webosTime for a new phone?
I haven't owned my little Veer for too long now (coming up on 6 months) but the honeymoon is starting to wear a bit thin. It's currently running webOS 2.2.3 (as 2.2.4 had a particular problem where every third call or so all sound would be lost and not just my end - the person I was talking to couldn't hear me either) which has proven to be a relatively stable release but it still has its quirks* and it's pretty obvious that this is the end of the road for webOS on smartphones so it'll never see an update. I've been impressed at the speed of the uptake of Open webOS by the Open Source community but the current open sourcing roadmap doesn't see a full release until September this year by which time the phone will be even older and further behind the competition.
The only problem (apart from the fact that I've only owned this phone for half a year so it really is a bit too early to replace it!) is the only thing I've found that I'd like to replace it with is the Nokia N9 which is also a bit of a dead end, although a completely gorgeous dead end, especially in white! And it would be nice to have 64Gb space after the meagre 8Gb that the Veer packs (with only about 5.5Gb free for music etc by the time the OS is installed). One thing I'm going to keep my eye on is the port of Android 4.0 ("Ice Cream Sandwich") to the N9 which seems to be progressing forward at a decent rate as ICS on that phone would be amazing (it already has no buttons on the front so would suit it perfectly). To top it all off I've found a source here in NZ where I can buy a white 64Gb N9 which is pretty much the best looking phone out today in my opinion and I'd be happy using Meego until Android gets ported (but not happy with the lack of apps - I've already suffered that enough with the whole webOS saga), assuming it ever does get completely ported!
Or maybe I'm just a tech magpie and want something shiny and new and should simply wait...
* The most annoying thing is the little magnetic connector for the headphone jack sometimes doesn't register itself as clipped on properly and it can take a few goes to get sound coming out the headphones - I have to do this nearly every time and when I'm listening to music/podcasts on my way to work on my motorbike it can sometimes stop mid ride if the connector gets jostled in my pocket. Other than that it hasn't been to bad, just occasional lag and freezes after it's been running for several days without reboot and since the Skype integration any contacts which I have a Skype ID for too seem to get their names replaced by the Skype name...
Note: I'm completely happy with my TouchPad which recently got updated to 3.0.5 and is running smoothly, it's just webOS on phones which I've lost faith in.
webOS 2.2.4 on the veer
Well I couldn't wait - with AT&T dragging it's feet over the Veer update (and really, after being so badly burned by HP who can blame them?) I've gone ahead and run the manual update procedure to bring my Veer up to 2.2.4 (which the Pre 2 and Pre 3 are also now on). I've been using it like this for about 10 days now and I'm really pleased - it certainly seems a bit more responsive and I haven't come across some of the bugs I used to get on 2.1.2 (like phone crashing, too-many-card errors even when there weren't any other cards open etc). The only problem I've had so far was once when going from my hands free kit in the car to normal speaker all sound stopped and I couldn't hear the other person at all until I rebooted the phone but hopefully I won't encounter that particular bug again :-)
But the main thing is I now have Skype integration! I've used it a few times already and it works really well (no camera obviously as the Veer has no forward facing camera), integrating seamlessly with the phone dialler and the messaging app (all txt's, Google talk and Skype updates appear in the same message thread - really handy!). As well as that I can now send and receive txt messages on my TouchPad (not really too fussed about this tbh but is kinda neat), the camera app starts up much faster and everything seems to scroll around much smoother than before.
It's not all gravy however - the biggest problem is my battery life seems to have taken a bit of a hit since the upgrade (I'm hoping that this is because I'm always signed into Skype which should stop once the novelty wears off a bit, I'll try tomorrow going without being signed in and see if that improves things) and also Bing maps have got even worse (I didn't think that was possible!), being very slow to load and stuttering badly when panning around. I want my Google maps back HP! Seriously, Bing may be awesome in the US but here in NZ it is next to useless...
I know it's been said so much it should be Palm's slogan but *this* is the software version that the Veer should have been released on!
webOS 2.2.4 rolling out to Pre2 owners
Well it looks like owners of the Pre2 are getting an over-the-air update - webOS 2.2.4 is now available! I'm hoping this means that an update to my poor veer can't be far behind! I'm not at all fussed about Touch-to-Share with the TouchPad but would really like Skype on my phone. A member of the Precentral forums has managed to get a system image of 2.2.3 off a Veer that was sold on Ebay and another image of 2.2.4 from a European Veer that escaped the lab and has posted instructions on how to run the update yourself manually.
