CC Photo by {eclaire}
It seems like it was only last week that we did our weekly news roundup. Time sure does fly! Since we were last here, the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus launched on Verizon. We’ll cover that then we’ll talk about the latest news from WebOS Internals, which will be of special interest to those of you who patch or want to patch your webOS devices. Next, we’ll talk about some of the new 3-D games to hit the App Catalog. Finally, we’ll wrap it up, as we always do, with the Roundup.
Verizon Joins the Party
On Monday, Verizon began selling the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus smartphones. So far, Verizon has had little to say about the new phones. However, according to a tweet, we should be seeing print and TV ads soon. It may be that their agreement with Motorola kept them from promoting the Palm phones at launch time. Hopefully Verizon will wow us all soon with some high-quality ads that feature the best aspects of webOS.
webOS Internals Adds Auto-Update Patch Technology
A recent announcement from Eric Gaudet revealed that patches installed using Preware will no longer require removal before a webOS update. What this means is that those of you who’ve been a little leery of trying out patches for fear that it might interfere with phone updates will now be able to rest easy. The bottom line is, if you update your patches to the latest version, or, if you install patches now, you will be covered when webOS 1.4 comes out:
Auto-Update Patch Technology is a major upgrade to the existing patching technology found in all homebrew patches in the webos-patches feed. AUPT is a smarter version of the existing scripts that can better detect when files are already modified by a patch and/or already removed. This will help to allow patches to be installed/removed even after faulty installs, partial or full erases, webos doctors and even OTA updates to new WebOS versions!
Look for a post about how to take advantage of webOS patches soon!
3D Games Aplenty
Developers haven’t been idle since Palm announced the Plugin Development Kit at CES (see our Palm at CES coverage for more information). Some recent titles added to the App Catalog (at least here in the States) include Assassin’s Creed – Altaïr’s Chronicles, Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes, Giant Fighting Robots and X-Plane Carrier. There are others as well, including a free demo version of Asphalt 5. Hit up the app catalog and check them out. Gameloft, makers of several of the games, has a video preview (embedded below). You can also see videos of Assassin’s Creed or Brothers in Arms (iPhone version).
One thing to keep in mind while playing these games is that they take up a lot of RAM so you may need to reboot your phone to play, unless you happen to be sporting the Plus phones.
Roundup
Our friends out Pre Central have a little article about what to expect in webOS 1.4. The voting for the 2009 Engadget awards is underway. Unsurprisingly, several Palm products appear on the list of best gadgets of 2009. Feel free to head over there and vote for your favorite Palm devices (they appear in several categories so be sure to scroll down). Have something else you’ve discovered? Drop us a comment or send us a tweet.
