Welcome to the last edition of the News Roundup for 2009. Some of you have already rung in the New Year and some will shortly. We’ll take a quick look back at the week and the year. Certainly, the big news for the week was the release of webOS 1.3.5, which we covered previously. Read on for the other stories.
Doom
As we reported recently, the webOS 1.3.5 update included the libraries necessary for accelerated graphics on the Pre and Pixi. The folks at WebOS Internals wasted no time and recompiled Doom for webOS. Doom, which is freely available for non-commercial use, set the stage for the first-person shooter genre. While still in a very rough state right now, you can download Doom through Preware. Be sure to read the instructions here for how to launch the application as they have not yet released the service necessary for it to launch directly from the webOS Launcher. Still, this hints strongly at the direction Palm will be taking to quell the complaints about non-native access for games.
2009 In Review
Palm began 2009 by electrifying crowds with a preview of the Pre and webOS. It’s tough to believe that it was only just over six months ago that the Palm Pre. During that time Palm followed up with another webOS-based smartphone (the Pixi), updated webOS eight times, released nearly as many versions of their SDK and released a beta of their web-based Ares application development platform. Over 900 applications were included in the App Catalog, this from a developer program that’s still in beta. A vibrant homebrew community has stepped up with patches, themes, services and applications, all with Palm’s tacit approval. There were many claims that the Pre (and webOS) would be an iPhone killer. While that clearly hasn’t happen, Palm has definitely changed the rules of the game: An open development platform, an open phone and a smooth, multitasking Web-centric operating system. Even compared with other smartphone operating systems several major revisions ahead webOS shines. We look forward to what 2010 will bring.
Roundup
This week brought more rumors of the Verizon versions of the Pre and Pixi. Check out these PreCentral articles for more. With that, we wish all our readers a joyous and prosperous 2010. May 2010 exceed all your expectations.
