This time last year, Derek, Dieter, and Riz were running around San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center covering what turned out to be the biggest planned event in the history of webOS. It was the coming out party for webOS under HP, and it came to be known as “Think Beyond.” One year ago, HP SVP and Palm Global Business Unit manager Jon Rubinstein got up on the stage to introduce, in order, the tiny HP Veer smartphone, the HP Pre3 – larger, thinner, and more powerful webOS smartphone that the faithful had been waiting for – and the first webOS tablet, the HP TouchPad, all slated by the end of Summer 2011

That day brought more than hardware announcements. We got our first look at webOS 3.0 on the TouchPad, met the new VP of Developer Relations Richard Kerris, found out that HP was not going to update older handsets to webOS 2.0, and said goodbye to the Palm brand. Things were looking up – even if the TouchPad wasn’t a mind-blowing piece of hardware, it was the first of what we hoped would be several products to take the market by storm.

The Veer shipped to middling reviews in May and the TouchPad followed in July. And then everything went downhill from there. After just a month on the market, HP cut the TouchPad’s price by $100, and ten days after that pulled the rug out from under the webOS community by canceling all webOS hardware development. Since then we’ve gone through a hardware fire sale, a fired CEO, the loss of Kerris, Rubinstein, and many others, questions about the future of the platform, and emerged on the other side with plans for going open source with a new Open webOS.

My, what a year it has been.

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From a leak we feel dubious about to a leak that looks solid, Engadget has photos of webOS 2.0.1 running on a Sprint Pre. Exhibition mode is here but not fully working yet – just the clock works now, but more modes like photos, agenda view, and Facebook are in the works.

This version is "Barley" with another called "Barleywine" in the works, both codenames we’ve seen dropped before. Apparently the OTA update won’t come until the whole shooting match is updated to 2.1, which lines up with the 2011 release rumors we’ve heard as well.

Looks like all the Sprint custom app are here, with one addition called "Sprint Music Plus" that we look forward to never using. Also, it looks like there is a new voice dialing feature! It looks like the feature will search for contacts as well as accept straight-up numbers for those of you who actually remember those anymore.

Source: Engadget

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Palm promised that HP webOS 2.0 would be available by the end of 2010. In a way, they’ve delivered, if you want the updated operating system all you’ve got to do is buy a Palm Pre 2. Maybe that’s not the most ideal of solutions, as most of us would prefer that we get the update free-of-charge and over-the-air on our current devices, but it’s looking like the old frustrating but purposely vague “coming months” line is what we’ll have to wait for.

According to a post on O2 Germany’s official Twitter account, webOS 2.0 won’t hit Palm devices on their network until the first quarter of next year, otherwise known as sometime between the beginning of January and the end of March 2011. O2 Germany’s Twitter timeline has always been remarkably frank about the state of Palm devices, so we’ll take them at their word, disappointing as it may be.

Separately, the folks over at webOS en Castellano heard from “private forums” that current Pre and Pixi devices might skip over webOS 2.0 and head straight to version 2.1, though they were given no timeline. That’s 2.1, not minor bug fixes 2.0.1. Our guess as to what’s in this until now unheard-of version of webOS: optimizations for the lesser hardware of previous generation (i.e. not Pre 2) devices and the absent Exhibition mode.

As always, we advise that you season your reading of rumors like this with a dash of salt, though you should keep in mind that the American Heart Association recommends you not exceed 3,000 milligrams of sodium in a day.

Source: O2 Germany (Twitter); webOS en Castellano; Via: webOS Blog.de; Thanks to Julian, Herman, and Gizmo21 for the tips!

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If there’s one homebrew app that’s been incredibly popular from the start, it’s been Music Player (Remix). What started as an enhancement of the built-in webOS Music app, Remix has evolved to version 2.0 with a completely new UI, awesome utilization of dashboard controls, and more.

See everything that’s new, including a video, after the break!

