• pixi,  pre,  synergy,  web os,  yahoo

    Syncing Yahoo! Accounts With Palm Synergy

    November 16, 2009 /

    Over the weekend, Palm released the Palm webOS 1.3.1 update for the Palm Pre and also launched the Palm Pixi on Sprint’s wireless network.

    One of the new features of Palm webOS is the ability to sync your Yahoo! account with Synergy, Palm’s wireless technology for collecting all of your contact, calendar, and email data and displaying it to you in a single, synchronized place that fits in your pocket.

    I wanted to test out the new Yahoo! Synergy sync on my Palm Pre with webOS 1.3.1 installed. My first attempt didn’t go so well because I was trying to log in to my Yahoo! account with the wrong password. My second attempt didn’t work either, even after I confirmed that I had the correct password. I kept getting a message popping up on my Pre that my account password was incorrect. What gives?

    Turns out that before you can use Synergy to sync with your Yahoo! account, you need to do two things first:

    1. Upgrade your Palm Pre or Palm Pixi to webOS 1.3.1 if you don’t already have it installed
    2. Upgrade your Yahoo! calendar to their new beta Calendar

    You can upgrade the operating system on your Pre or Pixi by using the Updates application on your smart(er)phone. To upgrade your Yahoo! Calendar, you need to access an upgrade page on the the Yahoo! website. (I was already logged into my Yahoo! account before I went to the Calendar switch website.)

    After you have upgraded your Yahoo! Calendar, you should be all set to add your Yahoo! email account to the Pre or Pixi Email application. Once the Synergy connection has been established, webOS will begin to sync your Yahoo! email, contacts, and calendar. Additionally, afterSynergy has done its thing, you will be able to access your Yahoo! instant messaging account from Messaging application.

    If you want to learn more about how Palm webOS Synergy works, you can read more on the Palm support website.

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  • bell,  pre,  sprint,  web os

    Sprint, Bell Pre Customers Get Palm WebOS 1.3.1 Update

    November 14, 2009 /

    On Friday evening, Palm released the Palm webOS 1.3.1 update for Sprint and Bell Canada Pre customers. The update arrives a few days earlier than expected. How every cool! Yahoo! users will be happy to learn that webOS 1.3.1 brings Synergy support for Yahoo! calendar and email.

    Palm webOS 1.3.1 has the follow nuggets of goodness baked in:

    Backup

    • Backup now includes browser cookies
    • Backup no longer saves online account passwords

    Calendar

    • Yahoo! now appears as a Calendar synchronization account. Open Calendar > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Add An Account > Yahoo!
    • All-day events that span more than one day now appear correctly in all Calendar views.
    • If you create a Google calendar event on the phone and the event location contains an apostrophe, the event now correctly synchronizes with Google online.

    Camera

    • After taking a picture, if you tap the picture thumbnail in the lower-left corner of the camera screen, the picture now opens in full-screen view, not Thumbnails view. Making the back gesture returns you to the camera.

    Contacts

    • Yahoo! now appears as a Contacts synchronization account. You can download contacts from Yahoo! online to the phone by opening Contacts > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Add An Account > Yahoo!
    • Automatic contact linking based on name matches occurs only if the first and last name fields are populated with the same names. If either field is blank, the Contacts app no longer links the contacts. In addition, the Contacts app no longer automatically links contacts with the same name but with different suffixes (such as Jr. and Sr.).
    • If you set up Contacts to synchronize with a Google account, the account synchronizes only entries in Google’s My Contacts, not all contacts.

    Device Info

    • If you copy a music file to the phone and then delete it, Device Info now shows the correct amount of available memory after the deletion.

    Email

    • Forwarded and replied-to messages include improved formatting, such as the original sender’s email address in forwarded messages and correct inline image display in replies.
    • The list of mail types available in manual setup now includes Google Apps (Hosted Google Domains) and Yahoo! Small Business Domain email accounts. Selecting one of these types automatically enters the correct settings for these accounts.

    Messaging

    • Yahoo! IM is available as an instant messaging account.
    • You can select a unique ringtone for new message alerts: Open Messaging > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Sound > Ringtone.
    • You can forward a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Forward.
    • You can copy the text of a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Copy Text.

