Author: Jason Robitaille

After months of private on-the-side development, Internalz, the first and only file manager for the webOS, has been released with 1.0 status. Along with it, the custom service powering Internalz, FileMgr service, has also been release at version 1.0.

Internalz made its first public appearance way back on August 18th. Back then, it was essentially a proof-of-concept application, with that early FileMgr being my first attempt at custom webOS service. And after a few minor revisions, I decided to switch to private development and testing. This is the result.

The above video show much of the central features: full device browsing, file/directory moving and copying, easy deletions with optional swipe-to-delete feature, simple renaming, built-in image viewer, built-in text editor and more.

However, there were a few features I forgot to mention in the above video. First off, Internalz supports many international languages. It fully supports English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. As well, tapping on the "Name" header toggles sorting by name, and tapping on "Size" toggles that respective sorting. In addition, tapping and holding on the "Size" label will toggle it to a label for filetype.

FileMgr, the custom service that powers Internalz, is also hitting version 1.0. As a result, I’ve released a public API specsheet for developers to freely use. Among other things, this allows developers to write data to files locally on the device. Such a feature is already employed in at least one app, MapTool, by Metaview.

Internalz 1.0 is now available here and FileMgr service is available here. Both are also on the PreCentral feed for OTA installation. Huzzah for homebrew!

The folks have WebOS-Internals have done it again. Today, dtzWill announced in the our forums that they’ve managed to get an X.Org Server working on the Palm Pre. Basically, this means native Linux X11 applications will be able to run on webOS!

One such example of an X11 application is shown in the above video. OpenOffice could prove a perfect alternative to the seemingly-mythical DocumentsToGo by DataViz. Of course some optimization for usability may be needed, but this is more than we’ve seen from anyone else in terms of strong productivity and office tools.

Keep in mind, however, that the X-Server is not yet ready for the average user, and thus is still in the WebOS-Internals testings feed.  Rod Whitby has stated:

Just a note to say that we do have a roadmap of being able to install native Debian X11 GUI applications (like OpenOffice) via Preware. But don’t hold your breath, cause it looks like we need to write a whole new FUSE filesystem driver to be able to do it. Think weeks to months, rather than days.

So if you’re a user with knowledge on the workings of Linux and aren’t afraid of getting your hands dirty, it might be worth looking into the vast potentials X11 applications can offer.

One of the biggest complaints about the Palm Pre when it was first announced, was the lack of an SD card slot. Thanks to an interesting device called the AirStash, we may have a solution for the webOS. According the company’s latest tweet, it works fully with the Palm Pre and and Palm Pixi.

If you can make it through the above video’s strong iPhone content, you’ll be able to see how the device works.  Think of it like a wireless thumb drive, using a media server.  Basically, the AirStash creates a wifi access point that you can connect your device to, and stream files from it. And rather than having a predefined flash memory size, it has an SD/SDHC slot supporting up to 32GB.

The beauty of the AirStash is that once you’re connected to it from your device, all you need to do is go to a particular URL in the web browser and you’ll be able to use an HTML5-enchanced web file viewer interface. In it, you can stream and download any files from the SD/SDHC card.

The AirStash is still quite a new product and as such, is only currently available in Canada and the USA. According to the company’s FAQs page, the battery life can last up to 5 hours of video streaming, which isn’t too bad.

There a few catches though. For one, file uploads must be done via the usb adapter (or via a SD/SDHC card reader), though a future firmware is planned to allow file uploading via wifi. In addition, it doesn’t seem as though the wifi access point offers any sort of security, so other people could possibly connect to to access point and view your files.

If that doesn’t bother you, the AirStash is available on their website for $99 USD.

One of the greatest parts of knowing that the Palm Developer Relations team are the ones working on the Facebook app, is hearing their comments on development.

A few days ago, Palm updated Facebook on their beta feed to version 1.1.6. On the Palm Developer Center Blog, the team posted an interesting article on it. Evidently, there were 2 central issues they discovered during development, that could prove useful for third party developers to learn from.

