Eric Stewart: Running Off At The Mouth

Well, let’s see … for me the start of all this was the release of webOS 1.2 on Monday (September 28).  This caused quite a stir, as there were apparently issues with Exchange synchronization (mine still worked) as well as other issues … and it failed to fix the iTunes synchronization broken by iTunes 9.0.1.  On the “Homebrew” front, Jason‘s webOS Quick Install, known for it’s ability to easy install “tweaks” (as well as software apps), wasn’t 100% compatible with webOS 1.2, and the update removed all of the tweaks.  This, I must say, put a crimp in my style.  (NOTE: wOSQI can still install apps, and if you have version 2.03 some of the tweaks will work as well, but 2.6 cannot install tweaks, only apps.)

There are quite a few tweaks that I’ve gotten used to.  The big one was “4×4”; the default “Launcher” screen is three icons wide by three and a half icons long.  “4×4” changed it to four wide, four long.  The others are nice to have but not as glaringly obvious until you get to them.

Since my last Palm Pre post, I’ve come across a different homebrew application installer, Preware (which can be installed via recent versions of wOSQI, even if those versions can’t install tweaks).  Preware is an effective replacement for fileCoaster, as it includes all of the homebrew apps from PreCentral, as well as other “application feeds” (any feed that provides the application or Pre modifier in an “ipk” format).  Thankfully, mid-week Preware included a new feed (you had to install said feed through Preware and restart Preware) called “auto patch” that had a good number of the tweaks you could install in webOS 1.2 compatible forms through Preware.  Still waiting for Jason to finish Quick Install, though – he’s hoping by the end of today …

I played with “themes” a bit (which are also easily available through Preware).  I ended up with a “red” theme.  This is mainly a matter of personal preference so you’re on your own.

Oh yeah: webOS 1.2 broke the “donate” version of MyTether but Raja fixed it right quick and all you had to do was rerun the installer.

Rumor has been running for most of the week that we’d see the first round of non-free apps in the App Catalog, but they haven’t arrived yet.  There are two or three apps I’ve seen that I’d be willing to pay a couple of bucks for as long as the functionality increases from what the beta versions had.  Namely, Tweed (a Twitter client) and FriendsFlow (a Facebook app).  There was also a weather app I had come across that was not a “card based” app, but put up a background with the weather information that would update every half hour.  Lots of promise there.

So, after all that, I woke this morning to find that webOS 1.2.1 is here already, and it fixes iTunes synching … for now anyway.  Please remember to uninstall all tweaks and themes before upgrading your webOS!

As I’m going through right this second and installing patches on Preware, here are the ones I’m installing – and I’ll edit this if it turns out there’s a problem with the patch on 1.2.1 (PLEASE NOTE: This is all stuff that’s unsupported and if it kills your Pre, don’t come looking for me, I’m just a user):

• Call Duration in Log
• 4×4 App Launcher 2
• Enables LED Notifications
• Add/Delete Pages in App Launcher
• New Card per Convo
• Confirm Delete Email
• Character Counter
• Virtual Keyboard (DO LAST, it will restart Luna, which will also activate all of the other patches)

There are a couple of them that do “Landscape” views of things such as Email, but I had the “landscape email” patch installed at one point and it broke replying to emails.

Well, I guess that’s it for now.  I’ll put more in here if it occurs to me by the end of the day or if something I put in here needs correction.