    Phone

    • If the you are on a call, calendar notifications no longer partially cover the End Call icon.

    Screen & Lock

    • A new Secure Unlock preference allows you to set the time interval the phone is idle before the phone locks, requiring you to enter the PIN/password to unlock the phone. This can be the same as or different from the interval after which the screen turns off. To set the preference: Open Screen & Lock > Lock After.

    Web

    • Backup now includes browser cookies, so that after a restart, for example, if you stored your username and password on a web-based email site, you can continue to access the site without needing to log in.
    • If you tap to play a YouTube video embedded on a web page, the YouTube application launches and the video plays in the app.

    There are some other interesting changes in the Palm webOS operating system. The first is that you can now press and hold the Orange key and tap an application icon to pull up information about the application. Pressing and holding down the Power button now gives you more control over what the device does: turn Airplane mode on or off or Restart or Shutdown/Swap Battery.

    To read the complete list of feature updates included in Palm webOS 1.3.1, visit the Palm website. The 1.3.1 update is reported to become available for Europen GSM Pre customers by the end of November.

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  • pre,  web os

    Palm webOS Tip: Restart to Correct Radio Issues

    October 26, 2009 /

    On a recent Friday morning, I noticed that one of my Google Calendars, the one that I use to sync my work schedule with, was not syncing with Synergy on my Palm Pre smartphone. My Google calendar was up to date because I was looking at. But when I glanced over to my Pre, the calendar hadn’t updated.

    The Calendar application in Palm webOS can be synchronized at any time, regardless of the schedule you have setup, by taping the “Sync Now” button. (Calendar > Preferences & Accounts > Sync Now) In most cases, the on demand sync will catch up any changes that have not yet been synchronized. I had tried the Sync Now command without much success.

    Rather than continuing to tap Sync Now the for the rest of the day, I decided to restart my Pre. Unlike previous Palm smartphones and PDAs, there is a specific procedure for restarting your Palm webOS phone.

    To restart your phone, launch the Device Info application. It is found on the last (right most) page of the Palm application launcher. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and tap the “Reset Options” button, and then tap the “Restart” button. When you restart your phone in this way, you are assured that the Linux operating system that Palm webOS is built on is restarted correctly and that there is no chance for file corruption to occur.

    Thankfully, by the time I walked down the hall to the room where my first meeting was going to by, my Pre has rebooted and Synergy had updated my Calendar.

    The restart option should be part of your troubleshooting steps. I’ve also used the Device Info Restart option to correct Wi-Fi and cellular communication issues. Restarting is a quick and easy way to get things working again on your smartphone.

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  • pre

    Palm Pre Launch Event in Spain

    October 20, 2009 /

    You are kidding, right? I’m happy to hear that Palm fans in Spain can now get their hands on the Palm Pre smartphone, but, I don’t know, I think the “Ladies in Black” is a bit over the top.

    You can check out this, and other photos from the Palm Pre Spain launch event over at the Palm blog.

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  • pre,  web os

    PreCentral: It’s Time To Fix Calendar

    October 20, 2009 /

    Derek Kessler, over at PreCentral.net, has a good article posted about the improvements he would like to see Palm add to the webOS Calendar application.

    The first issue that should be addressed, according to the article, should be the performance of the Calendar application. Mr. Kessler writes:

    “What do I mean by too slow? When I swipe to a new day, it can take seconds for the gray loading overlay to disappear. That wouldn’t be so bad if I could still swipe to another day, but I have to wait for that day to load before I can move to the next. When I move to a day that has several events scheduled it takes even longer to load, which leads me to suspect that the calendar is checking for changes of for each event before letting me interact with or move on from that day.”

    Another issue that is tabled in the article is that the Palm webOS Calendar should have feature parity with Palm OS 5 that is still used today in millions of Palm handheld devices as well as in Treo and Centro smartphones. The Palm OS 5 Calendar application has features such as pop-up description windows when you tap an event in week view and the agenda view. Summerizing the missing features between the Calendar application in Palm OS 5 and webOS 1.2.1, Mr. Kessler writes: “There is little reason for the webOS calendar to lose functionality from the aged Palm OS calendar.”