I've downloaded all the files and saved his instructions in case they get removed but I think I'll wait a bit to see if HP release it officially first - I'm hoping the fact that they're updating the older Pre2 means that the Veer can't be too far behind. If nothing shows up over the next few months I'll take the plunge and update anyway :-)
Here's hoping that HP are still pressing on with development!*
*There is also talk going around of an update to the TouchPad (3.0.5) which I also hope comes true... I'll believe it when I see it!
webOS 2.2.3 coming for the veer?
Well it looks like there is an update for my poor Veer which has been out now for nearly half a year with no new webOS love - the only problem is it hasn't been released yet. Over on the PreCentral forums a user reports that he bought a Veer off ebay from someone who claims to "work for Palm" and it came preloaded with 2.2.3 - he even has a video up to prove it.
Nobody knows how long this update has been ready or why it hasn't been released officially (it could be that HP/Palm have had it ready for a while but AT&T don't want to bother putting it through carrier approval, although that doesn't explain why the European unlocked Veers still don't have it either) but hopefully they release it soon or I imagine that it will likely leak out anyway. I personally hope this comes out sooner rather than later as I've had a few issues with my Veer and I'm hoping that there are a few bug fixes in there. Even better than that, this update finally brings Skype to the Veer which I've been wanting for a while now - I have two siblings living over seas and it'd be great to be able to Skype them from my phone rather than my laptop or TouchPad.
So come on HP - release the damn update already! I know the platform is dying, but lets make the death a little less painless...
webOS 3.0.4 for TouchPad released
HP just pushed out an update to the TouchPad - going from version 3.0.2 to 3.0.4. Wow, what a difference! Seriously, this is a massive improvement in "snappiness" and general smoothness when scrolling through lists, web pages etc.
The webOS Internals team haven't yet released all the patches and updated kernels for this version yet (it normally takes them a few days of testing to make sure everything works) but to be honest I don't feel I need the faster kernel - it honestly feels just as smooth running at 1.2GHz on 3.0.4 as it did running at 1.5GHz on 3.0.2 (and hopefully I might get a smidgin more battery life out of it too at the slower clock speed). There are a couple of patches that I miss but I can happily wait a few days for them now that a bunch of annoying bugs have been squashed in this update (improved browser speed and rendering, small changes to the music player app, much improved app catalog etc) and the best change - I can now connect my phone to the TouchPad via bluetooth and make and receive calls on it, great when I'm already wearing my headphones connected to the TouchPad as I listen to music on it at work :-)
When the updated overclock kernels get released this thing will fly!
I've got a Veer
I've replaced my trusty old Palm Pre with a new HP Veer. I bought it brand new in the box unlocked off ebay and had it shipped here to NZ for a very reasonable price - my guess is it's reasonable due to the fact that HP was selling these little phones for $49 to get rid of stock so some people grabbed a whole bunch and put them up on ebay!
This is the first webOS device that I haven't felt the need to overclock - this tiny phone packs an 800MHz Qualcomm Snapdragon backed up with 512MB RAM and with such a low resolution screen to refresh (the little 2.6 inch screen is only 320x400 pixels) it flies along much faster than my Pre Plus running at 1GHz (overclocked). Apart from the speed though it hasn't all been plain sailing - webOS seems to be particularly buggy on this phone with some random lockups and occasional touchscreen weirdness (usually after it's been running for a few days without a restart) and although I'm hoping HP will push out an update I'm not holding my breath as they said they were going to add touch-to-share to it as an over the air update many months ago and I haven't heard a thing. Even if Palm/HP release the update (which is meant to bring the webOS version in line with the Pre3 which is running 2.2 against the Veer's 2.1.2), something which is looking less likely as each month passes, then they might still have to get carrier approval to release it over the air to the devices and I hear that AT&T is none too pleased with HP right now due to them cancelling the Pre3 without notice mere days before it was meant to be released so are unlikely to devote time testing the update against a product that has been discontinued. So all up I'll be pretty amazed (but very happy!) if the Veer gets an update.
