Palm's webOS 1.4 emerges: screenshots galore
By Darren Murph 
posted February 26th 2010 2:16PM
posted February 26th 2010 2:16PM
posted February 26th 2010 2:16PM
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@masta vaan I think you mean the lockscreen having none, not the home screen. Right?
@werty1432k
Wow. Another BS statement by an Engadget poster. Care to put your money where your mouth is, and buy some of that disastrous stock, like Bono did?
@Wesscoast Hmmm well you will notice that I'am marked as highest ranked. If you get there with that comment you just made then maybe we can talk.
Palm is doing great work.
I love my pre fo real I been waitin on dis update 4eva anybody actually got theirs yet in US
@king2486
I'm sorry, you're not eligible for the update. The 1.4 installer checks to see if your typing is intelligible or not. You don't seem to make the grade.
@Dafrety ur da reason y engadget turned off comments in da firsrt place my comments grammar has nothing to do with you or me getting an update so suck it bitch
@king2486 Ooooo Sick Burn. You just got served. Indeed bitch, do suck it.
Sigh.
I wouldn't buy a Pre but I think they're doing good work here.
Nokia should really buy them after seeing the disastrous Symbian video they released.
Their resources could really ramp up webOS development.
@resource True. It is pretty sad that the video demo of Symbian^4, which isn't even coming out until NEXT year, just totally pales in comparison with the WebOS of today. It's not even close.
I really think that WebOS is the best mobile operating system out there at the moment. I am a huge fan of what Palm is doing and I hope that people give them a chance rather than gleefully cheering for the death of innovation and competition.
The Pre Plus on Verizon kicks ass and is a steal at $149. I'm very, very happy with the purchase. No to play Earthworm Jim while I wait for my turn to update :)
@Sawawa NOW to play Earthworm Jim while I wait for my turn to update :)
@Sawawa By not going for the high-end hardware, Palm has alienated the nerds who usually infect the masses, so to speak.
They have a really advanced OS in a weak shell. I wish them a sales turnaround or a nice acquisition.
@Hussain Rahim When the Pre was released, it had the top off the line chipset available. I'm sure in another few months, we'll see another device with faster internals, but what did you want them to do, release tech that wasn't actually available yet inside of the phone?
@jhoff80 Well they actually went downmarket with the Pixi from the Pre.
Right now it's something I'd get my mom to get her into the world of smartphones and apps, but Android is competing downmarket as well.
Here’s my take on this: Palm is doing poorly because palm phones are not selling well. People on this website and others have been posting comments addressing the probable causes. Some say it’s the sluggishness of webOS, some say it’s the small app catalog, some say it’s bad advertizing, some say it’s delayed release of phones, some say it’s Verizon and sprint’s salespersons, some say it’s partnering with sprint as opposed to the big two, some say it’s the tiny number of webOS devices, some say it’s webOS’s lack of essential functions like video on the day of release, some even say that palm in general has been slow in everything, some say the market was already defined by RIM, apple, and google at the time palm launched webOS devices, and some say it’s the hardware and build quality.
All of these causes are valid and true. Therefore, if palm has infinite resources, then it should work on all of these causes at the same time. But palm does not have infinite resources. In fact, they‘re quite limited in that department and therefore, it is essential for Palm to invest its limited resources on addressing the major cause of its poor sales, not the minor causes.
So what’s the major cause? Well, it’s the cause that is mentioned the most on the internet. It’s the reason why people like me have not purchased a palm device. This is where Palm’s resources need to be invested.
I don’t think that a poor app collection is a major cause. If it was, android phones would not sell. I have used android for a year and I can attest to the decrepitude of the android market.
I don’t think it’s advertizing either. Guys (both geeks and jocks) do check out the pre when they enter a sprint or a verizon store. Obviously, the multitasker mom ads have not influenced their judgments to a full extent. Also, even when palm produced good ads (like flow and morning), the phones were not selling well.