    I agree. I was surprised that once I got home from my local Sprint store, after having waited in line for hours to be the first one to get a Pre, to learn that Palm’s flagship smartphone, in certain applications, had less features than my Treo 755p! Now I’m a little bit more tolerant of the missing features since the Pre is running a version 1.x operating system. The good news is that Palm has been repsonsive, much more so than in the past, to correcting bugs and adding new features. Buy the time we get to webOS 1.5, and certainly by 2.0, I would expect that Palm would have added many of the PIM application refinements to webOS.

    You can read the full article on PreCentral.net…

    [Via PreCentral.net]

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  • notifylink,  pre,  web os

    NotifyLink Client for Palm webOS Released

    October 15, 2009 /

    Earlier this week, NotifyCorp released a Palm webOS client for their onsite and hosted NotifyLink wireless email server.

    “Notify Technology is proud to announce support for the Palm PreTM using either the NotifyLink On-Premise or On-Demand solutions. Corporate IT wants an effective way to provide their increasingly mobile workforce secure wireless access and management of their email, calendar, contacts and tasks. Most organizations and businesses are seeking a mobility solution that will offer them support for their Palm Pre wireless device on cellular and voice data networks (at this time only on the Sprint and Bell Canada networks) and any 802.11x wireless network.

    The NotifyLink On-Premise and On-Demand mobility solution provides secure, real-time synchronization of email, calendar, contacts and tasks to and from the Palm Pre wireless device. With NotifyLink, users have the ability to compose, reply, forward, or delete their email while mobile, as well as open a variety of email attachment formats. Support for accepting or declining meeting invitations and remote access to their Global Address Book is also provided.”

    NotifyLink is a perfect solution for small and medium sized businesses that want to bring wireless email support to their employees. I have been managing a 30 person onsite NotifyLink server for just about two years now and I have been really happy with NotifyLink. The software runs itself and NotifyLink has become a “set it and forget it” application.

    If you are looking to add webOS support to your NotifyLink solution, be ready to upgrade to the latest release of the NotifyLink Enterprise Server as you will need to be on release 4.6 or later to be able to the Palm Pre into the mix.

    For more details about the NotifyLink solution, visit the NotifyCorp website. NotifyCorp has also posted a NotfiyLink for Palm webOS datasheet on their site.

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  • motionapps,  pre,  web os

    MotionApps Classic 2.0 Released

    October 7, 2009 /

    MotionApps has released Classic 2.0 for Palm webOS. Classic is a webOS application that allows you to emulate Palm OS 5.x on devices like the Pre, and the Pixi later this year.

    With version 2.0 of Classic, MotionApps has introduced the following new features:

    • HotSync support over network
    • Power consumption reduced considerably when device is idle
    • Correctly set time in Palm OS from Palm webOS
    • Palm OS storage heap memory moved to flash memory
    • Virtual storage card is named “VirtualCard”
    • Total and occupied size on storage card is correctly reported in Palm OS
    • Similarly, storage heap size is reported correctly, maximum reported size 128MB
    • Classic wakes up 45 seconds before Palm OS alarm time
    • Full screen mode
    • Quick keyboard mode switch
    • Improved reset functionality

    In addition to the new features listed above, MotionApps has packaged a number of popular freeware and trial software which can be downloaded directly into Classic! To install the Palm OS application bundle, launch Classic on your Pre, pull down the Classic menu (top left of the screen) and and tap the Install Free Apps menu item. And don’t forget that you can install your old Palm OS 5 applications on your Pre using the Import application in Classic.

    Pricing and Availability

    The Classic 2.0 upgrade is free to all previously registered users and customers can use the Palm webOS Updates application to download and install the new software. If you haven’t purchased Classic, you can download a free 7-day trial by using the App Catalog application. If you choose to purchase a copy of Classic, be prepared to shell out $29.99 – which I still feel is a little bit on the steep side for an emulator.

    For more information about the Classic 2.0 upgrade, visit the MotionApps website.

