The fine folks over in Europe are finally getting in on the review fun that we had over here during the summer. Over at Golem.de they got some extended quality time with the phone, long enough to write up a 20-page review that covers just about every aspect of the phone. The conclusions are pretty much the same as ours, though there seems to be little difference between webOS 1.1.3 on O2’s Pre phones and the 1.1.0 version that we had on Sprint and Bell before webOS 1.2 hit. It is worth noting that webOS 1.1.3 does not come with the iTunes sync fix that 1.2.1 brought, so the Pre will be hitting Europe sans out-of-the-box music synchronization. An update to correct that and “bring parity” with the North American Pre is expected some time next month.

Heise.de aren’t the only ones that got their hands on the GSM Pre, as Trusted Reviews also put the phone through its paces. Their extensive review covered a lot of nitpicky items, but it’s the sign of a good product (or at least a product with good potential) when nitpicks are what take up space on the page and not huge glaring problems. Strangly, O2 sent United Kingdom-based Trusted Reviews a QWERTZ (i.e. German) Pre for their review. Slashgear did take a look at the UK edition and found no surprises.

Generally the reviews have come to the same conclusion as most stateside observers: the star of the Palm Pre is webOS. The build quality still leaves something to be desired, though we can easily point to the moving parts slider design as the culprit in the feels-flimsy category.

Thanks to Gizmo21 and Terry for the tips!

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

This just continues to get more and more weird. Reader JC recently found himself in need of a new Pre and stopped by his local Best Buy to pick up a brand new unit. He booted up his new phone, found that it was running webOS 1.1.0, and then discovered that there was an option for Yahoo Instant Messenger in the Messaging app. We frankly are at a loss as to why some Pre owners gained Yahoo access with 1.2 and others didn’t, but the strangeness was just kicked up a notch by a webOS 1.1 Pre coming with Yahoo support right out of the box.

Either way, we know it’s coming officially by the end of the year, as it was announced alongside the Pixi.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Our pal Rene Ritchie at sister-site The iPhone Blog has put up what he admits is "an editorial of the scathing variety" about the just-re-enabled iTunes sync functionality in webOS 1.1 and we have to admit, we think he may have a point here.

At issue: Palm playing chicken with Apple when it comes to something as important as syncing media seems like a recipe for a bad user experience.  "Can I sync music to my Pre today?" … "Dunno, let’s see what the latest in the escalating war of software patches is."  We’ll let Ritchie tell it:

What’s so wrong about it? It doesn’t serve the webOS/Palm Pre user. Bottom line, no company should ever base a user experience on something they don’t own or license. Regardless of caveats like version numbers, Palm telling Pre users they can sync with iTunes when Palm can’t guarantee it will work going forward is irresponsible.

Truly, though, you need to go read the entire article – Ritchie makes a fairly strong argument about us users being hurt by this back and forth.

Sure, you’re reading this blog so you ‘get’ what’s going on here and are more likely than the average user to know what the present state of iTunes syncing is.  But would we be better off with a sync experience we know Apple won’t break?  Should Palm create an in-between software app?  Are the many 3rd party software solutions out there good enough? 

Should Palm Have Continued this Game of iTunes-Chicken?(opinion)

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

We’re currently tracking all the undocumented improvements to webOS 1.1 on the Palm Pre in this forum thread, (and here too), the stuff not covered in the changelog.  Well, I’m here to say that there are plenty:

• Changed sound for notifications – You still can’t change them yourself, but the new sound is much richer, if a little quieter
• Animated drop down menus – they look really slick and really change the experience. The Context menus also have some nice animation.
• Additional photo upload options – you can now upload a photo to either Facebook or Photobucket (not new – thanks commenters!)
• Lots of Photo app improvements. A more distinct bar between all photos and your albums in the photo app, plus they’re calling the Screenshot album "Screen Captures." The preview thumbs also slide in from the right.  Faster photo rendering. Overall the Photos app feels much more fully baked.
• Emailing Memos – The memo app now has a menu option to email a memo.
• A new font for the Browser – uses Palm’s system font and, truly, it looks fantastic.
• Disabled the key combo in browser to open in a new card.  Boo-urns.
• Javascript interpreter Performance upgrades – this will speed up virtually everything and is great news
• Sporadic reports of speed improvements both in the browser and system-wide, but it’s always tough to know if these are real or just perceived
• Seems to have better Gmail handling – not failing when you tap on a notification for an email you’d already archived on the desktop
• A new icon for AIM
• more more more!  If you find some, post in this thread and we’ll update this list as they come in.
• More auto-complete / auto correct entries in the dictionary.
• With the slider open, the Center button now turns on the screen, where as before you had to hit a keyboard key or the power button.
• It’s a little finicky, but you can double-tap to start text selection in editable fields (note, however, that cursor placement in the Memos app is buggy)

Although a lot of homebrewers are going to need to re-patch a lot of stuff (Check this thread for a list of homebrew busts), the homebrew tethering solution still appears to work.  We’re also tracking webOS 1.1 bugs in this thread.