The first issue was that if service requests don’t get assigned to a variable, there’s a chance the javascript garbage collector might scoop it off into oblivion. Kevin Decker has written up a very informative article discussing a solution that is not only effective, but also memory efficient.

The second issue has to do with multi-stage applications and reminds developers that some old habits, like referencing the document directly, or using prototype to get a document’s element, may cause trouble. The team found a few workable alternatives that will hopefully save other developers some time debugging.

The Developer Relations team assist developers with issues on a daily basis. Their work on the Facebook app has been a testament to that. Makes one wonder what the future of the Facebook app may hold.

The big day is here, Palm Pre Overclockers: new custom 720MHz and 800MHz Linux kernels have been released by unixpsycho and caj2008. As you can see from the demo and installation instructions video above by SqyArc, the results have been quite amazing for some users. This new version of overclocking is purportedly faster and potentially safer than previous methods of speeding up webOS – but as always with overclocking it’s caveat emptor. 

After going through a strict, detailed private testing phase (80 tester with 1.3.5.1 release, and then 40 testers with the new 1.4.0 release), unixpsycho and caj2008 have determined that they believe this overclocking method doesn’t result in excess heat. Caj tells us that heat problems actually can happen at any CPU frequency and that one especially hot time is when a Pre downloads massive 3D games after a wipe.

So what’s the downside? Well, it’s a generally accepted fact that overclocking will cut down the life of your device by some amount. There’s no real long term testing, so exact figures are a mystery. There could also be some warranty-voiding action in your future. Overclocking any device also often tends to go hand-in-hand with a reduction in OS stability (though we can’t say if that will be the case here). In addition, battery life has been observed to get a 2-4% hit. If you do decide to go ahead with overclocking of any sort, do it smartly. The homebrew BatteryMonitor app can give a temperature value of the battery, which will allow you to monitor how how you’re letting your Pre get. If your devices gets too hot, let it cool down, or slow down on usage. Though really, that advice goes for non-overclock users too. 

Still here? Then head on into the forums and see the feedback, which ranges from mildly pleased to ecstatic.

Everyone know that webOS 1.4 brought with it many welcomed features and additions.  Unfortunately it also brought with it a few bugs.

When 1.4 arrived, several people took notice that both the PDF View app and the Doc View app now suddenly were missing multi-touch.  Given the recent legal new with App and HTC, some worried it may have been removed intentionally.

Thankfully, Palm Tech Support employee and PreCentral forum member HardBeatZ, popped in to tell us Palm has this tracked as a bug in their system. Furthermore, a few days later, Palm’s own Ben Combee posted in the official Palm forums, saying

I checked on this. The lack of pinch zoom is a bug with some common code in PDF and doc viewer that wasn’t updated for 1.4, and it looks like it’s been fixed for a future release.

Not only was that an unintentional bug, but it sounds as though it’s already been fixed and will be in a future update (presumably webOS 1.4.1). Big ups to Palm for allowing their people to be out there in the community, letting us know we’re not crazy and that fixes are coming.

Palm’s stocks may have fallen, but that doesn’t appear to have shaken Elevation Partners. On the contrary, they’re hold strong and standing with Palm in the belief that Palm’s webOS is the future of mobile computing.

Elevation Partners have a long history of investing with Palm. They currently control roughly 30% of the company and have invested a total $460 million invested in Palm. An Elevation Partners spokesman told Reuters,

"Jon and his team have built the best mobile operating system available today and they are now working through short-term execution challenges with Elevation’s complete support."

The statement might not be overly surprising, but it is definitely a welcome note of support. The statement’s wording of "short-term execution challenges" might seem optimistic, but recall that Elevation and Palm believe that webOS is a ten year strategy.

Good news, developers and prospective developers. Palm has taken another step forward in developer relations and has decided to start a YouTube video podcast series.

The first episode of Palm’s video podcast series was posted yesterday and it doesn’t disappoint. Hosted by the well-known Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer, the presentation reaffirms Palm’s deep commitment to their developer base.

This episode covered the current status of developing on webOS. Ben and Dion delve into why they love the webOS and their decision to join Palm. Listening to them, it’s hard not to like webOS. It’s also clear that they’re beyond passionate on the matter and want prospective developers to be too.