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Nielsen has released their latest survey numbers on the smartphone market, and it seems that the pace of smartphone adoption is quickly accelerating, with 29.7% of US mobile phone owners having a small computer in their pockets. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Also not a surprise: the iPhone, BlackBerry devices, and Android phones are dominating the smartphone space, snagging 27.9%, 27.4%, and 22.7%, respectively. Even Windows Mobile devices (yes, we’re talking old school Start menu Windows Mobile) stand at 14% in the survey, while Symbian accounts for 3.4%, generic “Linux” for 3.3%, and bringing up the rear is Palm (webOS and old school Palm OS) with a paltry 1.3%.

To put that into perspective, for every one Palm owner there are 21 iPhone users, 21 BlackBerry addicts, 17 Android owners, and even 11 Windows Mobile users. Heck, there are 2.5 times as many Symbian users in the US than there are Palm, and Nokia has notoriously struggled in North America.

All this begs the question: what is HP going to do to turn this around? CES is around the corner, and we’re hoping that Palm manages to pull out all the stops with the new hardware releases really needed to prop up the awesomeness that is webOS 2.0 (and maybe some wishful thinking, but we’d like to see a big splash with a feature-packed webOS 2.1 too). At this point HP and Palm are going to need a big splash, essentially rebooting the consumer mindset as it pertains to webOS and Palm. It’s becoming clear that Palm isn’t even in the conversation for most people.

Source: Nielsen; Via: Android Central, Engadget

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The early reports from Pre 2 users (including those who received them during the "Oprah moment" at webOS Developer Day in New York) have been largely positive. There is, though, one potentially problematic new development, or maybe it’s better to describe it as a blast from the past: webOS Doctor for webOS 2.0 not only restores webOS to its default configuration, but also wipes the USB partition. This is a return to the behavior of webOS Doctor prior to webOS version 1.3.1, released approximately one year ago.

The webOS Doctor, if you’re not familiar, is the last-ditch way to clear your webOS device by restoring it to the factory ROM image by downloading it to your computer and loading it onto your phone via USB. Learn more about how to use it in our "How to fix a seriously ill Pre" article.

What does this mean? First, Doctoring is no longer quite as hassle-free a process, since users must remember (and take the time) to fully back up the USB partition before running the Doctor, if they don’t want to lose everything. This is especially important for those of us who depend on webOS Internals’ SaveRestore to preserve application data, system settings, etc.; those files are stored in the USB partition, so they must be backed up as well before running the Doctor. Previously, all that was necessary after Doctoring was to reinstall Preware via webOS Quick Install as described here, use Preware to install SaveRestore, and in turn use SaveRestore to restore information from the untouched USB partition. Now, a full USB restore must also be part of the process.

It isn’t clear why Palm has made this change, or whether it will be permanent. 

Source: PreCentral Forums (Thanks to pastorrich1 for finding this!)

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Two researchers with SecTheory have announced that they have uncovered flaws in older versions of webOS that would allow for remote command and control of the devices. These exploits were discovered in webOS 1.4.X (1.4.0 through 1.4.5), but some have since been patched in webOS 2.0.

Due to webOS’ web-tech base, it will always be possible to hack the operating system using techniques similar to those used to exploit websites, though taking into consideration the fact that our phones generally contain far more personal information than any single website, it can be slightly worrying. Of course, the other side of the coin tells us that webOS wouldn’t be webOS without these web technologies. With every mobile platform there are trade-offs. Easy of programming and accessibility leads to a more easily exploited operating system.

According to the researchers, the Company field in the 1.4.X Contacts app is “unsantized,” allowing them to inject code that allowed them to pull other information from the Contacts database. Additionally, they were able to insert a JavaScript hook that enabled the use of tools such as keyloggers, possibly leading to botnets and the like.

There are at least two unmentioned caveats to this exploit: first the code isn’t executed until the user views it (it sits there until the contact containing the malicious code is opened and viewed), and the code still has to get on the device somehow. We can think of a few ways to get the code into a contacts field of your device. Insert it through a web-based contacts application (e.g. Google Contacts or their Exchange database, but then you still have to crack the user’s password) is the only remote manner we can fathom. Everything else requires either interaction with the user (accepting a transmitted vCard contact through email or other means) or physical access to the device. And if somebody else has access to your phone, you’re pretty much screwed anyway.

