Author: Dieter Bohn

As a breathless world awaits paid apps becoming available in the webOS App Catalog, tidbits are coming out left and right. First, it briefly looked like the App Catalog was offering paid apps to users outside the US, but the availability quickly dropped off and PreCentral members were left wondering what the score was. 

Meanwhile, the bugfixes (and perhaps OS-level support for international paid apps?) expected in webOS 1.4.1 are another hot topic in the forums right now. Kel101 claims a Palm customer service rep said paid apps would come with webOS 1.4.1, which should land "today or tomorrow." Kingsams also notes that O2 Germany has tweeted out that there will be a "mini Palm OS update" coming this evening that will enable international paid apps. 

In other words, overclockers, it might be time to uninstall that kernel patch.

Want more good news outside the US? Cdavidc notes that SFR has even released a webOS app in the web feed, so Pre lovers in France even have reason to get their hopes up.

Thanks to rot for the tip!

Update: We had to take the earlier photo down, but given that webOS 1.4.1 has started trickling out, we feel good that paid apps will hit today or tomorrow! 

Sprint has announced the "Sprint Free Guarantee," which amounts to a beefed-up 30 day trial program for people looking to switch to Sprint. Essentially, they’re removing as many risks as possible by letting new Sprint users buy a phone and get on their network and if you’re unhappy, you get the following back:

• The cost of the plan
• Taxes and fees
• Activation fee
• Restocking fee waived
• Cost of the device
• Early Termination Fee waived

They’re being a bit more generous than the other big three carriers in the US. As Keith said over at Android Central, it could be read as an attempt to get users to come back before they launch their EVO 4G, but here in Pre land it does make it a little safer for webOS lovers to suggest at least trying the Pre to their friends.

Foursquare has been taking full advantage of Palm’s advanced app distribution model – with the standard Foursquare app in the App Catalog and their newer versions via Palm’s Web Distribution Model. The web feed / rapid release version, Foursquare (Now), has just hit version 1.0 and comes with a cleaner look and feel and what appears to be plenty of other small fixes.

Go on and download Foursquare for webOS now, you friend-stalkers and would-be mayors.

via @arnehess and laelipoo

UPDATE: In yet another stunning upset, the Palm Pre Plus has toppled the BlackBerry Bold 9700! And by the slimmest of slim margins, too. Out of 25,263 ballots cast, the Pre Plus topped the Bold by just 91 votes, securing 50.2% of the vote. A narrow victory that was duked out until the very end, but a victory nonetheless. Up next: The HTC HD2. Bring it.

The Pre Plus is hanging on in Laptop Mag’s March Madness, but a huge number of PreCentral readers have let us know that this week it’s up against the CrackBerry nation’s BlackBerry Bold 9700. If you’re interested in seeing the Pre Plus repeat last week’s upset of the Nexus One, hie thee hence and vote.

Thanks to everybody (and we mean everybody) who sent this in!

The O8F-PIXUW has popped up at the FCC, aka the P121UNA, aka a GSM Palm Pixi Pixi with North American radio bands, aka the forthcoming Palm Pixi Plus on AT&T. 

Oh, FCC code names aren’t interesting? How about this, with previous releases we’ve been fond of what we’re calling the ToniCipriani method of reading the tea leaves for devices releases. His (and our) preferred tea leaf? Checking the "Request for Confidentiality" document to see when Palm tells the FCC it’s OK to drop the goods. Looks like Palm has wised up to that, however, as they’ve switched up their letter to say they want the details held "indefinitely."

In other words: "coming months" combined with armchair speculation about Palm’s very low 4th quarter revenue predictions are all we have to go on when it comes to guessing the release date for this little guy.

via Engadget, thanks to Mannyman for the tip!

Palm’s dynamic developer relations duo – Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith – have dropped a new Beta Facebook App for webOS into the Palm Beta Apps Feed. It brings the main feature we’ve been missing: notifications!

With the 1.1.2 update, the feature comes at you in two ways. First, in the interface itself the upper-lefthand button has been switch from a persistent "Update Status" button to a button that’s badged with how many notifications you’ve missed and opens a drop down to see all your recent notifications. As somebody who isn’t constantly updating his Facebook status, this is a welcome change.

Second – background notifications! Right now it will show your most recent notification, but we’re told that flipping through notifications and even responding to friend requests right there in the dashboard are features they’re looking at. The notifications work by polling Facebook in the background, but we’re still waiting / hoping that Palm will get their Mojo Messaging Service / Push Notifications off the ground in the near future.

