The UK Mobile Phone Blog

WebOS 1.4 finally drops - Palm Pre officially gets video capture!

For Palm Pre owners, the past few weeks have been rife with rumours surrounding the WebOS 1.4 software update. With Palm themselves confirming that the update would be with us before February was out, forums were littered with rumoured roll-out dates that came and went with out so much of a peep from Palm. And so, when Friday the 26th came around, the last working day of February, with out any update, things were starting to look grim for Pre owners. But, like a phoenix from the flames, Palm rescued the situation and began rolling out the update on Friday evening here in the UK bringing joy to Pre owners across the globe and some much needed good PR in the wake of recent financial struggles.

The main update WebOS 1.4 brings is of course, the ability to record video. Video capture is added to the camera along with the ability to trim clips, ala’ the iPhone, share via MMS or email or upload to YouTube straight from the phone. The phone also improves the way new applications (or cards as Palm likes to call them) are launched. Previously a slight delay would be followed by a blank card on screen where as now we get an on-screen card with the logo of the app we’re opening and a small loading icon. Once the app has fully loaded it fills the screen meaning you never have to worry whether you’ve correctly selected to open an app. Amongst a host of other tweaks and enhancements, overall performance and battery life is also promised to improve. Click here for the full run down of what the update entails.

Not bad, but what about Flash support in the web browser? Cast your minds back to CES, where Palm first debuted WebOS 1.4, and you may remember that Adobe Flash support was also planned for the Palm Pre. Well, Palm were true to their word in that WebOS 1.4 does now support the Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta plugin, but you will have to wait for Adobe to release the standalone app in the App Catalog before you can start enjoying embedded video content and flash games on the move. Adobe have yet to release an expected launch date for the Flash Beta app so keep your eyes on the Blog and we’ll let you know as soon as we find out more.

Finally, the update also brought with it one extra treat for European Pre owners, who up until now have been some what neglected compared to the US who have been enjoying paid apps and 3D games in the app catalog for several months now. Need For Speed Underground, Monopoly and The Sims 3 have all popped up in the app catalog, ready to be downloaded. Free. That’s right, whilst our friends across the pond have to pay rather steep $9.99 for the afore mentioned games, we can enjoy the full titles absolutely free. We’re not sure whether it’s Palm or the games developers EA we need to thank for this act of kindness but regardless, there’ll be a few very happy Pre owners firing up their phones this morning.