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  • apple,  itunes,  pre,  web os

    Apple Responds to Palm’s Reenabling Meda Sync in webOS 1.2.1

    October 6, 2009 /

    I just saw that Jimmie posted this over on GadgetsOnTheGo.net:

    After Palm’s latest fix to re-enable Palm Pre syncing with iTunes, Apple has issued a statement regarding it.

    “As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players.” “Presumably, iTunes 9.0.2 will disable Palm’s latest fix.”

    Read the full All Things D article…

    [Via GadgetsOnTheGo.net…]

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  • pre,  sprint,  web os

    Notes on Palm webOS Updates

    October 6, 2009 /

    Last week Palm spoiled their Palm Pre customers on the Sprint network with not one, but two Palm webOS updates.

    Last Tuesday’s webOS 1.2.0 update had more enhancements and fixes in it than you could shake a stick at. Saturday’s update to webOS 1.2.1 was also welcomed because it not only addressed an annoying sync issues with Microsoft Exchange email servers, but also re-re-enabled native sync support with Apple’s iTunes 9 jukebox software.

    What I was really looking forward to was the updates to the Bluetooth stack and enhanced compatibility with factory installed Bluetooth car kits. A number of customers, myself included, had reported Bluetooth pairing and connection issues with previous editions of Palm webOS.

    The good news is that Palm webOS 1.2.0 (and by extension, 1.2.1) address Bluetooth pairing and usability issues with factory installed car kits. In short, I can now more safely use my Pre while I’m driving in my car. (I’m still looking for a voice dialing solution for webOS.) I’ve also noticed that after applying the updates, I can now send contacts to my Bluetooth car kit (very nice!), a MMS message, or to an email message.

    The one thing that I was hoping would be fixed in either Palm webOS 1.2.0 or 1.2.1 was the static in a Bluetooth audio stream from the Pre to the car’s stereo system. While I can make clear phone calls, when I stream music to my car’s radio, over Bluetooth, there is still static and pops in the stream. It isn’t a big deal, but on those days when I leave my iPod at home, my ride to and from work will be filled with lots of snaps, crackles, and pops.

    All-in-all, I like the enhancements and fixes that Palm has provided in last week’s updates to Sprint customers. Bell Canada customers, I’m sure, are anxious to get these updates also. (There are carrier testing and certification issues that need to be coordinated for each carrier before a handset vendor like Palm can release a new OS to their customers.) The next big hurtle for Palm’s Pre and soon to be Pixi customers, is to get their on-device software store, the Palm App Catalog, out of beta.

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  • itunes,  pre,  sprint,  web os

    Palm Releases webOS 1.2.1 Update

    October 3, 2009 /

    On Friday afternoon, Palm released the Palm webOS 1.2.1 update for the Sprint edition Palm Pre. The following is the list of fixes that 1.2.1 brings. Note that there are no new applications installed by the 1.2.1 updater.

    Feature changes to existing applications

    Email

    Resolved an issue where after installing the 1.2.0 webOS update some customers running Exchange 2007 could no longer synchronize with their Exchange account for Email, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks.

    System

    • Resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (9.0.1).
    • Media sync now synchronizes photo albums, maintaining the album structure in the Photos app.
    • Media sync now allows for synchronizing photos without requiring the full-resolution originals. This provides faster display of high-quality full-screen images and enables users to store more photos on the phone.

    Web

    Resolved an issue where if a user tried to play streaming music or video, the media stream might drop out or have a long delay before starting.

    Security

    Addresses a security issue encountered by webkit developers. This issue did not impact end users.

    You can learn more about the Palm webOS 1.2.1 update on the Palm website.

    As a fan of both Palm and Apple, I’m glad to see that Palm has once again given their customers a way to sync naively with Apple’s iTunes jukebox software.

    The webOS 1.2.1 update is about half the size of the webOS 1.2 update (38MB vs. 79MB) that was released earlier in the week. My upgrade took about 6 minutes to install after downloading and validating the update file.

    All-in-all, a nice surprise for a rainy Saturday afternoon! Now I have an excuse to take a spin in my car to make sure the Bluetooth features are working. 😉

    UPDATE:
    I just tested the Media Sync feature with Apple iTunes 9.0.1 (9) and everything appears to be working normally again!

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