Ben and Dion continued the discussion, talking about the Plugin Development Kit (PDK) and the inclusive environment they want the webOS to be. Looking at the possible official/unofficial coding options, it seems to show a lot of potential there; normal HTML/CSS/JS webOS apps, native C plugin apps, Qt plugin apps and future Adobe AIR/Flash apps.  Palm webOS really does seem to be a "can-do" mobile operating system. Personally, I’m excited to see the fantastic HTML5-PDK hybrid apps coming out once the App Catalog opens up for them.

For a half-hour video, Ben and Dion managed to cover a lot. Everything from Project Appetite and Project Ares (with Project Appetite, we learned the site has a few neat Easter eggs) to app distribution methods and the Hot Apps contest.

It will be very exciting to see where this series goes. From the sounds of it, this could be a very popular, providing both valuable information for developers as well as a great communication tool between Palm and developers, directly from 2 big names in the company. Definitely a sign Palm wants to be involved on a more personal level with developers, welcomed with open arms.

The webOS 1.4 update brought many new and welcomed features. One such feature was the new app loading system. It brought immediate app launch feedback and gave a pleasant splash screen to make it seem as though apps were loading a lot faster.

The splash screen system has been generally quite well received, with only a small number of people not liking it.

Keen-eyed users may have noticed several webOS apps seemed to have customized splash screen.  Apps like the web browser, tasks, and the calculator (as shown in the screenshot to the right) have customized splash screens.

Metaview is one such keen observer. On his blog, he explains how easy it is to add custom splash screens to any app.  In fact, all developers need to do is create a 320x480px PNG background image and a 256x256px PNG icon image then add then to your app’s appinfo.json file like:

"splashicon": "icon-256×256.png",
"splashBackground":"images/splash-screenshot-default.png",

Some might wonder why this neat new option is mysteriously absent from Palm’s appinfo.json breakdown. Well, put simply, that page is a bit out of date. In fact, it still refers to "miniicon", when that was officially changed to "smallicon" a while ago.  It’s very doubtful that using a custom splash screen in your app you cause any app submission guideline issues.

This is a neat bit of customization allowed on Palm’s part. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how creative developers can get in the future with their own splash graphics.

With all of the attention on Windows Phone 7 Series’ lack of true multitasking, we wanted to point out that figuring out multitasking on webOS is still a work in progress.

Being able to do background processing is one thing the webOS is know for. So when 1.4 changed how background processes worked, developers took notice.  Absent from the list of 1.4 changes was an alteration that widely affected applications that work in the background.

Essentially, before 1.4, background applications wouldn’t close unless the developer specified them to. Makes sense, however some reports suggest the built-in javascript garbage collector wouldn’t be called on background applications, causing memory leaks, and potentially leading the "too many cards" error.

Developers were the first to notice this changed with webOS 1.4. Now, after 15 seconds, applications without an active stage are automatically closed. Naturally this caused a bit of frustration; getting an active GPS location alone can take 30+ seconds, so how could a background applications get everything done in 15 seconds?

read more

WebOS Repair Utility hit the big version 2.0.  After several months since v1.9, this update will come as a welcomed release for many, especially as v1.9 only supported webOS 1.3.5.1 Sprint/Bell devices and webOS 1.3.1 European devices.

Here’s the full change log from the WebOS Repair Utility forums thread:

v2.0 – March 15, 2010
– No longer version/carrier restricted
– Grabs stock md5sum list from selected webOSDoctor
– Fixed diff generation
– Added safeguards to prevent/deal with connection errors
– Improved scanning efficiency
– New md5sum reader class
– Dynamic webOSDoctor downloader (like in WebOS Quick Install)

Obviously the biggest improvement, by far, is that it’s no longer carrier/version dependent.  Previously, users would have to wait for  WebOS Repair Utility to be updated for every new device and new webOS OTA update. This was both annoying for users and annoying for the developer, me. With v2.0, this restriction is gone and WebOS Repair Utility will now work with any carrier/version, as long as the webOSDoctor matches that carrier/version.