Overall, like every other security exploit revealed to date about webOS, we’re not too concerned. There are all sorts of ways to exploit webOS, some of which are essential to fun stuff like homebrew. That said, we’re not super huge fans of malicious exploits, and we’re glad to see that Palm has fixed this particular problem with the release of webOS 2.0. Now if only those of us that don’t have Pre 2 phones could download the new OS…

Source: Darkreading; Via: Engadget; Thanks to everybody that sent this in.

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PreCentral forum member and homebrew developer Arthur Thornton just earned himself a page in our book of awesome people: he figured out the so easy a caveman with Terminal access could do it method to getting Classic to work on webOS 2.0. It’s simple in concept and execution: extract the Palm OS ROM from the webOS 1.4.5 Doctor, and then load it onto your webOS 2.0 device. Tada, Classic instantly works.

It seems to be as simple as that, which makes us wonder why Palm decided to drop the Palm OS ROM from webOS 2.0 and shaft MotionApps in the process. The only thing the Palm OS ROM does is take up space (not a lot, it is Palm OS after all) and wait for Classic to launch it, so why cut it out. Unless Palm is pulling an Apple (dropping the floppy drive) and forcing developers and users to move on from old tech. Full instructions after the break.

Source: PreCentral Forums; Thanks Arthur!

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PreCentral community member Sconix, who has already wowed webOS 1.4.5 homebrew users with the Advanced Configuration for System Preferences and Advanced Configuration for App Launcher mega-patches, is readying the next set of Advanced Configuration patches for installation under webOS 2.0. These patches, which can already be seen as placeholders in webOS Internals’ webOS Patches feed, will provide a variety of new customization options for webOS 2.0. Hit the source link for details on Sconix’s work on Advanced System Menus: Framework, App Menu, Mode Menu, Today Menu, Device Menu, and Power Menu!

Source: PreCentral Forums

UPDATE: As WebOS Internals chief Rod Whitby noted on Twitter, the Advanced System Menus – Device Menu, contains what turns out to be the first new homebrew JavaScript service for webOS. As you may have head, webOS 2.0 is doing away with Java, and thus the homebrew Java services developed over the past year won’t be functional in the new OS. But, there’s now support for both C services and JavaScript services. Sconix’s new patches now include JavaScript services written with node.js to do fun stuff like trigger the LED flash as a flashlight.

Source: WebOS Internals (Twitter)

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One of the top tier features for webOS 2.0 is Exhibition – a feature that allows your device to display the app of your choice when it’s set down on the Touchstone for charging. Unfortunately, it’s not ready yet (it’s coming in that OTA update), but we did just get a quick preview at the Palm Developer Day here in New York.

Basically when you set your Pre down on the Touchstone your Exhibition app Zooms in from the distance with a very cool animation. At that point it’s just running, displaying whatever information you’d like it to. Palm recommends you don’t clutter up your Exhibition mode with multiple screens from your app – keep it simple. Palm also recommends you use a snazzy horizontal scroll-in animation that’s almost Windows Phone-eque in how it handles moving text around the screen.

The basic interaction is that you have your app taking up the full screen, hiding the status bar. There is a semi-transparent black bar on the top that displays the time – you can tap or swipe down from the top of the device to switch between different Exhibition modes.  There is also another semi-transparent bar at the bottom for showing notifications. Finally, there will be an Exhibition Preferences App where you can choose your default Exhibition mode and also configure which other modes will be in your drop-down selection list when you’re in Exhibition.

Palm showed a simple clock, an Agenda view, and a photo slideshow. There was also the beginnings of a Facebook Exhibition mode, but it doesn’t look fully baked yet.

Speaking of not fully baked – Exhibition itself isn’t, this was just an early preview. The interface may change a bit before launch, so don’t go judging just yet. Now that we’ve laid down the caveats, head on after the break for the gallery of slides!

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