Just as video recording came to the Pre (via the homebrew Precorder app) well before Palm officially released its official version, now voice and audio recording have arrived unofficially as well, also from the webOS Internals team, via Zcorder.

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Well now, you don’t see this every day. Using a combination of information found within public Palm feed API and a basic URL template, it’s become possible to get a direct download URL for freeware App Catalog applications!

The format was uncovered by a few people at roughly the same time, with pman_lt being the first to post it on our forums. Basically, using the application number (found within the screenshot URLs), version number and package ID, you can build a .ipk file URL that will work to download all freeware applications.

What does this really mean? Well, in a nutshell, the sometimes arbitrary region restrictions on freeware App Catalogs apps is removed. While I’m sure some US-specific apps might not function fully, the vast majority seem to. And given previous developer reports of the Palm app submission form not recognizing their choice for full international release, this is bound to make many users and developers happy.

Since the URL format’s discover a few days ago, things have progressed quickly.  Rod Whitby added it unofficially to their Packages files for their App Catalog feeds. Now, you can go to the Ipkg Viewer in WebOS Quick Install and add the custom feed of http://ipkg.preware.org/feeds/palm-catalog/Packages and you’ll have unrestricted App Catalog freeware downloads. Update: it will list the apps, but not allow download. WebOS Internals let us know that they’re not adding any functionality to Preware to enable this well-known technique until they hear from Palm on the issue – more here.

In addition, the amazing developer Blacklight, from the Nexave forums, has developed a cross-platform desktop application called IPK Fetcher. It lets you view freeware App Catalog apps and gives clickable IPK download links, installable by WebOS Quick Install.

It remains to be seen whether this workaround will stick around – Palm may change their url structure to stop it. To our mind, though, most of the region-restricted freeware shouldn’t be. With some apps (like music software that has to be region-restricted), it makes sense. However, for the vast majority of freeware, it’s tough to see a good reason for the app to be limited to just the US.

Just keep in mind this direct download URL format is extremely unofficial and may break at anytime.

Thanks to Clemens for the IPKFetcher tip

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We’re all aware webOS 1.4 is coming soon. Ever since CES it’s been dangling in front of us, just out of reach. Thankfully, in the time we’ve been waiting, the fantastic "Auto Update Patch Technology" (AUPT) was released, in both Preware and WebOS Quick Install. The basic idea behind AUPT: you don’t need to remove your patches before you update webOS.

However not many people actually know what that will mean when the update happens. Thankfully, by nature of the AUPT scripts’ versatility, there many ways to deal with an over-the-air update.

So here’s the scenario: you’ve just updated to 1.4. What now? The most straight-forward way is to go into Preware or WOSQI and go into the patches area and hit the "Update All" button.

For your patches that are available for 1.4, they’ll be updated to the current 1.4-equivalent patch on the feed. And for the patches that haven’t been updated for 1.4, the update wil install a "dummy" package. "Dummy" packages are just that; they do nothing and contain nothing. The point of "dummy" packages is that when the patch eventually does get ported to 1.4, you see it in the "Available Updates" section. Clever, eh.

Of course, updating patches works fine with the webOS-patches feed, but what about patches not on the feed. Patch files installed via WebOS Quick Install are on the AUPT system, but of course, the process is a bit different.

Open WOSQI after the update and go into the Tweaks section. The version change will be detected and a special Update Helper will popup. All .patch files installed via WOSQI will be removed and reinstalled if it can be successfully reapplied. In addition, any on-feed patches that haven’t been updated for 1.4 will be updated as well. Two birds with one stone.

And lest we forget, it’s worth noting that you can adjust for OTA updates the manual way. The AUPT scripts are strong enough that after an update, you can simply uninstall each patch via WOSQI or Preware without error, and then reinstall the 1.4 equivalent. Lastly, if you haven’t updated to the latest version of Preware, you really ought to.

Currently, it seems that almost 30% of those polled don’t trust AUPT. That’s really unfortunate, as countless weeks and months were put forward freely by many many developers to make sure everything works well. Thankfully the 1.4 OTA update experience should help assure users for updates after that.

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Interested in Homebrew apps or patching? The single best way to start is with WebOS Quick Install. A few days later than expected, WebOS Quick Install v3.0 has been released (well, technically 3.01, but who’s counting)! This update brings along with it many user-requested enhancements and several long-overdue updates. Here are the more important items from the change log:

- added support for AUPT
- added update checker
- fixed issue where patch settings were saved to a wrong directory
- added patch updating on Online Repository tab
- fixed "This is a webOS application." nametags in Device Management
- added dynamic webOSDoctor downloader
- fixed issue preventing webOSDoctor jar detection

First and foremost the big change brought with v3.0 is that patch updating in WebOS Quick Install has been overhauled to conform to the current AUPT format. If an update is available, it’ll show as such on the Online Repositiory tab of the Tweaks section. Best yet, with AUPT, you won’t need to uninstall patches prior to webOS updates.

Also notable is that WebOS Quick Install now periodically checks for updates, so you won’t need to keep checking the forum thread for version changes. In addition, the webOSDoctor downloader has been updated so it’ll always download the current webOSDoctor for your devices.

The full change log, download link, and the rest of the details can be found in the official PreCentral forums thread.

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