Better yet, now that md5sums are grabbed from the selected webOSDoctor, if you used MetaDoctor to create a custom webOSDoctor, you can repair your custom webOS build with that same webOSDoctor.

Lastly, the third biggest change was the improved connection handling. Previously, there was the dreaded "Error 5". In short, WebOS Repair Utility will reconnect when such a disconnect is detected. An update long-anticipated, for those who previously experienced this error.

The end result of v2.0 is a much stabler scan, that only took about 10 minutes on my device. WebOS Repair Utility is now available in its PreCentral forums thread, and as always, is free.

The recent update to the Facebook app brought many desired featured a was a huge step forward from before. One thing notably missing was the lack of Facebook Chat.

Sure, it may not be on the usual list of Facebook app features that most platforms seem to follow, but for the webOS, something like Facebook Chat just seems to fit the mold, especially with synergy in the Messaging app.

Up until now, the only way to get Facebook Chat was via the messaging plugin, which may be a bit too much so someone only wanting Facebook Chat.

Well now, Facebook chat can be added with a single small patch! Robvanvliet in the forums discovered the neat little method of getting this to work and I released it in patch form.

Basically, apply the patch the go into the Messaging app. In there, add a new account with the username in the format <username>@chat.facebook.com with your password being your facebook password.  So take note, you’ll need to enable/set a Facebook username on your Facebook account if you haven’t yet.

This patch works by altering the hosts file on your device to make your device think "chat.facebook.com" is "talk.google.com". Thanks to Facebook’s chat service now using jabber (the same that GTalk uses) just adding a GTalk account in the Messaging app gets full Facebook Chat working!  Oh, and don’t worry, regular GTalk accounts will still work fine; there doesn’t seem to be any negative side effects of the patch.

Between the Facebook app and this Facebook Chat patch, webOS certainly has developed into possibly the most full-featured Facebook mobile OS out there!  While I’m not a Facebook fanatic myself, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if this attracts some new webOS users. Good new all ’round.

Tethering has always been a bit of a touchy subject both officially from carriers and even in our forums. The legalities are sketchy for most. Thankfully, for Canadian Pre users, things got a bit easier.

Recently, we’re not sure of the specific date, all of Bell Mobility’s smartphone plans changed. Now, every smartphone data plan has tethering added. For example, the $50 plan now says,

"500 MB of data for personal email, Internet browsing, instant messaging, and tethering"

Pricing goes up from there, with the largest plan at $100 offering a 3GB monthly allotment.  However, as it says, the data amount is shared, so tethering Canadians will need to be aware of bandwith used.

With that in mind, it’s worth reminding fellow Canadians that the homebrew app Netstat is amazing for keeping track of bandwidth used. As for tethering apps, the most convenient one is the paid app MyTether, and lately we’ve been hearing successful stories of Bell users using the free Mobile Hotspot.

Since legality is becoming less of an issue for tethering, it’s not surprising there are rumblings others may be creating competing tethering apps as well.

We all knew paid apps were headed to Europe. That was well announced by Palm and was well received by eager European users. As a Canadian, I was stuck, sitting there, and thinking "but what about me and other Canadians?" After all, Canada was the first international carrier to get the Palm Pre.

Good news! A few hours ago, arthurthornton posted a Palm email in our forums. The email basically described to developers what the international paid app expansion would mean for them. Interestingly, the email did include this brief key new bit of information:

We’d also like to inform you that in addition to the planned European launch, we will be launching e-commerce support in Canada and Mexico.

No date mentioned was, so it could mean that the Canada/Mexico expansion will occur at the same time as the European expansion (expected at the end of March), or possibly at some later unannounced date.

Regardless, it’s good to see progress is being made for Canadian and Mexican users wanting their paid app fix. Hopefully this announcement can help attract more developers with the expanded international user base.

Thanks to Arthur, Keith, and sketch42 for tips!

Palm loyalists out there will undoubtedly remember the name MetaView. Back in the days of PalmOS, he rose to fame with apps like PalmPDF (now named PDFmob), 2PlayMe, and notably Duke3D, a PalmOS Duke Nukem 3D port that won the Zodiac France Contest 2006.