Of course, the wish-list of stuff that wasn’t added is still a mile long, but hey, we’re at 1.1 less than 2 months after launch – this is tasty stuff, Palm.  Keep ‘em coming.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Palm has released webOS 1.1 to the Exchange-loving masses, so sayeth the official Palm Blog and excitedly noted in our forums.  The key updates are precisely what we predicted earlier this month, to wit:

• IT-initiated remote wipe
• Required PIN with complexity
• Device wipe after a certain number of failed PIN attempts
• Auto-lock
• Improved digital certificates

More interesting, we had also heard tell that there would be a smattering of other bugfixes, battery performance improvements, and UI enhancements.  Palm’s knowledge base has a list of fixes, which we’ve included after the break, but there might be some subtler stuff around.  So we’ve started a thread in our Palm Pre forums, "webOS 1.1 is out! What have you noticed?" to track all the updates – After you update your Pre, get to poking around and report back with your findings there!

We had heard that the expected date was July 22nd, but also mentioned that these dates are hard to call, so no big surprise that it took a bit longer.

Oh, and Palm has re-enabled full iTunes sync with iTunes 8.2.1. It’s on, Apple!

Have you installed yet?  Let us know how that’s working out for you in the comments!

Thanks to Jaer for the image!

Update 1: did we mention it’s on?  Check out how Palm phrased the iTunes support, emphasis ours:

Oh, and one more thing: Palm webOS 1.1 re-enables Palm media sync.

There’s only one way to describe such brazenness: BOOM!

read more

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Paterick in our forums took the initiative to mosey on over to the device settings on in the device emulator that came with the Mojo SDK that was just released. If the impending release of webOS 1.1 wasn’t confirmed enough for you before, how about now?

When we first broke the 1.1 story, we pointed out that the majority of the improvements would be related to Exchange security and compatibility.  Well, kwbunn in our forums confirms that if you set up the emulator to talk to Exchange servers, it does indeed have the tasty ability to work with servers that enforce more stringent PIN requirements. So take heart, Exchange users at locked-down companies, life is about to get better.

Now for some tasty rumors.  We’re hearing that July 22nd is a date to watch for the release (but don’t hold us to that, these things change).  We’re also hearing that in addition to the EAS improvements, we should see some battery performance improvements, smoother and nicer UI animations, a fix for entering symbols in web page forms, and perhaps even emoticons in the messaging app, among other random fixes.  We were also told free ponies, but we don’t put much stock in that last one.

Still no confirmation on new apps, but we’re anxiously awaiting the release of the NFL Live app for the Palm Pre. webOS 1.1 is a definite lock and the updates are decent but certainly not splashy. 

We already have a pretty good bead on what people want for the big fixes (more on that soon), but what other "little fixes" are you hoping for from Palm in the near future?

Thanks to Cid for the emulator tip!

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

We broke the news that webOS 1.1 for the Palm Pre is coming and coming soon, now that news has been confirmed.  Evgeny at Palm webOS Blog snagged a sit-down with Palm UK and took the opportunity to take a gander at the Device Info section and sure enough, it was running 1.1.0.

While many are wishing webOS 1.1 would sport any number of functional improvements, we’re going on record as saying the Exchange security improvements Palm is including are important and if we were in their shoes we’d probably have them at the top of the update schedule too.  We may not be corporate users ourselves, but the Palm Pre has a real opportunity in the Enterprise and Corporate space and beefing up Exchange security policies is a necessary step to make that happen.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Anonymous tipsters over at PreCentral.net have delivered some good news for Pre owners who have lamented the limitations of webOS in handling Exchange accounts, particularly when a PIN number is involved. This is one of the dirty little secrets that Sprint salespeople have neglected to share, whether it be from forgetfulness or ignorance, that the [...]

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

webOS 1.1 for the Palm Pre may be released within a month, including improved Exchange Active Sync policies and Security. An anonymous tipster has sent in some details on what we can expect with webOS 1.1.  The majority of the updates look to be focused on beefing up the Palm Pre’s enterprise and corporate chops by adding plenty of EAS improvements, including:

• IT-initiated remote wipe
• Required PIN with complexity
• Device wipe after a certain number of failed PIN attempts
• Auto-lock
• Improved digital certificates

We’ve also heard from other sources that the update will also likely include more applications — though whether that will come via an expanded selection of 3rd party apps in the App Catalog or via more apps written by Palm is unclear.

The above features for Exchange are absolutely necessary for the Pre to have a shot at serious enterprise adoption, so we’re happy to see these features being rolled out even though they won’t necessarily benefit the majority of consumers out there.

We’ll see how it pans out, Palm is said to be aiming on releasing the update within 30 days.

Thanks anonymous tipsters!

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>