The Palm webOS 1.4 update has finally showed up as being available for install on my Sprint Palm Pre this morning.
Palm’s management had said that the update would be rolled out in February during their CES press event last month. The update weighs in at 39MB.
Update
As of right now, the 1.4.0 update is only available for webOS Pre and Pixi phones from Sprint, O2 UK, O2 DE, O2 Ireland, and Movistar networks. If you have a Palm webOS phone on Verizon, Bell, or other carrier, you are going to have to wait a little longer for the certification testing to be completed.
The webOS 1.4.0 update does not include any new applications, however, it does include some 70+ documented updates to Palm’s mobile operating system. This update includes the following fixes and enhancements:
Calendar
- You can customize calendar notification sounds in Preferences & Accounts. The options include Mute, System Sound, Ringtone, and Vibrate. The Ringtone option includes new notification sounds to give you more customization choices.
- If you create an event and enters a phone number as the event name, location, or description, you can tap the phone number on the event details screen to dial it.
- A new Sync Now application menu item gives you a second way to manually synchronize your calendar accounts (in addition to the Sync Now button in Preferences & Accounts).
- This release improves Calendar synchronization performance in poor network coverage areas to optimize battery life. It also increases the default interval for synchronizing with online calendar accounts other than Exchange accounts.
- This release contains improvements to the visual calendar display, including a clearer indicator of AM and PM and improved current time display.
Camera
- You can record video whenever and wherever inspiration strikes with the new camcorder feature in Camera. After recording a video, you can edit the clip in Videos, upload the video directly to YouTube or Facebook, or send the video by email or multimedia message.
Contacts
- If you import a Mac Address Book contact, all contact fields display correctly in the Contacts application.
- This release improves Contacts synchronization performance in poor network coverage areas to optimize battery life. It also increases the default interval for synchronizing with online contacts accounts other than Exchange accounts.
Device Info
- You now have two partial erase options: Erase Apps & Data, which erases all installed applications and associated data, and Erase USB Drive, which erases files stored on the USB drive.
- This release includes a new Secure Full Erase option. A secure full erase takes considerably longer than a regular full erase.
- You can customize calendar notification sounds in Preferences & Accounts. The options include Mute, System Sound, Ringtone, and Vibrate. The Ringtone option includes new notification sounds to give you more customization choices.
- If the message body contains a phone number and you tap and hold the number, a menu appears displaying options to Call, Text, or Add To Contacts (if the number is not already saved in a contact).
- This release includes multiple performance improvements in Email, including improved handling of message replies and forwarded messages and quicker response times to gestures.
Location Services (GPS-enabled features)
- If you turn off the Use GPS and Use Google Services options under the Locate Me Using application menu item, the Locate Me Using menu item remains available.
Messaging
- You can attach a video to an outgoing multimedia message.
Phone
- You can tap the contact photo or icon in a call history entry to display options for that entry, including dialing an alternate number, sending a text message, opening a contact, or adding the number as a contact. The expanded display also includes call details such as call length and phone number type.
Screen & Lock
- New blink notifications (a blinking light in the gesture area) alert you when email, text message, or other notifications arrive. You clear the blink notification by turning the screen on and off or unlocking the screen. The blink notification preference is on by default; you can turn it off in Screen & Lock > Blink Notifications.
Sounds & Ringtones
- This release adds new user-selectable notification sounds under Ringtone.
System (overall enhancements to webOS)
- This release offers better overall performance, including faster loading time for apps and increased battery life across a wider range of user scenarios.
- If you are playing a game and a phone or calendar notification arrives, the game pauses while the notification is coming up.
- You can quickly unlock the screen by dragging up from the gesture area across the onscreen lock icon.
- This release improves the speed of downloading applications and files.
Videos
- You can upload a recorded video to YouTube or Facebook on the web.
- You can edit recorded video. You can also delete recorded video, video copied from a computer, or video received as an attachment to an email message.
- If you tap the option to share an uploaded video, you have the option to send the link via email, text message, or Facebook.
Wi-Fi
- A new Sleep Settings application menu item allows you to change a setting so that if Wi-Fi is on and the phone screen turns off, the Wi-Fi feature turns off. By default, if Wi-Fi is on and the screen turns off, the Wi-Fi feature stays on.
The full change log for the webOS 1.4.0 update can be found on the Palm webOS update website.
Installing the Update
Sprint customers can install the Palm webOS 1.4.0 update right now by using the Updates application on their phone. Customers can also wait for their Pre or Pixi to download the update in the background automatically and then install the update when the download is complete.