Palm WebOS 1.4

Posted March 2, 2010, 8:07 p.m.

Of course, mere days after posting my in-depth review of the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm WebOS operating system, the much-anticipated WebOS 1.4 update came out. The updated operating system was released on Saturday, February 27 to Sprint customers, and Sunday, February 28 to Verizon customers like Melissa and me.

Palm’s update mechanism is dummy-proof: the phone downloads the update and installs it on its own while it’s charging (usually overnight, I’d assume). From what I’ve been reading, this is spread out over time to prevent Palm’s servers from getting overloaded. If you’re a nerd like me who can’t bear waiting for the OS to do its own thing, you can also manually initiate the update whenever you like. I did it Sunday morning, as soon as I read online that the update was available. I have no idea how long it would have taken for the phone to find out on its own.

The update probably took a half hour or so to download (over WiFi) and install. Download times likely would have been quite a bit longer over the data network, even on 3G. After completing the download the phone reset itself and installed the update (with a classy, no-frills, round progress indicator). Without any hiccups, everything was ready to go

The biggest new feature Palm brings out with WebOS 1.4 is video recording. Palm took their time bringing this feature to the platform, but they did a good job with it. It records in the MP4 format and allows for limited editing and direct sharing via YouTube, Facebook, email, and MMS. Beyond this major feature addition, WebOS 1.4 mostly offers increased polish and incremental improvement. The LED in the gesture area will now blink to indicate you have a waiting notification. When you launch an application, a ‘placeholder’ card shows up immediately which lets you know it’s doing something (and lets you preemptively close the app. if you opened it in error).

Performance seems to be slightly improved and ‘snappier,’ and battery life seems to be improved. I seem to be getting about 20 percent better battery life so far, which is pretty significant. All-in-all, a solid improvement. Thanks, Palm! :-)

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

Limited government is a key tenet of classic liberalism—the liberalism of people like Madison and Tocqueville—although today it is regarded as a conservative ideal.

In truth, mankind cannot be saved from without, by schoolmasters or any other sort of masters: it can only be lamed and enslaved by them.

Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish.

The totalitarian system doesn’t have to be overcome so much as one must somehow survive until it destroys itself.

Telling a woman that abortion is the ’empowering’ response to a crisis pregnancy is really telling her that she is not strong enough to handle motherhood. What a terrible and unrealistic way to view women.

I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.

But, as a fact, men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies . . . that had been public liberties hardly twenty years before.

Okay, so I lost The Tonight Show, but I’ll show them . . . I’ll stop shaving.

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus [and] the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out.

Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day.

When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.

Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business; and it gives in the long run a net result of zero.

Any civilization that denies free will is, generally, a civilization that is already disgusted with the choices of its freedom, because it has brought unhappiness upon itself.

Justice makes the wrongdoer see the injustice in the violation of a law; mercy makes him see it in the sufferings and misery he caused those who love him deeply.

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.

The British parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people. That it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.

If we did not have the freedom to say no to God, we could not truly love Him.

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.