre on 08/10/2010.

Fixes, Feature Updates and Enhancements 

Web: Podcasts now download correctly. Web: text entry can now be entered correctly 
Email: Sprint branded default email signature correctly branded Power consumption / battery optimization
Videos: A user can now send a video via multimedia messaging from the Video application 
Video: the video trim feature now works to send in a message. 
Sprint TV: Upgrade to V 3.5.4 
Sprint TV: Enhanced Parental controls

No word whether this build still has the webOS 1.4.5 game-save bug (we’d like the think the delay between this release and the non-US release came from the time it took to fix that bug). We’ve all had our hopes up that this release was imminent enough times that we’re not really recommending you start hitting that update app just yet – but then again it has mysteriously appeared for one user, though we’re betting in that case the Pixi Radio Swap had something to do with it.

Source: PreCentral Forums; Thanks, leprecub!

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Sprint webOS users: you may want to hold off on the repeated tapping of the refresh button in the Updates app that ensues before an update for at least a little while, as presumed Sprint employee and P|C forum member leprecub has it on good authority that webOS version 1.4.5.1 will be hitting Sprint on the 7th – a few days later than some of the European carriers, but in plenty of time before the upcoming PDK Hot Apps competition, which begins on the 15th that’ll dole out a cool $1 million to C/C++ developers.

In addition to the change log we’ve already seen on Palm’s own website, leprecub has a few more details on what to expect beyond the ability to deploy PDK apps on the Pixi that include always welcome power consumption and battery optimization enhancements amongst others:

Palm Pre Software Update to webOS 1.4.5.1
Customers: Palm Pre Users
Effective Date: 7/7/10

This should update your Sprint configuation to 2.5.

Details: A software update is available for the Palm Pre on 07/07/2010.
Fixes, Feature Updates and Enhancements

• Web: Podcasts now download correctly. 
• Web: text entry can now be entered correctly 
• Email: Sprint branded default email signature correctly branded 
• Power consumption / battery optimization 
• Videos: A user can now send a video via multimedia messaging from the Video application 
• Video: the video trim feature now works to send in a message. 
• Sprint TV: Upgrade to V 3.5.4 
• Sprint TV: Enhanced Parental controls 

Source: PreCentral forums, thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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