It's not all doom and gloom though, generally the phone runs well and I've been really happy with the battery life which has proven to be better than my girlfriends iPhone 4 (not to mention it looks so damn cute that she says if she didn't already have the iPhone then she'd buy the Veer in an instant!). The keyboard is excellent, much better than my Pre and Pre Plus despite being a little bit smaller (the keys have a really positive, clicky feel to them) and the screen is easy to navigate in spite of it's tiny size.
So why did I buy this and not the Pre3? Well at the time the AT&T Pre3 hadn't been released (actually it still hasn't, not officially anyway!) and so I thought this was my last chance to get the most up-to-date webOS hardware before all the devices vanished, and the few that had made it out into the wild were going for over US$500 on ebay which was a bit rich for a device with pretty much no future. But of course now that I've owned the Veer about a month there are lots of Pre3's on ebay going for around US$200 which is a great price for a powerful, unlocked smartphone, even one with no future. It would be nice to have the latest and greatest, the last ever webO device made.
Now all I have to do is justify buying yet *another* phone to my girlfriend...
Goodbye PowerBook
And I now have a working RDP client too! Command line only at this point but I'm not too fussed - that was the last piece of the puzzle needed to enable me to use my TouchPad as my oncall device! It actually works surprisingly well (with the bluetooth keyboard - if you use the virtual keyboard it doesn't leave you with a whole lot of screenspace!).
Yeah, I still have to carry the bluetooth keyboard around with me but it is pretty small and I've since bought a new messenger bag that is still nice and small but fits both TouchPad and keyboard as well as all my other stuff. Life on the road will hopefully be easier now!
Progress
Well that was quick - I now have a way of using ctrl and esc from the virtual keyboard! Certainly more painful than using the bluetooth keyboard but it's a solution non-the-less! Not only that but someone is working on a native RDP client for the TouchPad too! My woes may soon be gone :-)
Needs More Work...
Having used this tablet for a few weeks now it has become apparent that I can't quite use it as a replacement for my old PowerBook as an oncall device. That's a real pity as it is nice and light (against a laptop) and has really good battery life plus a decent enough screen res to be really useful in this roll.
There are a bunch of things missing that make it not ideal - the biggest of which is the lack of an RDP client (my work uses VDI desktops that we access using RDP). Even if I did have an RDP client however life still isn't perfect - the on screen keyboard lacks a few keys (no arrow keys, no control key, no esc key) which makes it pretty impossible to do any work on the Linux command line (try using the CLI without a control key - it gets pretty unusable pretty quickly!). I can get around that by using the bluetooth keyboard (which still has no esc key but I've since discovered out how to get out of insert mode in VI without it) but then I've now got an extra bit of gear to carry around with me which although being nice and light doesn't fit in the sleave of my small carry pack when the TouchPad is also in there. There are also some annoying quirks with the keyboard (the arrow keys don't work in every app, you can't use ctrl + c, v etc to copy/paste) which hopefully will be addressed by a patch soon, either official or homebrew.
It still is a fabulous video device (now I've installed the open source TouchPlayer which can play pretty much any movie format) and with the help of the command line I can now mount my NAS drive using CIFS so I can stream any movies to the TouchPad while I lie in bed. It is also still a fabulous web browsing device too, flash works really well and most sites render as they would on my laptop. I certainly don't regret buying it, but for now I still carry my laptop around when on call.
NZ Catalog Up and Running
Well what a difference a week makes - I'm now using the New Zealand catalog as it has started filling up with lots of paid apps and the prices are very reasonable against the US one. Nearly two years into my webOS usage (first had a Palm Pre early 2010) and I can finally purchase apps on my own credit card - I've already spent nearly $20 in the week I've owned it :-)
I've now set up the Cisco VPN client so I can connect to work (although without an RDP client all I can really do with it is my timesheeting! My fingers are crossed something gets ported soon...) and all I really miss is a decent shell as the system I have to use now (start xecutah, start an xserver from that, start an xterm) is very cumbersome. There used to be two terminals in the preware feeds but both have now fallen by the wayside and don't work on the TouchPad. There's also the small problem of the missing 'esc' key to deal with too...
P.S. An update on the battery life - now that it's had a few charge/discharge cycles it seems to last between two and four days depending on usage (unless I'm gaming on it which kills the battery nice 'n' quick!)
P.P.S. The screen is an absolute fingerprint magnet - I need to carry the cleaning cloth everywhere with me!