MetaView has been developing for webOS for a while now, with releases like Match This!, MapTool, and ÜberRadio. Now, he’s returning to an old favourite and is bringing Duke3D to webOS.

Posted on his blog, Henk "MetaView" Jonas shares the above video of Duke3D working smoothly on his Pre. According to his post, the controls can be used all in the keyboard or alternatively use the screen as a virtual d-pad and have the rest of the controls in the keyboard (similar to Quake).

Interestingly, MetaView has told PreCentral that:

"The porting was really easy. Just some small source and makefile adjustments and both jfbuild and jfduke did compile and link. Not at all comparable with the old Palm OS where I needed several days just to get it compiled and another couple of days to have it running without crashes."

Seems the boasts of quick app porting to the webOS holds some weight. That certainly raises my spirits for the webOS platform as a whole.

Duke3D is now available for the Palm Pre and Pre Plus in the WebOS-Internals testing feed for those brave enough to try it while it’s still in-testing.

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

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.

Multimedia on webOS has always been a bit of a mixed bag. Some files play fine, others don’t.  Palm has given webOS users all the basic audio and video codecs to get by, but sometimes that’s just not enough.

Currently webOS supports the MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, QCELP, and WAV audio codecs and the MPEG-4, H.263, and H.264video codecs. Nothing more nothing less. However, that certainly leaves something left to be desired by many users.

Zsoc from WebOS-Internals has heard your cries for wider format support. One of the first formats requested was GSM6.10 encoded WAV audio.  Some businesses deliver voicemails via email in this format. And now, that coded request has been fulfilled. The GSM6.10 WAV codec is now available in Preware for your downloading pleasure.

That’s not all. Zsoc has managed to successfully add Ogg as well as Flac codecs onto his device however there are still a few issues that need to be ironed out before he works on figured out how to package it up for end users. In addition, he’s made some headway at adding Xvid support, though there are still a few roadblocks to be faced.

So if you’ve been waiting for GSM6.10 WAV for your device, today’s your lucky day. It may not be official, but it’s still top notch quality.

We already knew that Flash is coming to webOS, but today, during an Adobe conference at Moble World Congress, it was announced that Adobe is bring their Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) to smartphones, including webOS.

Adobe’s AIR lets developers create applications based on web programming languages like HTML and javascript, and naturally with support for Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex.

This move by Adobe is part of their efforts to entice developers over, and really it’s quite smart. Developers will only need to make a single AIR application and that will be deployable on all major smartphone platforms.

Keen readers might remember how back in September we reported on how Flash 10.1 would include support multi-touch and accelerometers. Well, evidently Adobe’s continuing down that route and Gizmodo is reporting multi-touch support is present in the Android port at the very least.

From the sounds of it, AIR will be debuting on the Android and will launch on other platforms, including webOS thereafter.  This is an interesting announcement to say the least. It’ll definitely be fascinating to see how events unravel from here.

[via: Gizmodo]

MyTether, the sometimes controversial webOS tethering app, has been updated to version 2.1.0 and this is definitely an update worth checking out.

Rod Whitby of WebOS Internals worked with the developer to improve the installation process for MyTether, giving advice on how to ensure that it wouldn’t interfere with other functionality of webOS. Version 2.1.0 will now be installable and uninstallable via WebOS Quick Install and Preware.

Better still, with this version of MyTether, there’s no more wifi driver replacement. It now harnesses the Mobile Hotspot Linux daemon present in all webOS devices to get the Mobile Hotspot-like results in MyTether.  As Palm is unlikely to kill their own Mobile Hotspot app, this route will likely, in turn, make MyTether lasting and reliable.

However, there may be dark cloud on the horizon as evidenced by this tweet from MyTether, where the developer writes "Palm, Inc. claims to PayPal that I’m infringing upon their intellectual property.. what IP did I infringe?" We can’t speak to that issue, but we do know that using any third party tethering app is always risky business – your carrier could notice the use and do anything from charging you significantly more on your next bill to shutting your account down for violating their tiny-font terms of service.

If the use-at-your-own-risk caveats don’t scare you, MyTether can be bought from its official website as donationware for a donation of $14.95.