A few more fixed are in store as well:

• Keyboard shortcuts now use our native "gesture area + key" support which includes a drop down "Navigate to…." area.
• Formatting of content has been fixed (blank lines separating content)
• No HTML tags in Inbox (no more <br>)
• If you launch the Facebook app when already running, refresh the feed a la Tweed

Grab it now by clicking the download link you’ll find right here: Beta Facebook App for webOS.

read Palm Developer Blog

Derek and Keith record PalmCast 100 sans Dieter – but stay through for the end for his surprise guest appearance.

• Download it directly with this link
• Subscribe via iTunes
• Subscribe directly to the Podcast feed with your favorite Podcatcher here
• Listen to it here with the player above

Thanks to everybody for writing and calling in!

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While we’re still plenty happy with Palm’s new Life Moves Fast, Don’t Miss a Thing ad, there’s still concern out there that it doesn’t quite do justice to showing that all that fancy multitasking is actually happening on a piece of hardware. Enter ThiesFX, whose entry into the PalmSpot contest is, as we say above, pretty much full of win – and not just because PreCentral leads off the video 😉

It’s funny, but the core problem with webOS is that its killer feature is nearly impossible to describe in 30 seconds. Namely: the natural elegance of multitasking and notifications all working in concert.  What do you think is the best way to show that off in 30 seconds or less?

YouTube embed after the break

via Engadget and webOS Roundup, thanks to everybody who sent this in!

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Skype is available today for Verizon smartphones – well, for Verizon smartphones based on Android or Verizon BlackBerry Smartphones. Left out of that picture: the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus on webOS. A Verizon tipster has sent us an internal memo detailing the Skype rollout to employees and it does offer a faint glimmer of hope that webOS may someday be included:

Stay tuned for more detail in the near future about Skype Mobile on more Smartphones and platforms such as BREW, WinMo and Palm.

Like we said – it’s a faint glimmer – but when it comes to the possibility of Skype on a Pre, we’ll take it. Screenshot after the break.

Thanks, Anonymous!

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As you’ve no-doubt surmised by now, there isn’t a lot of daylight between the Palm Pre Plus on Verizon and the Palm Pre Plus on AT&T; Verizon gets mobile hotspot while AT&T gets a radio that has a better chance of actually working outside the United States. 

One piece of new software that is getting on board with AT&T is YPMobile, which is their Yellow Pages app. It’s a straightforward local-search app, but it does allow you to add ‘locations’ to your calendar and contacts directly. It also uses Bing maps as a base, to those of you who are trying to keep Google from reading your mind may prefer that.

UPDATE: As Cinnabarcorp in the comments has so aptly pointed out, YPMobile is nothing new. In fact, it’s been in the App Catalog since December. So yeah, we feel kind of silly right now (and confused that Palm and AT&T are touting this as if it’s something new), but we’re also pretty jazzed that we can download it right now.

Phil, Kevin, and Dieter talk all the big news that’s happened at CTIA2010. A little Palm, a lot of Android – Listen in! (p.s. Last night’s PalmCast coming tomorrow).

• Download it directly with this link
• Subscribe via iTunes
• Subscribe directly to the Podcast feed with your favorite Podcatcher here
• Listen to it here with the player above

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We just snagged our first real hands-on time with the AT&T Palm Pre Plus and AT&T Palm Pixi Plus. They’re exactly what you’ve come to know and love, but in a US-friendly 3G flavor. Both were fairly snappy and interestingly at least one Pixi Plus had some 3D Games on-board (but not quite working yet). The devices are definitely running something other than webOS 1.4 – instead running a version codenamed Arak.  

AT&T Telenav is on-board and we’re told it will likely be a $9.99 / month add-on. More interesting is AT&T’s YP Mobile (Yellow Pages Mobile) app. It’s a worthy competitor to the not-quite-modern-anymore Google Maps. It uses Bing maps and cleverly integrates into lots of different pieces of webOS – you can add places to your calendar straight from the app, add places to your contacts, and generally get your local search and directions done.

The AT&T-exclusive blue-back option for the Pixi is also on display, for you Big Blue loyalists.

Sadly, we still don’t have a firm ETA on when these will land – it’s "coming months." Price, as we said before, will be $149.99 for the Pre Plus and $49.99 for the Pixi Plus, both after $100 mail-in rebate.

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webOS 1.4 is the bees knees, but there have been reports of a bug or two and the altered way it handles multitasking has caused some headaches for some developers. As we mentioned in that story, Palm had promised an update ‘within 2-3 weeks’ and it looks like they are making good – we have word that Palm is currently letting some developers have a crack at the Release Candidate for webOS 1.4.1, which should allow apps to persist in the background for a little longer than 1.4.0 let them, along with a new JSON parser and presumably various other small changes.