I don’t think that partnering with sprint was a major cause; after all, the android attack started in the humble t-mobile. Look at android now: still terrible OS, shabby apps but selling well.
I don’t think it’s the small number of devices either. Look at apple: it’s got one device, the iphone, and that’s it. In fact, the fewer the devices, the more focus and refinement can be put into the main device.
I don’t feel that lack of video at the day of launch is a major cause either. On the other hand, one can talk about how webOS had other unique functions that other smartphones lacked, such as the brilliant card system and multi-touch, both lacking in android phones at the time of launch of the palm devices.
It’s also unfair to claim that palm has been slow. In fact, palm produced several updates to its already well-developed OS.
As far as the market, it’s still not saturated and even if it was, people will gladly switch to a new device and even pay a hefty premium for it if that device fulfilled their needs.
As far as build quality, the number of people who had to return or replace their “broken” pre is so high that it cannot be considered an exaggeration. Their seems to be a real QA situation going on but I still don’t think that this is a major cause.
I truly believe that the major cause is hardware.
Yes, the gesture area is awesome and the blending of the screen with the casing is nifty and creative. But the screen is just too darn small. A smart phone is no longer a mode of communication; it’s an entertainment device. I want to enjoy a movie on my phone while I am on a 2 hour flight or train ride. I communicate with my phone by its screen, so I want the screen to be big, not small. The pre’s screen looks particularly humble next to the 3.7 inch droid screen. Make no mistake, the hype about the xperia x10 is not related to timescape and mediascape: it’s the 4 inch screen that’s driving people crazy!!! You can argue the same for the HD2. But the hardware has another major shortcoming and that’s the keyboard! So here’s the logic: you either make a big screen with a virtual keyboard (VK accuracy tends to be proportional to button size which is generally proportional to screen size) or a smaller screen but a great blackberry-like keyboard. Palm did neither! The screen is small and the keyboard is bad, and mind you, I have very average fingertips and that double-typing glitch is not minor. The third problem is the battery; it’s just too small, forcing the pre owner to charge more than once a day. This is not cool.
At this point, any money spent on advertising or marketing in general is a waste. The major cause should be quickly addressed by releasing a brand new device that has excellent hardware, a much bigger screen and a snapdragon. Forget about the minor causes. Forget about the pixi. Fix the major fault: Pre’s poor hardware and small screen. If this gets taken care of, I will be the first one to buy the new palm device because webOS is brilliant, intuitive, beautiful, elegant, classy, and fun. I am a guy and even if the new Palm is called hello-kitty and is being advertized to high-school girls, I will still buy it. Just get a snap dragon and a larger screen. That’s all. Sorry for the long post.
@justanaveragejoe
One of the main reasons people like me would go for a Android is that 58 Percent of the apps are for free!!!!!!!! and it has 20,000 applications in the application store!!!Why should a person like me refuse something as sweet as that.
I know iphone sounds good with so many apps,..but it feels out of date!!!sadly,....it needs a revamp.I (the two year contract i believe it's toooooo much,.. 16GB i have to pay 100euros down payment 32GB 200 euro's down payment !!!)
know Windows Mobile 7 looks tempting,..I personally like it,..but the absence of apps(at least for the next one year from the launch it will be short of applications),..
Know with Palm Pre looks,i luv the way the application screen looks,..very nice(i wouldnt mind buying one but u cant find it in Holland sadly),..but the built quality scares me.
I have had a Blackberry 8900 Curve since July but I had to send it to T-mobile for servicing,..sadly they cant repair the BB in Holland so it had to sent to England,..after 5 weeks they gave me a new one.... After a couple months i have a problem that says Error Backing up Database[profile] 3 of 6 entries retrieved while syncing.
but for a 1 yr contract 30 down payment,..and monthly 32 euros i think it's worth every penny.
@arash84v
Microsoft knows how to attract developers, developers, developers. I think WP7's future is brighter than webOS's.....
That's the danger of going head to head with the iPhone, with almost zero apps. Android caught the early train, while webOS, wasn't able to attract enough developers, especially with very very few ppl carrying webOS phones.
