Palm Arena

So you know those taps on your Pre and Pixi? Yeah the ones such as holding your finger on the gesture area while you press the C, V to copy, paste etc? Well Palm has a name for them, they are called “meta-taps” and the company is likening it to Command click on ac or Ctrl, Alt, Del on Windows systems.

We’re not so much interested in it’s name as it’s function, and at the moment, meta-taps is damn awesome. Now there is something that can be said for reinventing the wheel.

VIA: PreCentral

The awesome Slacker Radio app recently made it’s debut on the webOS platform. The addition of this app to the App Catalog brings such awesome features as major hip-hop, r&B and rock stations (as well as Country if you’re wondering). We’re also getting the options to upgrade to the pro version which gives commercial-free listening, the ability to view lyrics, create custom lists and of course choose specific songs.

All that and more is right at your fingertips. If you want the app, hit up the App Catalog and check it out. You will need a Slacker Radio account to use the service, luckily Slacker Radio has a sign-up form in the app to make the process easy.

So you have a Pre, and you have a computer, but your friends have computers and they want to tap into the internet as well. What do you do? You get the Mobile Hotspots app from Palm. The app allows up to five Windows or Mac computers to connect the internet simultaneously and requires no additional hardware.

Of course the app will be subject to a monthly charge imposed by carriers and we’re almost sure there will be that dreaded 5GB data cap. At any rate, it’s nice to see the innovation still alive with Palm.

VIA: Engadget

Guess what folks, the previously announced support of Flash 10.1 on the webOS platform is materializing. Coming February in the form of webOS 1.4, true Flash 10.1 support will be flooding the App Catalog in the form of a beta plugin.

Palm went on to say that the inclusion of video recording on the Pre and Pixi will become official thanks to webOS 1.4 which will also be hitting the Pre and Pixi in February. You will also be able to edit videos directly on the device and upload them to YouTube, MMS, email and of course download them to your computer.

All these goodies will be arriving next month so stay tuned.

VIA: Engadget

Photo Courtesy of Engadget

It has long been known that true 3D gaming would not be possible on the Pre unless Palm allowed access to it’s core processor and memory instead of going through the webOS platform. Yesterday our fantasies were realized when we were given that opportunity.

Thanks to Palm’s new PDK (Plug-in Development Kit), those who would like to bring true 3D games to the Pre and webOS platform can do so. Basically the PDK allows you to build apps that directly access the hardware internals of the device yet plug into the webOS platform so you can use such features as pause, app switch, volume etc. This also means that a full set of API’s will be made available for developers to use.

Palm wasn’t joking and as of now there are about 7 true 3D games available in the App Catalog. They include:

• “Need for Speed(TM) Undercover” (EA Mobile)
• “The Sims(TM) 3″ (EA Mobile)
• “MONOPOLY(TM)” (EA Mobile)
• “Asphalt 5: Elite Racing” (Gameloft)
• “Let’s Golf!” (Gameloft)
• “Glyder 2″ (Glu Mobile)
• “X-Plane” (Laminar Research)

There were other games made available by EA (who is now an official partner of Palm) and others. These include Scrabble, Tetris and others.

VIA: Palm

Photo Courtesy of Engadget

Palm is making some serious plays in courting the hearts and minds of developers and consumers alike. At it’s CES keynote yesterday, the company announced that it would be adding ways in which apps were delivered to the masses.

Starting today, Palm will allow third party websites to have access to the App Catalog. Basically this means that sites like Palm Arena (us), PreCentral, Engadget etc. would be able to display actual apps from the App Catalog and users could download them straight from their browser to their phone. This would be great for sites that are themed for specific categories as they could offer quick access to certain categories such as games, productivity apps etc.

Palm also announced that it would be rewarding it’s most popular developers. The developers who had the top paid and free app would be getting $100,000. Another 40 developers will get $10,000 and still 40 more will get $1,000 each. The program extends through May 31st bringing the total prize money given away to a cool $1 million.

Who said Palm wasn’t being nice?

VIA: Enadget & PreCentral

Looks like the handwriting is on the wall concerning the exclusivity of the Pre and Pixi. We just got documents from Verizon confirming the Pre and Pixi Plus are heading to Big Red, and now AT&T is also confirming that they will be receiving two webOS devices to run on their network in the first half of 2010.

So far that’s all we know but seeing that the Pre is already being sold in GSM garb elsewhere, we’d bet our lives that the Pre is one of them as well as the Pixi.

We’ll be at the Palm CES keynote later today so we hope to pull some more info about this then. Stay tuned.

VIA: PreCentral

webOS update 1.3.5.1

Remember that nasty calendar bug that was plaguing webOS 1.3.5 users? Well Sprint and Palm have both acknowledged it and have shipped out webOS 1.3.5.1 as an OTA download.

This release fixes an issue in which the Calendar app displayed no events for any account after a user synchronized Calendar with an Exchange account. With this update, Calendar events now appear correctly after an Exchange sync.

The download file is very small (a mere 1MB) so it should only take a couple seconds to a minute the most to download. So go ahead and download it and tell us if it fixes your Exchange and Calendar issues.

VIA: Palm.com

Lost Palm Pre Theme

Seeing that webOS themes are getting more and more popular, we decided to put together a list of our top favorite webOS themes. Be aware that all themes require a certain amount of hacking in order to work. But it is easy and even those with little or none technological experience can do it. So without further ado here are the top ten favorite webOS themes. Read more…

We’re in a new year and we’re already hearing news that Europe will be getting the likes of paid apps coming this March. According to Palm’s developer blog, paid apps will bring developers “leverage,” “freedom,” “choice,” “control,” and “speed,” as well as something about “faster cycle times.” Interesting terms wouldn’t you agree?

That said, you can imagine that there will be much talk of this later this week at CES. We’ll have the info in a few.