We also hear there’s an early access release for the 2nd beta of Project Ares, the in-browser app development system. Excelsior!

Thanks anonymous tipsters!

Palm has announced that the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus are coming to AT&T in "the coming months." Pricing will be what you’d pretty much guess for the Palm Pre Plus: $149.99 for the Palm Pre Plus. The Palm Pixi Plus on AT&T will clock in at a refreshing $49.99. Naturally, both prices are after a $100 mail-in rebate and a two-year contract.

Both phones will be on the 850/1900 3G bands and so are not identical to the European Palm Pre Plus (p101ueu) expected soon for SFR France. In terms of software, both phones will feature

• AT&T Navigation (based on Telenav) for an additional monthly fee 
• AT&T Address book integrated with Palm’s Synergy feature
• Yellow Pages from AT&T
• AT&T Whisper Service, which will automatically log the phones into AT&T WiFi hotspots when they are available.

Not available on either phone is Mobile Hotspot for tethering, as that is a Verizon-exclusive service. Both phones, like their European predecessors, are capable of Bluetooth tethering but AT&T has not as of this writing revealed whether they’ll offer a tethering option.

Quoth Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein:

AT&T and Palm have a history of smartphone leadership, and today’s announcement is a significant milestone for us,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “With Palm webOS phones coming to AT&T, Palm can help most anyone in the United States stay connected so they never miss a thing.

We’ll add that once these phones hit AT&T Palm will be on the three largest US carriers. We’re bummed that we don’t have a firm release date. Previous rumors have pointed to May as a possibility, but those FCC documents were for the (presumably scrapped) regular Palm Pre P100UNA. Additionally, Palm’s Q4 earnings outlook is small enough that a late-quarter launch is looking more likely.

In addition to the standard, black back cover, the Pixi Plus will also be available with a blue back cover. Aftermarket and artist-series Pixi back covers will of course also work with the Pixi Plus.

We’re on the scene at CTIA and hope to have live hands-on in the coming days! Full press release after the break

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While covering MIX10 for WMExperts last week I was happily surprised to see a few Palm Pre phones in the hands of the throngs of Microsoft developers. One of them was in the hands of Stefan Henze, a developer for preciouscoders. He gave me an early look at AuctionMate, a new eBay app for webOS that just hit the official App Catalog.

AuctionMate is a free app that you hook up to your eBay account and it pretty much allows you to manage virtually all of your eBay activities. You can keep track of pending bids, watch what you’re selling, what you’ve won, what you’ve lost, and so on. The entire interface is a nice mix of standard webOS elements and clever non-webOS tools that give you a quick overview of everything that’s happening with your eBay account. My personal favorite is AuctionMate’s remix of the standard Update/Refresh button – as you can see in the screenshot above it shows you the time of your last update right there in the button.

I’m not a heavy eBay user myself, but if I were I can say this would be a must-download for me. German speakers can find out more about AuctionMate at preciouscoders.com or even better, just download it now since it’s free. Henze tells me that more features are on the way for the free version and a premium, for-pay version is also in the works.

March 17th and 18th only, Motion Apps has reduced the price of their Classic PalmOS emulator to $19.99. Additionally, through March 20th you can purchase Classic PalmOS apps at the PreCentral.net Classic App Store at 20% off by using coupon code ClassicSale.

[Sponsored post]

Chris’ eagle eye caught that the Palm Pre Plus is only $79.99 and the Pixi Plus is down to $29.99. Turns out this is part of Verizon’s daily 24 hour sale, so you’ve got most of the rest of the day to pull the trigger.

Actually, this is the second this month we’ve seen Verizon mark the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus down to these prices in their 24 hour sale. Make of that what you will, but we’re behind anything that sells more webOS phones.

Thanks, Chris!

Scaredy pings us to let us know that the O8F-CASY has landed at the FCC. That’s the Palm101UEU to you. Ok, actually we are thinking that it’s the European / GSM Palm Pre Plus. ToniCipriani chimes in on the forums to say that the photo date for lifting photo confidentiality (a fairly reliable sign of release date in the past) is September 11th, 2010.

Palm had previously submitted a plan jane North American Palm Pre that we saw back in November, the P100UNA – which is the non-plus, GSM, North American Palm Pre which we were hoping to see in May. What we’d actually like is for the standard Palm Pre to get end-of-lifed and replaced by the GSM Pre Plus. Scaredy had caught the North American Palm Pre Plus, the P101UNA at a German certification site before, so hope springs eternal we’ll have real GSM Palm Pre Plus phones in the US and around the world.