@justanaveragejoe
TL;DR
@justanaveragejoe who the fu*k gave you the right to write a hole dam article on a website for short comment! Go apply at PCworld n give others the chance to express there short toughts on any specific subject. By the way palm is kick ass!
p.s. I dnt think no one to the time to read your stupid novel.
@arash84v,
The issue about the build quality is completely overblown. People on the internet who do not own the Palm Pre have been claiming to have bought about 5 phones and returned them. There is something called common sense: what company can survive if it has such problems? Sprint said less than 10% of the original manufactured Palm Pre products had problems - they said it was in the range of other smart phones. In other words, over 90% of the people who purchased the Pre did not experience any problems. The initial manufacturing problems were with loose batteries and they were addressed in August 2009.
I bought 2 Palm Pre phones for my family and both have been excellent these 9 months. Not a single problem. These phones come with a 1 year manufacturer’s warranty. Companies that do not have confidence in their products give you 30 to 90 day warranties. The only thing I did not like about my phone was the back-cover. When I bought the Touchstone wireless charger, it came with a Touchstone back-cover for my Palm Pre. Everyone should buy this back-cover (it comes free with the Verizon Palm Pre Plus), it is beautiful and is built of high quality material. As far as construction of the Palm Pre, I would give it a 93% (if you replace the back-cover) simply because it has been a very reliable phone. Three more months, and we would have owned the two phones for one year. If you read the posts, most of the people on the Internet who complain about hardware problems are just like you and the commenter above you, none of you have used the phone. Yet the more people like yourself (no offense meant) who raise concerns, the more other people think there is a problem. The way the Sprint version of the Palm Pre was designed, the top is designed to be a little loose from the keyboard section, and a few people returned their phone thinking that there was a problem. They then returned the new phones again thinking that there was a problem. Then there are those who do not own a Palm Pre but own an iPhone and are claiming to have a problem with the Palm Pre. It is sad, but some people are unethical.
As for battery life, I listen to hours of audio recording most days on my Palm Pre and also read on it, and the phone goes the whole day. I charge my phone about once every day or two, depending on how much I use it. Typically, I charge my phone once every 20 hours.
Palm needs new hardware or needs to pull a RIM and do a dual realese like they do with verizon and sprint blackberries. If palm can release the C40 on sprint and at&t this summer, they will be fine..
SIM Toolkit. Yup, that's all I want from you, Palm.
where's my update?
release 1.4 please!!
man anybody get their update yet..... It's 8:03EST and I'm gettin a lil worried.....
@maverick7526
Haven't gotten it yet. Which means we're on almost two solid months of not being able to download apps. I'm a patient guy, but this is starting to wear on me.
has anyone here with a palm gotten the update yet? I'm waiting!!!
well I guess sprint or palm lied..... Wen did they mean 1.4 was comin out feb 2010 or 2011......jeez
what?????????? it's 11:47pm and no update am I the only 1 :(
still no update wat is going on!!!
ummmmmmm update FAIL!!!! Thx a lot Palm and Sprint.......WTF!?!?
has anyone gotten the dam update yet?
Well, we still have 2 hours until midnight on the west coast. I'm holding on to hope for the update coming out tonight! Palm is in California.
Blackberry should partner with Palm. BB should continue to do what it does on devices like the Bold and Curve.
However,the BB OS just does not work on the Storm.
But..how would webOS look on the Storm hardware?
BB can split into 2 divisions of phones. Business class (bold,tour) and multimedia feature phone class (storm w/ webOS).
BB can tweak,skin and enhance the OS to include certain things that would make it a ''blackberry'' but the core would be what it is.
webOS fans get it on a bigger screen on better hardware. People who want BB hardware with a more 'fun' and dynamic OS get their wish too.
Finally! Guess they were going west coast time....downloading 1.4 as I write this
hahaha I'm getting the update right now. Lol yes!finaly
I'm getting the update right now!!!!